MACHINEFABRIEK レコード& CD

Review: Experimental electronica veterans Banabila and Machinefabriek are hugely prolific producers in their own right, so it's quite surprising that they still find time to regularly collaborate. Macrocosms is the duo's fourth full-length collaboration, and presents an impressive set of tracks that touches on many of their shared musical inspirations. So, while there are nods to atmospheric drone ("Pray"), and clandestine, sample-heavy ambient (the curious but rather fine "Oxide"), they also touch on tribal drum rhythms (the brilliant "Awake"), dubbed-out electronica ("Echo Chamber"), woozy, sun kissed neo-classical positivity ("Macrocosm", with its thought provoking spoken word vocal), and feverish, global grooves (the sticky darkness of "Stokjes").

Review: "Kruimeldief: Machinefabriek Remixed", by Machinefabriek, is limited 500 copies worldwide! Don't sleep on it.

Review: "Weleer" on Lampse is two full CDs of audio which play like a 'proper' album, rather than a simple, haphazard collections of tracks - yet this still contain enough audio insanity to confirm the rumour that Machinefabriek is a true musical enigma. It strikes us as quite horrifying how a man can actually produce this volume of music while keeping such an obvious level of quality control, but somehow he does it - there's not a dull moment over the 22 varied tracks on "Weleer".

Review: A new release from the prolific Rutger Zuydervelt (aka Machinefabriek), a man who manages somehow to create and release so much music of an inhumanly high standard. Released on the Root Strata imprint, "Slaapzucht" (Sleep desire) takes two of Zuydervelt's finest releases (Slaap and Zucht) and welds them together, adding a totally exclusive twenty minute piece as a further bonus. "Slaapzucht" sees the Dutchman in drone mode, with six gorgeous pieces made with a guitar, tuning fork, file, electric toothbrush, a little iron rod, cavernous reverb and a whole lot more! Really, we can't recommend this album and this artist enough, Machinefabriek is truly out there on his own. Simply sublime.

Review: The debut album from Machinefabriek, whose critically acclaimed 3" EPs have caused a stir worldwide, getting attention from experimental imprint Staalplaat already, who are to release a Mort Aux Vaches album later this year, and Type Records for whom Machinefabriek will release a seven inch. Fusing treated piano with post rock influenced guitar pieces and epic works of decomposing droning feedback, this is a record for fans of William Basinski, Fennesz, Mogwai, Earth and Sunn O))). Machinefabriek is the eagerly awaited debut full-length from Dutch musician Rutger Zuydervelt. It comes in a timely fashion after a handful of gorgeous hand-made CDR releases have filtered through the cracks on a regular basis over the last few months, the last two releases 'Manchester' and 'Chinese (Un)Popular Song' being the most acclaimed in the series yet! 'Marijn' marks not only Zuydervelt's first album proper, but also a shift in thought, as he draws a line under the experimentation of his previous work to come up with a thoughtful collection of tracks, written together for the purpose of being played in one sitting. The album begins with crackly slowly decomposing cassette-taped piano, in a similar vein to William Basinski's seminal 'Melancholia' album, yet this is much noisier and more processed - if William Basinski had a cache of effects pedals, this might be what he'd sound like. Quickly following this we have 'Somerset'; a gorgeous piece of menacing but oddly soothing reverberated guitar, reminiscent of the best bits of Earth's wonderful 'Hex' album last year, yet also coming across like Mogwai, back when they used to have true lo-fi attitude or Fennesz with real heart. Throughout the rest of the album, Zuydervelt toys with more extended piano pieces and fuses them with droning feedback maybe best compared to Sunn O))) jamming with Ryuchi Sakamoto! The final piece on the album 'Lawine' is the best example of this; an epic 20 minute work, beginning with a simple piano jam but ending in a cascade of noise that would shake the nerves of even Wolf Eyes. 'Marijn' is a true step forward for the genre and an easy contender for the album of the year. Immense.

Review: Rutger Zuydervelt, a man better known to the experimental music world as Machinefabriek, is somewhat prolific. Along with American multi-instrumentalist Aaron Martin, they have come up with a project which is far more than the sum of its parts. Zuydervelt took cello improvisations from Aaron Martin and built them into the slow-burning post-ambient monster that is "Cello Recycling".