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Title:  Mort Aux Vaches Artist:  Machinefabriek Label:  Mort Aux Vaches Format:  CD Price:  € 14.80   Mp3 samples: none

Title Description:
Machinefabriek means 'machine factory'. You might expect a name like that for some EinstŸrzende Neubauten-like industrial act, but here that's not the case. Okay, at some times Machinefabriek's music might sound harsch and abrassive, but industrial, no. My music is more about combining distorted, raw sounds with subtle melodies and stillness. References are Tim Hecker, Fennesz, Tarentel and Stars of the Lid.
Early 2006 the Cypriotic label Lampse issued my first full lenth 'Marijn'. It got great review in The Wire and Pitchforkmedia. This release was preceded (and followed) by numerous self released 3-inch cdr's. A compilation of those was released as the double cd 'Weleer', in 2007.
In the meantime there was a full length on Root Strata ('Slaapzucht'), and a 7-inch single on Type ('Lenteliedjes').
Collaborations with Leo Fabriek (Julie Mittens), Wouter van Veldhoven and Mariska Baars (Soccer Committee) and Jeroen Vandesande also led to cd-releases.
In july I released a double cd-set with artist remixing my track 'Stofstuk'. I was lucky to have (amongst others) Peter Rehberg, Carsten Nicolai (Alva Noto), Mitchell Akiyama, Greg Haines, Lesser, Steinbruchel, Xela and Frans de Waard (Freiband) taken part in this project.
The pieces for this recording were made just a while after the recording of 'Marijn' was finished. Despite the fact most other 'Mort Aux Vaches' releases are live documents, this one is recorded at home, before having it played by Berry Kamer from the VPRO, on Dutch radio.
This time I decided to limit myself by using mainly the guitar and laptop. And a recordplayer on one track. I roughly recorded some parts and chopped it un on the computer. That's when the compositions came to life. It's a questioning of listening, and the process itself will dictate the way to go.
I tried to make a patient record. A record that slowly pulls you in. Ironically a big influence was the Mort Aux Vaches cd by Oren Ambarchie. For me that's the ultimate statement in 'guitar-and-electronics-minimalism'.
Bathyale means 'the part of the sea between 200 and 1000 meters where no sunlight comes through'.Ê
I wanted to do something with water, 'cause that's what i kept thinking of when making and listening to the music. The pieces have a fluidity, but at times they are pretty dark and 'crackly'. Rutger Zuydervelt (Arnhem, The Netherlands)

It's been awhile since we last heard from Staalplaat as a label and the two releases that are now 'new' in the Mort Aux Vaches series, are in fact recorded some time ago. The Refat one in 2006 and Machinefabriek is a bit hard to tell. The cover is made with stamps but on my copy it's a bit hard to read. But it's also been on the shelf for some time, which in the case of Machinefabriek is a bummer. Rutger Zuydervelt released so much music in the past three years that we got a pretty clear idea about how he developed in that period, but it's a bit hard to say where his Mort Aux Vaches will fit in. We hear him play guitar, more than he does these days, but throughout his carefully created atmospheric music is already present here. It moves away from the previous released live recording in that sense that they are less noise based and forecasts his recent music. However things are less complex around here, and works on a more straight forward level. The emphasis lies on the guitar, which shows Zuydervelt here to be a good student of Oren Ambarchi, with perhaps a bit more effects at his disposal. Minimal, atmospheric: it's all there yet not as refined as in much of his later work. (FDW)

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