RUTGER ZUYDERVELT – BANZO
Blink with your eyes and you have probably missed at least one new release by Rutger Zuydervelt (or his alter ego Machinefabriek). It’s virtually impossible to keep track, and it’s also unbelievable how he manages to come up with so many releases and maintain such high quality.
When he uses his own name and not his alias, it often concerns a score for a play, a dance production, or a movie. Such is the case with Banzo (Music For A Film By Margarida Cardoso).
Banzo is a movie about a group of workers on a tropical island, who are “plagued by a mysterious affliction called banzo, also known as slave nostalgia. Those affected feel an intense homesickness, fall into apathy, lose the strength to live, and eventually die.” (Read more in the synopsis).
Zuydervelt’s score effectively reflects the mysteriousness and the ‘oppressive atmosphere of the isolated tropical island’, as demonstrated in this trailer:
Even if the movie itself is over 2 hours long, the score presented here is only 35 minutes, divided into nine short pieces. The music is Zuydervelt at his darkest, and also most minimalist. It’s definitely ‘dark’ – but without the usual ‘dark ambient characteristics’.
This album stands strong without having seen the movie it was created for, simply because its haunting atmosphere is a pleasure to listen to.
ASSOCIATED SINE TONE SERVICES – ASSOCIATED SINE TONE SERVICES
The Associated Sine Tone Services shows a different – more playful – side of Rutger Zuydervelt, and also of his fondness for collaborations. ASTS is a ‘conceptual collaboration between analog oscillator wielders’ Jeremy Young, Nicolas Bernier (both from Montreal, Canada), and Rutger Zuydervelt.
As the title already implies, this music is generated using sine wave oscillators, combined with electronic filters, stacks, and (a lot of) processing. It is experimental electronic music – but it is surprisingly accessible.
As it says in the liner notes: “This is music, over sound design, contrary to what listeners might expect from an album entirely built from sine waves and the analog fidelity of vintage studio tools.”
The whole album also breathes a nice nostalgic atmosphere, as if it could have been the soundtrack for a 50’s science fiction movie. But it sounds many, many times better now than it did then.
Associated Sine Tone Services will be released on July, 30, but can already be pre-ordered. For those that want to order the physical CD, please note that it can be pre-ordered from Flag Day Recordings in the US, or from SoundOhm in the EU.