Lóng before I ever related the sounds to a musical context, I was fascinated by industrial environmental drone hums.
I clearly remember staying with my grandparents as a child during school holidays, fascinated by the steady hum of giant propeller ventilators from a nearby storage building.
This impression has never left me, and I fondly think back to these summer holidays as the fundament of a lifelong addiction to drones of industrial (as well as any other) nature.
Knowing this background, it’s probably not hard to understand why a new release by Machinefabriek, called “Machine Rooms“, released on the Keshhhh label (curated by Simon Scott, and mastered by Rafael Anton Irissari) got my immediate and full attention!
But that is simply not enough to introduce this incredible album.
These are not ‘just’ industrial drones – these are delicate homages to machines that are supporting our everyday life. And continue to do so, even when they are hidden away, put out of use and slowly deteriorating….
There’s an interesting background story behind this album:
The basic material was originally created for a single (one time only) location-specific event in an old deserted newspaper printer building in Amsterdam (now known as Trouw, one of Amsterdam’s nightlife hotspots), blending the sounds of the two deserted machinerooms in the basement with a (pre-recorded) piece called Kamermuziek.
The result, as said before, is not just a single drone but a delicately adventurous soundscape revealing lots of microscopic details of the surrounding, presented in the personal approach that Rutger “Machinefabriek” Zuydervelt masters so very well.
Far too few people (only 8 at a time) were able to fully enjoy this installation. One of them was photographer Sanja Harris, who invited Rutger to a follow up recording.
Sanja and Rutger decided to follow up this project which lead to this impressive multimedia-release, featuring two 15 minute soundscapes by Machinefabriek, two additional remixes by Marcus Fisher and Steve Roden, as well as two movies and a beautiful set of photograph cards by Sanja Harris.
I know it is quite hard for us mortal people to keep up with Machinefabriek’s quality output, each of which deserves investigating.
With this combination of soundscapes and visuals, “Machine Rooms” is even more special than all others.
Just check it!
This is really excellent, I myself can’t keep up with Rutger’s output, but thanks for the pause Peter.