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Machinefabriek, "Mort aux Vaches"
Eschewing any species of frills or frippery, the simple card and paper-fastener packaging encasing this latest entry from Machinefabriek in Staalplaat's Mort Aux Vaches series resolutely reflects the aesthetic of Dutch musician Rutger Zuydervelt. Although sparse is the operative word here, Zuydervelt's lean compositions and quiet tiny sounds, carefully sculpted around deep spaces, are nevertheless harmonically and richly complex, ranging from fragile gossamer tones to deeply sweeping friezes. Moreover, the music is warmly inviting and enticing, indeed inviting and enticing one to explore a strange and slightly surreal world.
There are times when the word 'ambient,' when applied to music, is woefully insufficient to encompass the kind of music that Zuydervelt creates from nothing more than a guitar and computer. There are times when the guitar parts are separable from the computerised, but at others it is hardly to be recognised as a stringed instrument at all, such are the shimmering and liquid qualities that Zuydervelt coaxes from it. Track one, “Bathyale 1,” grasps like a distant series of memories, whose shapes are only dimly to be discerned and details obscured; just occasionally something sharp stabs through with startling effect. The first minute or so is complete silence, shattered by the astringent explosion of a sharply plucked string. Plangently gentle hums float languidly and lazily wrap themselves around stretches of quiet, plucked guitar and harmonics bursting serenely in small sonic blooms. Drones hover just out of reach, just like those sought for memories that remain resolutely elusive and resist the most determined of searching fingers. Inevitably, images and sounds dissolve in the finale, atomising into mist, compounding frustration and memory.
That elusive character continues with “Bathyale 2,” surging and retreating, with a string figure repeating over and over like a thought that refuses to resolve itself into anything concrete. Against this is set scratching and howling, whispering and emergent droning, small, partially formed hints and images that keep suggesting possibilities that never quite form complete pictures. These snatches appear more fully formed, but the detail is still somewhat fuzzy and dream-like. The images gently fade back into the dreamscape from whence they emerged, indistinct shades once more, as delicate and insubstantial as dew-bedecked spider’s webs on a fall morning, glistening in crisp sunlight. Touch it and it breaks apart.
The third instalment, “Bathyale 3,” resolves into something with mass and solidity as it rumbles into existence from the far distance, coalescing into view in its own slow time. Given the preceding flighty tracks, it may seem slightly misplaced. Slow, weightily symphonic, and sedimentary movements swirl and accrete, the drone layers building over long cycles, piling on each other, constructing gargantuan edifices that defy gravity. I once remember seeing a painting, by the surrealist René Magritte, of a castle sitting atop a colossal chunk of rock floating in a cloudy blue sky, hovering insensibly above the sea. In the same way that the Belgian artist’s painting depicts the juxtaposition of two polar opposites, setting the world at odds with itself, so does this third track. “Bathyale 3” simultaneously possesses a cyclopean weightiness and a feathery lightness, the friction between the two qualities creating a sound-painting of hypnogogic power. It is this power which gives it its place here, this weighty insubstantiality. More to the point, Zuydervelt has an assured touch with the material, so that both qualities are present, each in their own measure, to create that marvellous effect.
Machinefabriek’s world is dream-like: a place where colors run and bleed and outlines are fuzzy and blurred. The music is fluid and sometimes lacks a definite shape, and has something of the alien about it. Yet, having said that, there is still something vaguely comforting and familiar to me about it after all, like those elusive memories alluded to earlier. The images evoked tumble in and out of focus, appearing briefly and flowing swiftly, just long enough for them to remind me of something but too fleeting for me to register completely. The music possesses a willow o’ the wisp evasiveness, enticing one to chase after it but never allowing one to come near it. In that sense, it’s alluringly beautiful music, beckoning saucily but at the last moment running away. If I listen carefully, I might just be able to make out faint rills of laughter.
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