Machinefabriek Duotoon

Before I even considered collecting my thoughts together on this new release from Rutger Zuyderveldt aka Machinefabriek, I felt it necessary to reacquaint my self with my favourite pieces from his back catalogue. For those in the know will no doubt be aware of how vast his back catalogue is; mostly made up of now out of print self releases or hard to find albums on obscure labels…

Rutger has tread a lot of paths in his work and it’s easy to see why fans lap up each limited release one after another. It could be said that maybe the fans get more enjoyment from knowing that they are owning something limited rather than because they enjoy the music perhaps, but that’s neither here nor there. A lot of Rutgers music could be seen as “non-music” or “academic music”, occupying similar territory as such experimenters as John Cage, Phil Niblock and La Monte Young. I guess the difference is that Rutger has taken what those artists experimented with and is trying to make something more musical with it, perhaps.

It is, at least in my humble opinion that Rutger is at his best when he is at his most musical and least experimental. “Onweer” for example, featuring on the compilation “Weleer” which collects together several self releases, is a great piece of drone music where a simple chord progression is repeated, swaying in and out and subtly changing in tone as the piece goes on. It’s warm and uplifting and shows a complete understanding of what makes drone music so appealing. The piece sounds like it is progressing naturally with very minor changes and its simple swaying chord progression is addictive and trance like.

Another example of Rutger at his finest is the track “Dauw” from the album of the same name. This is an exercise in minimalism and tension. A lot of the time this piece is near silence, with notes vaguely resonating in the spaces between each tiny fragment of sound. It’s a masterfully executed piece that ends with a harrowing ghostly choir-like drone. Both these pieces are very melodic and as such perhaps that is why they are more enjoyable than those that are very un-melodic.

This latest release from Rutger is based upon sound waves generated by and then manipulated in Soundedit. It begins with pretty much the same sound from those television test cards, a mid range tone that seems to stretch out for infinity. After about 1 minute of this, things start to happen. The “shape” of the sound changes slightly, giving an almost phasing effect at first. Shortly after another tone is introduced at a lower octave adding more weight to this other wise cold droning test tone esque sound. For several minutes the pitch is lower subtly and very slowly fades to almost silence about midway through the piece. Eventually a much higher pitched and almost piercing tone emerges reminding me of the ringing in your ears after a particularly loud noise. After this wave fades out, things finally start to get abit more interesting. A much lower end tone than before begins to take the forefront whilst some more glassey waves creep up over the top; then when they finally fully reveal themselves it creates this strange wobbling effect that is immersive and engaging and also quite eerie as it feel as though the piece is beginning to move or vibrate naturally in a room. This all then gradually fades back to the original tone from the beginning of the piece and it all ends.

There’s usually something about drone tracks that make them good. Subtle nuances, the sound of the notes resonating forever, the textures or characters of the sounds; they all combine to make something truly engaging and beautiful. For me, that something is missing from “Duotoon”. It sounds cold and empty for most of its duration, which isn’t necessarily what I dislike about it, but the emptiness seems almost forced or unnatural. As this piece was created using Soundedit it may be inevitable that the track would end up like this and there’s no reason why Rutger wouldn’t have intended on it, but for me personally, it just doesn’t work, there is nothing that makes me want to listen again, nothing that moves me. Thinking back to the tracks I mentioned at the beginning of my review, I also note that those pieces are full of human warmth, something I feel like most of Rutgers work does contain, however it is totally lacking in this piece.

Approaching this from an academic point of view, the track makes more sense. As an experiment in wave forms this achieves something that is of interest. However there isn’t really anything here that is particularly “out there” or ground breaking.

Die hard fans of Rutgers work will surely lap this up no questions asked, however for those fans of his more melodic or ambient works I recommend giving Duotoon a miss. – Review by Daniel J. Gregory for Fluid Radio

Available for pre-order (7 euros including shipping) by contacting Rutget directly here

www.machinefabriek.nu
www.myspace.com/machinefabriek