Diorama by Machinefabriek

This is a compilation on the Japanese Powershovel label, which I believe is no longer active.
The four long tracks on Diorama were previously self-released, but they form a great quartet together. Each piece is between 15 and 20 minutes long, with two of them created for art projects.

But let’s start with Duotoon. This track uses only pure sine tones as its sound material and zooms in on different combinations of frequencies, causing slow or fast beatings and creating a quite psychedelic effect at times. It was an experiment in “purity,” I suppose, and perhaps it’s too conceptual or rigid, but to my ears it’s still some nice ear candy.

Halfslaap was initially made for the label Standard Form, which released it as a 3” CD. The idea was to evoke the sensation of slowly falling asleep. It has a lullaby-like quality and degrades more and more throughout its 17-minute runtime. It doesn’t build toward a crescendo, but does the opposite: it slowly slips away, much like someone’s senses do when drifting into the dream world.

Loops for Voerman was a commissioned piece, performed at the presentation of a sculpture by Rob Voerman. The track is inspired by the materials used in the sculpture (metal and glass), as well as the artwork’s reference to church ruins. Bowed metal (a pan lid), glass samples, and church choir loops are mashed together into a stately and slightly ominous concoction.

Instuif is another commission, this time for a video piece. Video artist Sabine Bürger asked me to create music for a super-minimalist video she had made: snow swirling in the sky. It sounds boring on paper, but the video has a very soothing, hallucinatory quality. The music was mainly made from a very short fragment I recorded during a soundcheck for a gig—a loop of dull guitar tones overlaid with high crackles. This proved to be a highly effective combination with Sabine’s images, and it also works nicely as a stand-alone audio track.

I can’t recall whether Powershovel contacted me or if I approached them first, but I was happy they were willing to release the aforementioned tracks on a CD. Not long after, I received a package from the label. Inside was a small digital photo camera! Apparently, each artist on the label received one, with the idea that photos taken with the device would be used for the album artwork.

The camera wasn’t the highest quality, but it did a great job capturing macro images, which I think fit my music very well. All of the photos were made inside the house, zooming in on textures, dust, and whatnot, resulting in a collection of semi-abstract intimate glimpses of daily life.

The CD came out as a beautiful hard-cover, CD-sized book, with 24 pages of photos I had taken. A really nice package, I’d say. Unfortunately, the physical release seems to be long out of print, and attempts to contact the label about this haven’t been fruitful. For now, I’ve added a digital version of the booklet to the download, which I’ve made available for free.

Rutger Zuydervelt

machinefabriek.nu
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