CHRIS DOOKS & MACHINEFABRIEK
The Eskdalemuir Harmonium
KOM1NO004
Komino Records 2012
04 Tracks. 34mins57secs

Chris Dooks is, amongst other things, something of a documentarist whose sound work has often been centred around collecting snippets of films and documentaries which he recontextualises through processing. Following a couple of electronic releases as Bovine Life over ten years ago, he published a record built entirely from sound excepts from films and documentaries sourced from the Northern Region Film And Television Archive, documenting a hundred years of culture in the North of England. The same preservation purpose serves this collaborative effort with Rotterdam-based sound artist Machinefabriek (Rutger Zuydervelt). Based on recordings of a crumbling old American harmonium which Dooks found in a farmhouse near Lockerbie in Scotland, the album is articulated around four textural pieces which incorporate melodic components as well as mechanical and environmental noises. The second piece, Betamax And Dictaphones, also features excerpts from the vinyl pressing of a radio documentary. Continue Reading »

MACHINEFABRIEK
Sol Sketches
Machinefabriek 2011
21 Tracks. 53mins34secs

Boomkat: CD | Norman Records CD

Two years ago, Machinefabriek’s Rutger Zuydervelt was contacted by filmmaker Chris Teerink to score a documentary he was planning on American artist Sol LeWitt, requesting that the music be an integrant part of the film concept, on a par with the images. While the documentary is still a work in progress, Zuydervelt began researching LeWitt’s work and found his output so inspiring that, within a matter of days, he had come up with hours of recordings before any image had even been shot. After editing this wealth of material into forty or so compositions, he selected twenty-one to be released as a stand-alone project. These are only sketches for the soundtrack, hence the title, and are not expected to appear in Teerink’s documentary in these forms, yet they are significant enough in the Machinefabriek canon to be granted a release. Continue Reading »

GARETH DAVIS & MACHINEFABRIEK
Grower
SONICPIECES10
Sonic Pieces 2011
02 Tracks. 33mins05secs

MACHINEFABRIEK
Apollo
Machinefabriek 2011
01 Track. 21mins34secs

Grower
Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: DLD iTunes: DLD
Apollo
Boomkat: DLD

Grower is the fourth collaborative release between British clarinetist Gareth Davis and Dutch experimental sound artist Rutger Zuydervelt as his Machinefabriek alter ego. Following last year’s Drape, which appeared on Home Normal, and culled from the same sessions, Grower is told in two parts or roughly equal length. Here, Zuydervelt uses guitars as main sound sources for the sombre introspective atmospherics he creates for Davis. There is an element of solemnity in his drone structures which echoes Davis’s contribution beautifully. The rich deep tones of the clarinet appear almost as a smoother, warmer reflection of the much colder and metallic guitar textures. These two pieces open in similar fashion, each slowly growing from a single, deep, note upon which Davis progressively places delicate motifs. Continue Reading »

MACHINEFABRIEK/KLEEFSTRA-BAKKER-KLEEFSTRA/LIONDIALER
That It Stays Winter Forever
WHITEBOX009JPN
White Box Recordings 2010
03 Tracks. 59mins32secs

MACHINEFABRIEK
Rural Route No. 6
SFRR006
Standard Form 2010
01 Track. 16mins57secs

Released to coincide with a series of common live dates in Tokyo, White Box Recordings have collected three exclusive tracks from Machinefabriek, Kleefstra/Bakker/Kleefstra and Liondialer, each around twenty minutes long, onto a very limited CD album (300 copies). That It Stays Winter Forever may be hinting at a cold and desolate time of the year, and each of the three compositions presented here could be interpreted as bleak and deeply introspective, yet there is a current of warmth circulating through the whole record, made more potent by the use of exquisite textures and sounds. Continue Reading »

MACHINEFABRIEK
Duotoon
MF012
Machinefabriek 2010
01 Tracks. 19mins19secs

Boomkat: CD | DLD Norman Records: CD

Machinefabriek’s Rutger Zuydervelt must be the single most prolific musicians active currently. That one man can produce such a considerable amount of original music for solo projects and collaboration, either published on labels as diverse as 12K, Lampse, Low Point, Fang Bomb or Type to name but a few, or self-released, as well as countless remixes, is totally beyond belief. His latest offering comes in the shape of Duotoon, a very limited release featuring just one nineteen-minute piece. Continue Reading »

Twelve months compiled into just twenty albums. From the thousands of records released each year, it is difficult to get even a handful on the site, and even more difficult to decide which ones were the best of the lot. This is however the twenty albums that have marked 2009 for themilkfactory.

Continue Reading »

PETER BRODERICK & MACHINEFABRIEK
Blank Grey Canvas Sky
FB012
Fang Bomb 2009
06 Tracks. 42mins23secs

Amazon UK: DLD Amazon US: CD | DLD Boomkat: CD | LP | DLD iTunes: DLD

Grey Canvas Sky is the second time that Rotterdam-based sound artist Rutger Zuydervelt and Peter Broderick, who shares his time between Portland, OR, Coppenhagen and Berlin, have worked on a release, but while the first, Huis, was a record by Machinefabriek on which Broderick was lending a hand, this new collection was conceived as a combined project from the off. And, despite their respective sonic universes being somewhat different, Broderick occupying the classical and folk end of the musical landscape while Zuydervelt’s is usually found crafting cinematic drone, processed guitars and electronics, the resulting collaborative effort is a totally effortless and immersive piece of contemporary music. Continue Reading »

MACHINEFABRIEK
Dauw
DEKORDER029
Dekorder 2008
05 Tracks. 47mins06secs

As an audio collagist, structure is Rutger Zuydervelt’s particular forte, and in this respect Dauw is one of his strongest works to date.  Zuydervelt’s evinces noticeable compositional control over how he arranges and uses a small, considered palette of sounds.

An orderly canon structure builds soberly then breaks apart beautifully in Singel, the twenty-five minute closing track.  Zuydervelt has clearly matured in his ability to recontextualize traditional instruments with small scufflings, rich washes of surface noise and other infinitesimal sounds. Continue Reading »

AARON MARTIN & MACHINEFABRIEK
Cello Recycling/Cello Drowning
TYPE029
Type Recordings 2007
02 Tracks. 21mins. 54secs

Cello Recycling incarcerates the listener in Netherland’s Rutger Zuydervelt and American multi-instrumentalist Aaron Martin’s penchant for staccato, pointillist constructions, layered together into quaking masses that positively purr with energy. The opening twelve minute composition unfolds like a rolling cloud of harmonics shot through with querulous whines and whimpers. In an almost obsessive manner, it constantly grates against itself, picking at its own scabs, trying to break free of its moorings, to lose its depth of field, and float in a space free of resistance. Continue Reading »