Reviews:

From: Aquarius

  Originally released back in 2008 by Sentient Recognition Archive as a cd-r, Vloed is a collection of exceptionally good live recordings by the ever impressive Machinefabriek, who had one time been releasing something just about every week but now has slowed his output, so it seems. In any case, Vloed now features a 22 minute bonus track and slightly different edits of the other three tracks (presumably so that all four of these lengthy tracks would fit on one cd!). Here's what we said of Vloed a couple years back:

All performances find Machinefabriek in fine form, offering up thick billows of warm guitar shimmer, fluttery staticky ambience, and at one point some uncharacteristically heavy super distorted metallic
guitar, but here, it's not so much metal as simply a mighty drone, thick and throbbing and super intense. There are long stretches of near silence and super minimal high end drone, glimmering slow
building crescendos, squalls of distorted choral buzz, warm whirring metallic reverberations, shimmery almost new age and dense black dronemusik, all the stuff we love about Machinefabriek, BUT, and this is what makes this disc so good, is that live, while still being dynamic and subtle, Zuydervelt also proves to me way more intense and aggressive than on his recordings. And thus, we must recommend!

From Progress Report: (by DB)

  For some reason Machinefabriek often remind me of Gavin Bryars around the time of Jesus Blood and Sinking of the Titanic. There a sadness and mournfulness that comes over in Machinefabriek's work and that impression is reinforced for me on this reissue of an album of live pieces recorded between 2006 and 2008.

  The album was originally released by Sentient Recognition in 2008 and this CD re-issue includes an extra track Vrijhaven that was recorded live at the Hague in 2008 (all the other pieces are taken from performances in Amsterdam).

  For the live performances Rutger Zuydervelt used electric guitar, tabletop guitar, pedals, loopers, sampler, tone generator, radio, memorecorder, bow and other various objects and he manages to create some outstanding pieces with depth warmth and a whole glut of emotions.

  Tracks one and four (Allengskens and Vloed) the two tracks that bookend the album are fairly similar in style both having that Gavin Bryars (and maybe William Basinski) air about them that I mentioned earlier. There’s a lot of string sounds and minor melancholy sounding chords going on. Very filmic in a way and you’d be less than surprised if you heard Machinefabriek crop up on a film soundtrack.

  Track two (Drijfzand) is a bit more experimental in nature it has some gentle melodic  (what sound like ) plucked string sounds on it but accompanying that is what sounds like amplified jack plugs being played about with and the odd scraping sound here and there. It develops like this for the majority of the track until it mutates into some choral sounds that slowly get more and more distorted until the tracks climax.

  The third track (Vrijhaven) which is the bonus piece reminds me of Zoviet-France. Made up of plucked string instruments lots o f delay and reverb and other more percussive sounds it wouldn’t be out of place on something like Z-f’s “Just an Illusion” album.

  All in all another staggeringly good release from Machinefabriek and I can only hope that Cold Spring carry on re-issuing gems like this or even some new material.

From Medienkonverter: (by Veit)

  Rutger Zuydervelt alias Machinefabriek schafft es mit seinen Songs, nachdenkliche, in die Ferne schauende Gesichter zu erzeugen. Wehmut, Melancholie, Fernweh und Behaglichkeit sind nur ein paar der einsetzenden Gefühle und Zustände, wenn man Machinefabriek lauscht. Dass er das auch live kann, beweist er mit deinem neuen Album. Wie schon die vorangegangene Veröffentlichung "Daas" so ist auch sein neues Album "Vloed" kein neues Studioalbum, sondern es wird bekanntes und bereits veröffentlichtes Material noch einmal aufgewertet. Diesmal in Form des bereits 2008 veröffentlichten Live-Albums "Vloed".

  "Vloed" enthält drei Liveversionen der Songs "Allengskens", "Drijfzand" und "Vloed", die zwischen 2006 und 2008 in Amsterdam aufgenommen wurden. Hinzu kommt der Bonustrack "Vrijhaven", der auch schon als Download erhältlich war. Von der Beschreibung als Liveversionen sollte man nicht zu viel erwarten. Den einzelnen Songs merkt man ihre spätabendliche, von vielen zuhörenden Personen begleitete Entstehungsphase nicht an. Zudem sind die Lieder nachbearbeitet worden. Nun macht Machinefabriek nicht unbedingt die Art Musik, bei der die Massen tobend die Halle auseinander nimmt, aber trotzdem wäre so ein klitzekleines bisschen Atmosphäre nicht schlecht gewesen. Sagen wir also, es handelt sich um Variationen der Songs. Die verströmen dafür die gleiche Atmosphäre wie die Studioversionen und erzeugen durch Machinefabrieks besonderen Gitarren-Ambient diese behaglich-wohlige Stimmung, aber auch düstere Bilder.

  Positiv fällt der teils experimentelle Charakter der Songs auf. Der extrem tiefe Bass am Anfang von "Drifjgzand" und der wortlose Chor und die hohen Töne am Ende des Liedes wirken verstörend und spannend zugleich. Der Bonustrack "Vrijhaven" fällt ein wenig aus der Reihe heraus, weil er nicht die Dramatik der anderen drei Songs erzeugt, sondern lediglich von einzelnen Gitarren-Tönen lebt.

  Wieder eine sehr beeindruckende Veröffentlichung des Holländers, der mit dem Label Cold Spring wohl nun auch eine feste Basis gefunden hat. (5/6)

From Darkroom: (by Michele Viali)

  Seconda collaborazione tra il prolifico act olandese Machinefabriek (al secolo Rutger Zuydervelt) e la label inglese Cold Spring: dopo la compilation "Daas" ecco "Vloed", titolo pubblicato in origine su CDr nel 2008 ed ora arricchito di una quarta traccia bonus, che va ad unirsi agli altri tre pezzi ricavati da performance dal vivo eseguite nei Paesi Bassi tra il 2006 e il 2008. Quel che balza subito all'orecchio è la capacità di mantenere alto il livello anche in sede live, cosa non indifferente visto che i progetti elettronici riescono a fatica a trasportare sul palco le emozioni create tra le mura di uno studio, il che giustifica in pieno la riedizione di questo CD. Ogni pezzo è contrassegnato da uno sviluppo in crescendo, ma da peculiarità sonore proprie: in generale l'ambient si unisce ad una vena astratta, mentre i drones vanno ad assumere spesso le sembianze di orchestrazioni metalliche dall'impatto efficace. L'apertura di "Allengskens" ci porta verso orizzonti naturali e tranquilli, segnati da avvolgenti toni sintetici; la successiva "Drijfzand" aumenta la dose di pacatezza retta da lievi drones, piccoli rintocchi ed esili 'graffi' di rumore, con un finale para-sinfonico ricco di pathos; "Vrijhaven" nasce invece da impercettibili rumori minimali, stridolii di chitarra ed una base astratta, che si fa largo assumendo un ruolo predominante con la sua ossessiva linearità. La traccia bonus "Vloed" è l'unica dalle fattezze oscure: caratterizzata da una maggiore densità sonora dovuta a drones stratificati, finisce con l'esplodere in un muro compatto di chitarra elettrica, segnato da movimenti lenti e poderosi ai limiti del doom. L'album mostra tutta la maestria di questo autore, capace di piegare i rumori ad effetti contrastanti e diversi, creando atmosfere magnetiche che meritano un occhio di riguardo nel vasto panorama dell'elettronica ambientale. Confezione elegante in digipak e nuovo artwork che traduce perfettamente l'essenza dell'opera.