Machinefabriek - Roes (self release, 2005)

1 Untitled 1:32
2 Untitled 2:14
3 Untitled 3:09
4 Untitled 2:26
5 Untitled 2:25
6 Untitled 1:24
7 Untitled 0:55
8 Untitled 6:28
9 Untitled 0:18

'Roes' is best translated as 'intoxication', but it's not clear wether this describes the state this music was recorded in. Probably it does. This is already the sixth release by Dutch Machinefabriek, and not live this time, so no noise here. That is to say, only partly. In the nine pieces here, which are to be heard as one piece (non-intoxicated by this reviewer), noise plays a small role, but is much more manipulated and worked out in the form of a sound collage. Through some of the muffled hiss and distortion, we hear the far away play on a piano and some electronics. Everything sounds like well-processed by computer means, and Machienfabriek places itself along the lines of a noisy version of Richard Chartier or Roel Meelkop, but with much shorter tracks but not to dissimilar dramatic built ups and changes. So far the best release to come out of this machine factory.
Vital Weekly

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Machinefabriek - Live at [F]luister

Machinefabriek live at [F]luister from Renier Eclectro on Vimeo.

thanks to Eric to point out this gem

Machinefabriek, Soccer Committee & Wouter van Veldhoven - Zeeg (Digitalis, 2007)

1 Zeeg (37:07)

Mariska Baars à la guitare, Wouter van Veldhoven au tape recorder et Rutger Zuydervelt aux drones pour un morceau épique....

Although Rutger Zuydervelt, a Dutchman better known to the world of crunchy electronic experimentation as Machinefabriek, really doesn't need much of an introduction, you might need a little info about his two gifted colleagues. Mariska Baars is a singer and guitarist who performs under the unusual moniker soccer Committee and treated us to the incredible 'sC' album earlier this year, while Wouter Van Veldhoven is a veritable master of the reel-to-reel tape machine with an album promised on Type Records in the new year - both have worked with Zuydervelt countless times before. Now the astute among you will have noticed that Miss Baars collaborated with Zuydervelt on the crucial 'Clay' 3" cd, but where that collaboration saw a distinct Machinefabriek manifesto including just a snatch of her ethereal vocals, 'Zeeg' is a fully fledged ensemble piece giving each member the focus they need to shine. A glorious forty-minute epic of a track, we begin with Baars' subtle fingerpicking which is slowly accompanied by the tape recorded clanks and taps of Wouter Van Veldhoven's buzzing reel-to-reel and a selection of growing ebow drones from Zuydervelt. As usual with anything bearing a connection to the Machinefabriek constellation, there is a dynamic and command of space that's just breathtaking, and for the first half of the record the chiming bells, plucked guitar and light drones could have tiptoed from the bowels of any more recent 12k release. The charming simplicity doesn't last too long, however, as it melts into gut-churning bass drones and a dense brick-wall of hissing, reverberating sound. All this is slowly piped through the tape machine again and again before the calmer elements start to wade through the fog and calm is restored. Shockingly, the disc was recorded live in the comfort of Wouter Van Veldhoven's home, but from the measured preciseness of the recording and the complete sonic narrative it seems like a carefully sequenced studio arrangement rather than something mixed on the hoof in a live environment. What I think might come as a surprise to Machinefabriek followers among you is how different this album is from most of his output, it's a separate, unique work and shows both an evolution of sound for the artists involved and for the excellent Digitalis label. Cracking work all round and housed in a gorgeous textured card digipak it's just simply an essential purchase. Highly Recommended.
Boomkat

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Machinefabriek, Leo Fabriek, Wouter van Veldhoven & Mariska Baars - Live Edits (Digitalis, 2008)

A Machinefabriek, Leo Fabriek, Wouter van Veldhoven & Mariska Baars 08•03•08 (15:21)
B Machinefabriek, Leo Fabriek & Wouter van Veldhoven 29•03•08 (12:56)

Cette cassette rassemble deux sessions différentes réalisées en mars 2008, de beaux drones utilisant une multitude d'instruments (harmonium, piano, guitare, voix, taperecorders, etc) mais qui restent simples, le tout dominé par les notes du piano...

An all-star line-up of dutch artists convene to make this very special, infuriatingly limited cassette for Digitalis. Rutger Zuydervelt, Wouter Van Veldhoven, Mariska Baars and Leo Fabriek are the players in question, between them representing Machinefabriek, Soccer Committee and Julie Mittens. The cassette draws together two distinct live sessions recorded separately in March 2008, each edited into side-spanning drone pieces assembled from guitar, harmonium, tape machines and voices. The end result is predictably epic in scope, sounding like some distant orchestra tuning up across the vast, droning A-side, while once flipped over the cassette reveals a more overtly detailed, more conventionally musical persona, with hazy remnants of piano melody taking form, establishing a corroded melodic sensibility augmented by fractious electronic elements. Despite the abundance of contributors there's never any real sense of clutter, and the outcome of these edited sessions is a music that sounds supremely patient and somehow unassuming in its minimalist tactics, yet listen carefully and you'll hear a body of work whose clarity and sophistication goes far beyond the usual parameters of the conventionally murky world of cassette music.
Boomkat

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Machinefabriek - Ruis (self release, 2005)

1 Ruis (17:07)

Drone enregistré en live et tout en crescendo...

Rutger Zuydervelt shows us how to use the medium of CDR: 'Ruis' was recorded on june 27th and on july 4th, the promo of the released disc lands on this desk, and as usual with a nice cover. 'Ruis' was recorded live (I guess while reading the notes on the cover: a conversation between Rutger and someone who heard it) and is another leap forward. His previous concerts were noisy from second number one until the proceedings were over, but on 'Ruis' he builds things up in a carefully, starting in sheer inaudibility and then over the course of seventeen minutes things built up into a mighty crescendo. Way to go, I'd say.
Vital Weekly

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Machinefabriek - Tapes of the Day (self release, 2008)

1 Jerusalem, 18 December 2007 (23:08)
2 Tel Aviv, 19 December 2007 (23:39)

En décembre 2007 Machinefabriek a réalisé deux performances en Israël, la base du matériel était des field recordings enregistrés durant son séjour dont il a fait des collages...

Rutger Zuydervelt performed two shows in Israel in December 2007. Instead of his usual instruments (guitar, effectpedals, etc.) he only took a recording walkman and a microphone with him to capture the Israel-Adventure in sound. He used twelve 10 minute cassettes per day to record interesting environments in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. In the evening those cassettes were the source of a collage he made using a couple of walkmans and a mixing desk. No effects were added. This CD contains the (slightly edited) recordings of both live performances.

Track 1 was performed at Hazira.
Tape 01 Jerusalem Central Bus Station at Jaffa Road, 10:50
Tape 02 Construction builders and traffic in Mani Street, 11:35
Tape 03 School Children at Sacher Gardens, 11:50
Tape 04 Ethiopeans demonstrating at the Supreme Court, 12:05
Tape 05 Coffee bar at Bezalel Street, 12:45
Tape 06 Park near Chile Street, 13:15
Tape 07 Construction builders in a house in Old Jerusalem, 14:45
Tape 08 Walking past souvenir shops in Old Jerusalem, 15:05
Tape 09 Walking in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 16:00
Tape 10 Setting up at Hazira, dj playing 'Planet Rock', 17:50
Tape 11 Dogs barking at Dids Street parking, 19:00
Tape 12 Applause for John Butcher & Eddy Prévost at Hazira, 22:00

Track 2 was performed at Levontin 7.
Tape 01 Breakfast at the Cinema Hotel, 9:20
Tape 02 Taking the elevator, walking around Dizenhof Square, 10:10
Tape 03 Recording the sea at the beach of Tel Aviv, 10:50
Tape 04 Recording the sea at the beach of Tel Aviv, 11:05
Tape 05 Tourist jewelery shop at Mazal Arie, Old Jaffa, 12:10
Tape 06 Old Jaffa's flee market, 12:50
Tape 07 Lunch at a little restaurant at Oley Tsiyon Street, 13:05
Tape 08 Wood workshops in Abrabanel Street, 12:40
Tape 09 Street musicians and traddic at the Dizengof Centre, 15:50
Tape 10 Cab ride from Cinema Hotel to Levontin 7, 17:20
Tape 11 Backstage at Levontin 7, 17:40
Tape 12 Introduction for my performance by Ilan Volkov, 21:45
Discogs

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Machinefabriek - IJspret (self release, 2009)

1 IJspret 1 (2:26)
2 IJspret 2 (1:03)
3 IJspret 3 (1:54)
4 IJspret 4 (1:18)

Quatre berceuses pour l'hiver combinant field recordings de glace et guitare acoustique...

Rutger Zuydervelt turns his ear towards that most fertile of creative themes for the microsound artist: winter. Ijspret was inspired by the timbral properties of ice, and features contact microphone recordings of all manner of frosty textures and interactions with the frozen ground, from the noise made by ice skaters to the strange commotion of the defrosting process. To a certain degree, Ijspret follows in the footsteps of sound artist Collin Olan's glorious Rec01 (which captured a stereo pair of contact mics frozen in blocks of ice that subsequently very slowly and noisily melted) or the John Hudak & Stephan Mathieu album Pieces Of Winter, which featured a buried contact mic being gradually frozen over during snowfall. There are countless instances in which contemporary artists have fetishised the beautiful nano-crackle of the winter, and the all too brief Ijspret is the latest in that long line, although this isn't one for purists; entangled in here you'll encounter the sound of human voices and sparsely plucked acoustic guitar passages, all of which aptly compliments the quiet and brittle sonorities of the cold.
Boomkat

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Soccer Committee & Machinefabriek - Clay (self release, 2007)

01 Clay (20:00)

Collaboration entre Rutger Zuyderveldt (Machinefabriek) et Mariska Baars (Soccer Committee) à la voix...

Has it really been over a month since the last Machinefabriek release? Where's the guy been? We've all become addicted - it's like heavy narcotics, you can't start limiting the flow at this crucial Point! But then this extra special 3" release has been seriously worth the wait. The first big difference between this and Rutger's previous releases is the absolutely gorgeous hand-made packaging - a far cry from the usual tidy plastic packs we've become so accustomed to, 'Clay' comes in a lovely brown stock sleeve, hand painted in the most sublime fashion... it also happens to be a collaboration with the wonderful soccer Committee (aka Mariska Baars) who we all fell hopelessly in love with last week on the release of her debut album 'sC'. Phew... a pretty important meeting of minds then, but Rutger Zuydervelt couldn't rest easy co-producing a piece of abstract pop, rather he takes Baars' voice as the backbone and starting point for the twenty-minute piece and proceeds to morph it into a haze of slow-burning ambience, building from almost nothing into a shimmering fuzz of breathy, vocal noise until hitting near silence again for the glacial conclusion. So maybe this is more obviously linked to Machinefabriek stylistically than Miss Baars' measured output, but knowing its her voice underpinning everything you are hearing gives the track a humanity and a soul that's all too often lacking from experimental music. This is the sound of life slowed down to a crawl, like one of those three dimensional freeze-frames that allows you to absorb your surroundings with intimate detail and awareness. "Clay" is another deeply impressive chapter in Machinefabriek's acclaimed catalogue, he is quickly developing into one of the most interesting and engrossing artists we have had the pleasure of stocking here at Boomkat and you can't help but get the feeling that these releases are going to be regarded a bit like early material from collectable painters and artists who go on to achieve much wider public acceptance. Once again, you already know the deal with these - we have 70 copies only and they ain't gonna last so hurry to secure yourselves a copy. Essential purchase!
Boomkat

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Machinefabriek - Zink (Cut Hands, 2007)

01 Zink (15:34)

Drone de guitare lentement bâti, issu d'une performance live au Club Babel à Utrecht en 2006 puis retravaillé à la maison...

Based on a live performance at Club Babel in Utrecht, The Netherlands, December 30 2006 with guitar, mixing deck and effectpedals. Edited and processed at home in January 2007.

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Machinefabriek - Kruimeldief (Machinefabriek Remixed) (self release, 2007)

1-1 Stofstuk (5:30)
Remixed By
1-2 Stofstuk (Freiband Remix) (4:15)
Remix - Freiband
1-3 Stofstuk (Peter Broderick Remix) (3:22)
Remix - Peter Broderick
1-4 Stofstuk (Jgrzinich Remix) (4:38)
Remix - Jgrzinich
1-5 Stofstuk (Kim Cascone Remix) (4:32)
Remix - Kim Cascone
1-6 Stofstuk (Greg Haines Remix) (9:23)
Remix - Greg Haines
1-7 Stofstuk (Xela Remix) (5:42)
Remix - Xela
1-8 Stofstuk (Mark Templeton Remix) (3:48)
Remix - Mark Templeton
1-9 Stofstuk (Jefre Cantu-Ledesma Remix) (6:02)
Remix - Jefre Cantu-Ledesma
1-10 Stofstuk (Mitchell Akiyama Remix) (4:48)
Remix - Mitchell Akiyama
1-11 Stofstuk (Aaron Martin Remix) (4:40)
Remix - Aaron Martin (2)
1-12 Stofstuk (Strangelet Remix) (3:17)
Remix - Strangelet
1-13 Stofstuk (Alva Noto Remix) (10:52)
Remix - Alva Noto
1-14 Stofstuk (Luigi Archetti Remix) (4:36)
Remix - Luigi Archetti

2-1 Stofstuk (Lesser Remix) (6:02)
Remix - Lesser
2-2 Stofstuk (Jeroen Vandesande Remix) (6:30)
Remix - Jeroen Vandesande
2-3 Stofstuk (Tim Coster Remix) (2:22)
Remix - Tim Coster
2-4 Stofstuk (Pita Remix) (8:33)
Remix - Pita
2-5 Stofstuk (Svarte Greiner Remix) (5:37)
Remix - Svarte Greiner
2-6 Stofstuk (The No Remix) (5:16)
Remix - No, The
2-7 Stofstuk (Adam Pacione Remix) (6:10)
Remix - Adam Pacione
2-8 Stofstuk (Henrik Rylander Remix) (6:40)
Remix - Henrik Rylander
2-9 Stofstuk (Chris Herbert Remix) (6:52)
Remix - Chris Herbert (2)
2-10 Stofstuk (Julien Neto Remix) (5:24)
Remix - Julien Neto
2-11 Stofstuk (Lukas Simonis Remix) (5:27)
Remix - Lukas Simonis
2-12 Stofstuk (Gert-Jan Prins Remix) (3:28)
Remix - Gert-Jan Prins
2-13 Stofstuk (Steinbrüchel Remix) (8:53)
Remix - Steinbrüchel

Série de remixes du morceau Stofstuk de Machinefabriek, composé à l'origine uniquement d'un bol chantant et d'un laptop, décliné sur 150 minutes....

Double cd featuring specially comissioned remixes from the likes of Alva Noto, Julien Neto, Kim Cascone, Xela, Pita, Svarte Greiner, Mitchell Akiyama, Greg Haines, Chris Hebert, Mark Templeton and many many more. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES FOR THE WORLD!* Fresh from the busiest hard drive in electronic music, here comes yet another new release from Rutger Zuydervelt, only this time it's a remix collection featuring 26 reinterpretations by the many friends and admirers of the peerlessly prolific Dutchman. The piece in question, 'Stofstuk' was composed by Zuydervelt just a few months ago, which goes to show how quickly the turnaround has been on this ambitious project. Fittingly, 'Stofstuk' opens up the album, setting the high benchmark for the remixes to come - incorporating some of the most distinctive elements of the Machinefabriek sound arsenal, including the customary oceanic static and muffled, semi-industrial drone. As tends to be the case with Zuydervelt's work there's something inherently uplifting about the composition; beneath the epidermis of gently shifting tones and surface crackle there's a rich detail and warmth underpinning everything. Influential sound designer Kim Cascone adds some further droning depth to the original and brings whispered vocals to the mix, making for a beautifully spooky piece of music. Greg Haines, meanwhile, twists and mangles his gorgeous Cello strings all over the original, adding an epic sense of cinematic melancholy to the track over a spending nine minutes. Following on from there Xela brings the noise, stringing together a montage of voices, blurred recordings and ancient-sounding hum. Other highlights on the first disc come from Machinefabriek collaborator Aaron Martin, who contributes a wonderful concrète-enhanced reworking, plus an Alva Noto epic in a similar vein to his recent Xerrox album - just incredibly beautiful stuff. Onto the second disc and a stellar turn from Lesser gets proceedings underway, while Pita fries a few sound chips for his reinterpretation and Kranky's Chris Herbert brings his track to a low frequency, highly textured simmer. Deaf Center's Erik Skodvin fashions a remarkable piece of work out of his turn as Svarte Greiner - taking in field recordings and even a hint of faded, distant strings emerging from the rich miasma he brews up. The set closes with a microsound flourish thanks to the high frequency intricacies of Gert-Jan Prins and the reliably magnificent Steinbruchel, who concocts the most harmonious and subtle of sound banks for his superb epilogue. Pretty much an unmissable package for anyone interested in experimental electronics - beautiful packaging and a one-off limited pressing making this a real collectors item you should snap up without delay. ESSENTIAL PURCHASE!
Boomkat

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Machinefabriek - Mort Aux Vaches (Mort aux Vaches, 2008)

1 Bathyale #1 (10:02)
2 Bathyale #2 (9:10)
3 Bathyale #3 (15:50)

Enregistrement réalisé au festival de Dwars en 2006, organisé par la station de radio VPRO. Cet album est constitué de trois longs morceaux où Rutger Zuyderveldt utilise guitare et laptop...

There are times when the word 'ambient,' when applied to music, is woefully insufficient to encompass the kind of music that Zuydervelt creates from nothing more than a guitar and computer. There are times when the guitar parts are separable from the computerised, but at others it is hardly to be recognised as a stringed instrument at all, such are the shimmering and liquid qualities that Zuydervelt coaxes from it. Track one, “Bathyale 1,” grasps like a distant series of memories, whose shapes are only dimly to be discerned and details obscured; just occasionally something sharp stabs through with startling effect. The first minute or so is complete silence, shattered by the astringent explosion of a sharply plucked string. Plangently gentle hums float languidly and lazily wrap themselves around stretches of quiet, plucked guitar and harmonics bursting serenely in small sonic blooms. Drones hover just out of reach, just like those sought for memories that remain resolutely elusive and resist the most determined of searching fingers. Inevitably, images and sounds dissolve in the finale, atomising into mist, compounding frustration and memory.

That elusive character continues with “Bathyale 2,” surging and retreating, with a string figure repeating over and over like a thought that refuses to resolve itself into anything concrete. Against this is set scratching and howling, whispering and emergent droning, small, partially formed hints and images that keep suggesting possibilities that never quite form complete pictures. These snatches appear more fully formed, but the detail is still somewhat fuzzy and dream-like. The images gently fade back into the dreamscape from whence they emerged, indistinct shades once more, as delicate and insubstantial as dew-bedecked spider’s webs on a fall morning, glistening in crisp sunlight. Touch it and it breaks apart.

The third instalment, “Bathyale 3,” resolves into something with mass and solidity as it rumbles into existence from the far distance, coalescing into view in its own slow time. Given the preceding flighty tracks, it may seem slightly misplaced. Slow, weightily symphonic, and sedimentary movements swirl and accrete, the drone layers building over long cycles, piling on each other, constructing gargantuan edifices that defy gravity. I once remember seeing a painting, by the surrealist René Magritte, of a castle sitting atop a colossal chunk of rock floating in a cloudy blue sky, hovering insensibly above the sea. In the same way that the Belgian artist’s painting depicts the juxtaposition of two polar opposites, setting the world at odds with itself, so does this third track. “Bathyale 3” simultaneously possesses a cyclopean weightiness and a feathery lightness, the friction between the two qualities creating a sound-painting of hypnogogic power. It is this power which gives it its place here, this weighty insubstantiality. More to the point, Zuydervelt has an assured touch with the material, so that both qualities are present, each in their own measure, to create that marvellous effect.

Machinefabriek’s world is dream-like: a place where colors run and bleed and outlines are fuzzy and blurred. The music is fluid and sometimes lacks a definite shape, and has something of the alien about it. Yet, having said that, there is still something vaguely comforting and familiar to me about it after all, like those elusive memories alluded to earlier. The images evoked tumble in and out of focus, appearing briefly and flowing swiftly, just long enough for them to remind me of something but too fleeting for me to register completely. The music possesses a willow o’ the wisp evasiveness, enticing one to chase after it but never allowing one to come near it. In that sense, it’s alluringly beautiful music, beckoning saucily but at the last moment running away. If I listen carefully, I might just be able to make out faint rills of laughter.

Brainwashed

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Machinefabriek - Stukjes (self release, 2008)

1 Stukje 1 (0:48)
2 Stukje 2 (2:03)
3 Stukje 3 (1:29)
4 Stukje 4 (0:56)
5 Stukje 5 (0:57)
6 Stukje 6 (0:47)
7 Stukje 7 (1:56)
8 Stukje 8 (1:36)
9 Stukje 9 (1:42)
10 Stukje 10 (1:15)
11 Stukje 11 (0:55)
12 Stukje 12 (1:30)
13 Stukje 13 (1:10)
14 Stukje 14 (1:10)
15 Stukje 15 (1:12)
16 Stukje 16 (1:47)

Bien si mes comptes sont bons Machinefabriek aura réalisé 21 disques cette année, record de l'année précédente enfoncé, mais il reste encore deux jours.... Excellent travail, comme d'habitude....

Given his unprecedented work rate, you might find it difficult to believe that this will be the final Machinefabriek release of 2008, but Stukjes seems like a reasonable place to let the year end for Rutger Zuydervelt - he'd certainly be rounding things off with a high. It's been another busy, prolific twelve months for the diligent Dutchman, and Stukjes is as fine a short-form release as he's come up with, taking the shape of a sixteen track collection of sketches and enigmatic miniatures, drawing on processed location sounds, instrumental dissections and drawn out electronic tones. There's an eerie emptiness to much of this music, and the proliferation of wispy, high register drones and deep, low frequency resonance gives the music a peculiar ambiguity. At times all this sounds like sound design for a film, a meeting of low-down soundtrack music and detailed acousmatic foley work. Occasionally the stillness is broken however, and you might hear the odd glaringly loud guitar recording towards (complete with waspish fret buzz) and even some noisy, sliced up shortwave sound towards the end, but the magic of Stukjes resides in those wonderfully understated dialogues between digital sound and abstract field recording. Excellent, as usual.
Boomkat

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Machinefabriek - Marijn (Lampse, 2006)

1 Kreukeltape (4:41)
2 Somerset (4:52)
3 Wolkenkrabber (10:18)
4 Schipbreuk (2:46)
5 J'espere Ca (8:26)
6 Lawine (18:26)

Premier long format du musicien hollandais Machinefabriek (de son vrai nom Rutger Zuydervelt), Marijn est le genre de disque s’inscrivant dans la lignée d’un courant musical qui tend à se répandre et que l’on pourrait qualifier d’ambient obscure à tendance expérimentale ; auquel des artistes comme Deaf Center, William Basinski ou Gultskra Artikler ont récemment et largement contribué.

Il s’agit là d’une musique parcourue de drones flottants, de souffles légers, de feux crépitant dans la pénombre et de textures en voie de désintégration, occasionnellement titillées par quelques nuisances sonores.

Si cette formule peut se suffire à elle-même, constituant alors un tissu sonore hypnotique et abstrait à souhait, elle se voit souvent enrichie d’éléments mélodiques : un piano décomposé mis en boucle (Kreukeltape), s’écoulant telle une cascade sous réverbération intensive (Wolkenkrabber), lascif et lointain (l’épique et éprouvant Lawine qui termine englouti par un typhon supersonique), une guitare dialoguant avec un glockenspiel sur un Somerset sporadiquement soumis à de brèves secousses "Fennesziennes".Mystérieux et obscur, Marijn est un disque immersif sur lequel plane une part de menace.

Sébastien Radiguet, Onde Fixe

Following on from the truly delectable 3" releases that have been drifting through the office over the past few months, the time has finally come for a full length Machinefabriek album - with Rutger Zuydervel drawing on a slew of influences for debut LP 'Marijn'. Woven together from filigrees of diffused sound, the music contained within 'Marijn' is like a slow-burning candle - shedding little light on it's source, but nonetheless creating an ambience and glow that can't help but draw you in. Similar in structure to the less oppressive end of drone, 'Marijn' opens through the crumbly textures of 'Kreukeltape' - wherein a thrum of crackling elements gently accrue light and shade through the introduction of muted piano, distant rhythms and fuzzy processing. Juxtaposing the austere with the inclusive, 'Kreukeltape' is the perfect entrance to Machinefabriek's world, with the musique-concrete elements lapping against a more soundscape-orientated angle that is dark but not claustrophobic. From here, the next stop is 'Somerset' and a masterclass in unobtrusive micro-electronic compositions, as the spindly production is used to buttress the freewheeling atmospherics and distant radio signals on top, whilst 'Wolkenkrabber' massages found-sound detritus into a tape-fed compote of intense beauty. With the sonic squall of 'J'espere CA' and throaty dissonance pf 'Schipbreuk' both equally beguiling, Zuydervel closes the album with the eighteen minute climax of 'Lawine' - a cascading build-up of aural peaks that represents a tsunami of sound which never threatens to belligerently overwhelm the listener.
Boomkat

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Aaron Martin & Machinefabriek - Cello Recycling (self release, 2007)

1 Machinefabriek - Cello Recycling (11:54)
2 Aaron Martin - Piece 3 (2:01)
3 Aaron Martin - Piece 5 (3:47)
4 Aaron Martin - Piece 6 (1:49)

Les morceaux de violoncelles d'Aaron Martin ont été utilisés par Machinefabriek lors de l'ouverture de la galerie Lokaal 01 à Breda pour en faire un drone dense et profond....

Machinefabriek. Man. This guy doesn't know how to stop being overproductive and high quality at the same time. All these lovely 3" cd-r's are worth every single penny and this little ditty is no exception. If you ever wondered what grey autumns in Holland feel like, just listen to Machinefabriek. Drones with a lot of thought and personality, aural fingerprints, stuff that makes time float.

Cello Recycling contains 3 pieces. All recordings made by cellist Aaron Martin, the first track being remixed by Machinefabriek. Eleven minutes of ghostly cello sounds, building up slowly and with huge respect for doomed silence. Like listening to an earthquake rumbling 200 hundred miles away with your ear to the soil. Towards the middle, the floaty flat drone gets punctured by exilirating low end fuzzquakes before drifting into the dense fog of haunted cello sounds again. There's always great dynamics going on in Machinefabriek's music so once you think you've had the best part there's always new developments around the corner. It really feels like a morning stroll through a foggy unknown.

Tracks 2 to 4 are short examples of Aaron Martin's original works. This way you get a slight idea about Machinefabriek's jolted mind. It's these tracks that make you realise how immaculate this dude works his craft and really, just a peek inside a gloomy mindstate. One with a love for melancholy and maybe even the haunted pasts of whatever interesting people he's met over the years.

I know all this praise might seem suspect coming from me as I just released a Machinefabriek chapter on my own label but if there's ever gonna be a bad Machinefabriek, I'd be seriously thrilled to slag it off. No joke. Up until now, pfft, you just can't knock dude's hustle.

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Dag Rosenqvist & Rutger Zuydervelt - Vintermusik (self release, 2006)

Dag Rosenqvist et Rutger Zuydervelt, deux noms qui peuvent intriguer. Il s’agit là des vrais noms d’artistes plus connus respectivement sous les noms de projets Jasper TX et MachineFabriek, tout deux ayant sortis des albums sur Lampse et tout deux ayant déjà fait l’objet d’articles sur ces pages. Pas de label derrière cet album, il s’agit juste d’un CD-R de plus dans l’immense discographie de MachineFabriek, limité à 200 exemplaires.

Présenté comme la bande son de l’hiver passé avec six pièces composées autour de cette thématique, ce sera pour nous l’occasion de rafraîchir notre été (si le besoin se faisait sentir). Histoire de se mettre dans le bain, l’album débute avec une pièce de 13 minutes de pure ambient. Mais dans le genre, on fait guère mieux !! Notes répétitives hypnotiques, lente montée du volume, sonorités qui se décomposent et fusionnent tout en gardant leur identité propre, impression de fourmillement, mouvements denses, impression d’être immergé dans le son. Des field recordings doivent être de la partie, apportant micro-bruitages, grésillements, frétillements. On n’est pas très loin du meilleur de Biosphere, si ce n’est mieux.
Difficile d’attribuer telle composante à tel ou tel artiste, Rosenqvist et Zuydervelt oeuvrant à peu près dans le même registre, à savoir les guitares traitées au profit de musiques ambient. Justement, les guitares on les trouve très présentes, mais noyées, sur Gräs Som Bryts Och Går Av : accords réguliers, répétitifs, grosse réverb, cela fonctionne mais reste anodin. On préférera ce son proche de la harpe, les chuintements rythmiques, l’abondance de bruitages, et la profondeur des basses de Blåsa Rök ou la violence des textures granuleuses et la gravité des drones de Ljus I November même si le long passage au piano et voix d’enfants lui fait perdre de sa force. Comme il a commencé, l’album se termine avec une pièce de près de 13mn d’ambient polaire à base de drones de guitare, quelque peu réchauffés par des choeurs variés flirtant avec les chants traditionnels scandinaves.

Le tout prend place dans un joli packaging, carton plié en deux rangé dans une pochette plastique. Bel objet, sublime musique.

Fabrice Allard
Etherreal, le 25/07/2007

To close the week I’m bringing in a couple of guys from a territory that knows a lot about winter. Dag Rosenqvist and Rutger Zuydervelt are both veterans of the worldwide ambient scene, Rosenqvist being the guy behind Jasper TX and Zuydervelt of Machinefabriek. Together, they’ve created an album whose glacial tones are reflected in its stark, self-explanatory name: Vintermusik. The most impressive thing about this collaboration, to me, is the sonic depth it possesses. The duo’s songs have a habit of building achingly slowly until they reach a rumbling stasis, forever on the edge of overflowing the cups of your headphones. Haphazard guitar strumming drifts up out of the depths of the white noise, its faint signal growing stronger at an infinitesimal rate. This is, essentially, the sound of watching ice form.

Vintermusik is a limited release of only 200 copies, so if you like the sample below, you’d better get on it with the quickness. Previously you could get your CD lovingly hand-mailed by Mr. Rosenqvist, but unfortunately those sold out.

Girlpants

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Machinefabriek - Stottermuziek (self release, 2006)

1 Fluister (4:16)
2 Donderwolk (3:18)
3 Onweer (3:54)
4 Maris (3:22)
5 Wintervacht (7:25)

Voyage crépusculaire dans le rêve sonore des drones de Machinefabriek. La musique dérive, se met en place morceau après morceau, pour se conclure par Wintervacht, drone évoquant les vagues noires des nuages hivernaux...

Super limited, self released ep from one of our favorite proponents of what we've decided to call fuzzy dreamdrone soft noise. Well, actually, we only decided to call it that just now, but it does describe the sound of Machinefabriek perfectly, as well as his Lampse labelmates Jasper TX and Gultskra Artikler, all of whom traffic in similar droney drift...
On Stottermuziek, Machinefabriek explores similar territory as on his AQ record of the week Marjin from back in May. A dark dreamlike journey through a swirling soundworld of minimal whir and hum, shimmer and sparkle. Super soft shuffling swells of barely there sound, bits of hiss and whirring white noise surfacing here and there, strings woven into soft smears of sound, crumbling slightly distorted melodies drifting to and fro like some alien sonic tide, buzzing steel strings over a muted distant percussive throb, all delicately arranged into a gorgeous soft focus sonic landscape.

Aquarius Records

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Machinefabriek - Xylophonique (self release, 2004)

1		Goal (0:28)
2		Aubergine (2:17)
3		Lau (1:38)
4		Fuck J-E (2:00)
5		Slaap (2:59)
6		Autre Part (4:57)
7		Pontje (0:42)
8		Vladka (1:30)
9		Paketti (1:12)
10		Xylophonique (2:14)

If you know that Fabriek means 'factory' and machine, well means
machine, you could easily think that Machinefabriek is your up the
wall noise outfit. Feedback over machine like rhythms recorded at the
nearest conveyor belt. That is not the case. I can and will describe
what Machinefabriek sound like, but other than that's one Rutger
Zuydervelt I don't know anything about Machinefabriek. Maybe the two
releases reflect a kind of audio diary. 'Xylophonique' is dated
September 2004 and 'Voor De Prullenbak' (meaning 'for the trashcan')
is from October 2004.
On the cover of 'Xylophonique', there is some sort of diary thing
about Rutger staying in a friend's house and playing around with a
xylophone, an effectpedal and a bass guitar. And what is not stated
on the cover: his laptop. The xylophone, either in it's natural
sounding form or transformed plays all sorts of little melodies, with
the bass adding it's notes when necessary and the polite
transformations on the computer add an intimate and cosy atmosphere.
I am reminded of Sack & Blumm, the Tomlab catalogue or the recent
releases by Plop. Intimate music, sweet and delightful.
No such story on 'Voor De Prullenbak', which seems to be less
centered around any theme or instrument at all. Here the computer
manipulations of whatever instruments and sounds are taken a step
further, resulting in a less focussed work, with vague ambient
notions and playfull thoughts, rather than well-worked out ideas.

Staalplaat

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