Nevel (20:30)

digital EP/stream/3" CDr, July 2026

Available here, and on streaming platforms

Dedicated to Bob Rusche.

This piece was initially shared with friends and supporters via postcards with download codes. One of those cards was addressed to Bob Rusche. It was already in the pile to be mailed that day in June, when I saw the heartbreaking news of his passing on Instagram. I could hardly believe it.

Bob was incredibly kind and endlessly supportive of me and many others in the experimental music scene. You'd see him at concerts, and he'd regularly play tracks on his radio show, X-Rated. Until 2008, he was an impeccable advocate for all things weird and dark at Boudisque, the Amsterdam record store where he worked.

Though no longer with us, Bob's legacy will live on as a source of inspiration for many.

Reviews

Cyclic Defrost

‘Nevel’ was initially shared with friends and followers together with a postcard, and during that time Zuydervelt found out about the passing of a dear member of the local experimental music scene. Dedicated to Bob Rusche, and mastered by Jos Smolders, the 20 minute single saw the light as a limited run of 3″ CDr, and digital (name-your-price) at the end of July.
It’s been on our rotation since then, and it keeps offering new layers to explore on every listen. Strings that seem to be wind-sculpted wander around a motif that glows with an intermittent resonance. These beating signals mark the tone and set the pace. There are intervals well defined at first, and blurred afterwards, with a recurrent pulsating bass that grows, connected to the overall structure of the song, moving together in synchrony.
The plangent composition floats and orbits slowly all around. Its depth and abundance of unfolding sonic details leaves a trail of wonder, makes you take a deep breath, and it becomes a smooth axe against the glass of short attention span. There’s something particularly attractive about this type of bass treatment, as if the repetitive nature and softened edges suddenly become organic. Is this how we think of a stretched-down heartbeat? Can you stretch time with music? The drifting aftermath of such a levitation is also there, fading until it becomes an echo.

Subjectivisten

Rutger is na vele releases onder zijn eigen naam weer eens terug met Machinefabriek. Met zijn nieuwe mini Nevel sluit hij weer aan op hoe het ooit begon: een 3” album, zoals vaker vergezeld van iets en ditmaal een ansichtkaart. Het is opgedragen aan Bob, die ook Machinefabriek en Rutgers overige muziek wist te waarderen. De muziek van Machinefabriek kan je overigens eigenlijk niet onder één noemer scharen, want het gaat van ambient, veldopnames en IDM tot post-rock, experimentele muziek, neoklassiek en noise of combinaties ervan. Op dit nieuwe schijfje brengt hij een uiterst ingetogen track van ruim 20 minuten, die het midden houdt tussen ambient en neoklassiek. Het heeft wel wat weg van een requiem, zoals wijlen Jóhann Jóhannsson dat ook zo mooi kon maken. Verstilde pracht ter bezinning en om even stil te staan bij alles wat ons lief is;  ook al is dat het niet altijd helder. Zorg dat je deze ondanks de titel niet mist!