Articles
Death Blues
Questionnaire II

Albums
36
Daniel Bachman
Blevin Blectum
Ulises Conti
Ian William Craig
Dakota Suite & Sirjacq
Death Blues
Yair Etziony
Fade
Hammock
Imagho & Mocke
Kassel Jaeger
John Kannenberg
Martin Kay
Kein
Kontakt der Jünglinge
Akira Kosemura
Land Observations
Klara Lewis
Oliver Lieb
Lightfoils
Machinefabriek
Nikkfurie of La Caution
Pitre and Allen
Pjusk
Michael Robinson
Sawako
Seasurfer
Slow Dancing Society
Tender Games
Tirey / Weathers
Tohpati
Tokyo Prose
The Void Of Expansion
wild Up
Yodok III
Russ Young

Compilations / Mixes
Dessous Sum. Grooves 2
Silence Was Warm Vol. 5
Under The Influence Vol. 4

EPs / Cassettes / Mini-Albums / Singles
Belle Arché Lou
Blind EP3
Blocks and Escher
Dabs
DBR UK
Fracture
Sunny Graves
Ligovskoï
Mako
Paradox & Nucleus
Pye Corner Audio
Sawa & Kondo
Slpwlkr
Swoon
Toys in The Well
Versa
Marshall Watson

Machinefabriek: Stillness Soundtracks
Glacial Movements

Though I haven't heard all of Rutger Zuydervelt's Machinefabriek output (is such a thing even possible, given the staggering number of Machinefabriek recordings he's issued since 2004 on labels such as 12K, Staalpaat, Important, Experimedia, Type, Home Normal, and Dekorder?), I'd be willing to wager Stillness Soundtracks is one of his most accessible outings. It's an uncharacteristically melodic and even sometimes pretty collection whose contents were designed by Zuydervelt to accompany short films by Esther Kokmeijer but engage satisfyingly on purely musical terms. The videos initially were made available to the public on a USB stick that Kokmeijer and Zuydervelt prepared in a limited edition of 100 (now sold out); the Glacial Movements release supplements the project's five scores with two exclusive tracks that for whatever reason Zuydervelt has titled “(Chinstrap).”

While the music was scored in accordance with footage of Antarctica and Greenland and of icebergs and sprawling vistas, Stillness Soundtracks also stands out in stark contrast to a number of other recordings on the Glacial Movements label for eschewing icy soundscaping for something far less severe. It turns out that this was a deliberate choice, as Zuydervelt rejected the idea of wedding images of bleak mountains of ice to dark, cold soundscapes in favour of, in his words, “lush arrangements and … romantic themes.”

The warmth in the music comes from its instrumentation, pastoral character, and laid-back feel. Given that it's a Machinefabriek recording, electronics naturally figure prominently into the sound design but so too do acoustic instruments such as marimba, piano, strings, and organ. A beat pattern does lend some degree of slow-motion animation to “Stillness #2 (The FRAM, Greenland),” but for the most part the settings make good on the promise of their “Stillness” titles, with “Stillness #2 (Ilulissat, Greenland),” a quiet and austere exercise in micro-sound, a good illustration.

In the absence of visuals (the CD package's imagery aside), pieces like “Stillness #3 (The Protector, Antarctica)” and “Stillness #4 (Yalour Islands, Antarctica)” suggest the grandeur of the physical settings through their slow-motion ambient-drone design. So peaceful, in fact, is the music in the latter that its slow crawl begins to seem veritably entropic. Elsewhere, nature-based field recordings of bird and water sounds mingle with delicate acoustic expressions in such a way as to make “(Chinstrap)” stylistically blend with the video-related material. Any listener coming to the Machinefabriek discography for the first time might find the prospect daunting and be at a loss as to where to begin. With that in mind, Stillness Soundtracks would seem to offer an ideal entry point, given its comparatively accessible nature.

August-September 2014