1. Loos (27:20)

cd/download, self released, January 2015

Live performance, recorded 11 December 2014 at Studio Loos, The Hague.

Performing at Studio Loos is always a treat. The organisers are wonderful, their soundsystem is top notch and there's always a big crowd that's open minded and quiet as mice. What a difference with my concerts in Russia, a few months earlier! In Moscow and St-Petersburg, it felt like I was battling the chatter of the audience, causing the gigs to be loud and crude. The energy of the room clearly reverberated in what blasted out of the speaker system. With the same setup, but with an (in comparison) almost holy atmosphere, the performance at Studio Loos was much more concentrated, leaving space for very quiet parts subtle gestures. I always had the idea that I wanted my music to be as minimal as possible, without loosing excitement and power. In that regard (and forgive me for my complacency) this performace was one of my best.

The audio on the cd is a mix of the sound coming from my mixer and a recording in the room.

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Note: this recording is very dynamic, with very soft and ultra-low parts. Play-back on a good soundsystem or decent headphones is recommended.

Reviews

Vital Weekly

At the same Machinefabriek released 'Loos', which is a twenty-seven minute live recording from a place in The Hague, called Studio Loos on December 11th 2014. In the old days Machinefabriek would have probably edited this into a 3"CDR, but these days is confident enough to release it on a real CD in a nice, austere cover. This is one for the more dedicated fans, I'd say, of which Machinefabriek has plenty. Here he works with his usual sine waves, contact microphones, sound effects and such like and creates a fine musique concrete meets microsound composition. There are various bits of acoustic noise abuse in here, which work really well. They act as loud counterpoints to the lengthy soft, sustaining drone fields. This too shows 'another' Machinefabriek (although we should not forget that in his very early days, Machinefabriek dabbled in many different kinds of music before finding firm ground in what he does best), a stronger, more forceful balance between loud, acoustic sounds and more introspective sounds, almost in equal amounts now. So, perhaps, not just for the die-hard fans either, but for everyone?