3-inch cdr, November 2008
A new collaboration with Leo Fabriek (with whom I recorded the Fabriek+Fabriek cd) and Anne Bakker (who played violin on the Koploop 3-inch). One day of recording and some editing led to this 19 minute, dynamic, moodshifting piece. This little fella comes in a 11 x 11 cm sleeve with full colour insert.
SOLD OUT
But available as download, right here
reviews
Vital Weekly
On August 25th 2008 Anne Bakker (violin), Leo Fabriek (piano) and Rutger Zuydervelt (also known as Machinefabriek on guitar, effects, editing) recorded some improvised music as the Kruisherenklooster in Leiden, which were processed last month. It starts out in a melancholic mood, like some of the recent Machinefabriek releases, but after a while, the improvised elements take over, and things get a bit more wild, however never to be really loud or noise based. The piano, guitar and violin get a lot more processing it seems, until the three decide to move into a more mellow landscape. The total piece moves in between these parameters, from the strict melancholiac to the somewhat more adventurous side of things. A very delicate small release, just as we are used to from Machinefabriek these days. Alone or with friends, he produces a lot of music, and the majority of it is great.
Boomkat
Rutger Zuydervelt has prior experience of collaborating with both Anne Bakker and Leo Fabriek, but this new 3" CD is their first recorded output as a trio. Bakker is a classically trained violinist, while Leo Fabriek is a pianist of some note, leaving Zuydervelt to tinker with his electronics, effects and guitar, eventually restructuring, editing and mixing these improvisations with added field recordings supplied by Rob Strachan. The end result of all this is surely one of the most unequivocally beautiful and approachable Machinefabriek releases of recent times - possibly ever. Zuydervelt doesn't intrude too heavily upon the instrumental source material, leaving the violin and piano seemingly untouched and untampered with for much of the piece, only adding a little light processing here and there. The electronic presence is certainly sufficient to add an extra dimension to the music, bringing a lightness and effervescence that might otherwise be absent from the mix, stitching passages of frothy, crackling sounds in amongst the languid bow strokes and ornamental piano figures. Utterly accessible and hugely enjoyable material from these three, venturing away from the stricture and convention of the microsound genre, and instead moving into an approachable modern classical setting that's suggestive of a fantasy collaboration between Harold Budd and Nils Okland. There's an awful lot of ground covered within these twenty minutes, and it'll take several repeat listens before you're fully acquainted with the composition's various twists and turns - surely the mark of something great. Highly recommended.
