Gareth Davis & Machinefabriek

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4...according to our Brian on Thu 14 Oct, 2010.

Well Gareth Davis has got his bass clarinet out again, this time he's embellishing the morphing sound art & zen-drone of Dutch experimenter Machinefabriek. You're all surely familiar with Rutger's output now. Half the time you think someone's paused the CD and you tut, storm towards the stereo and turn it up, then all of a sudden a wall of crackle or an ominous fluctuating hum will confront you - android sound from the machines of a one man mind mental. Gareth is in reasonably restrained mode here, offering up sparse flecks & brief spurts of sound from his beloved stick of woodwindery, obviously conscious of drowning out the delicate exploratory nature of his Flatlands-dwelling pal. This is a pretty minimal outing for the pair but headphone listening will enrichen your experience I am confident! It's also a relatively limited release for Home Normal - the label has sold out at source so if you miss out we cannot assist any further, sorry!

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When Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek) and I first talked about the L/M/R/W release ‘Drifts’ (home_n009), I was soon made aware of his work with the enormously talented clarinetist Gareth Davis. Following on from their 3″ releases of Soundlines and Ghost Lanes, this is their first full album release together. As is always the case with both these artists, it flows seamlessly despite being their first recording in person together. As Rutger says:

‘All tracks are really played and recorded in the spur of the moment. We hadn’t played together before, but after setting everything up we just started playing, and before we knew it we had four hours of music. I guess that’s what you call ‘chemistry’. We decided to divide the recordings into two albums (’Drape’ and ‘Grower’ - later on Sonic Pieces) and a mini album (’Ghost Lanes’). The material from each album is recorded in a row, in the same track order, so it’s all really close to how those days of recording were for us…There was minor editing and a bit of mixing, and that’s it…’

Their work together culminated in a recent performance at the North Sea Jazz festival in Rotterdam this year. This was the perfect arena to show off their natural chemistry and musicianship, and we are very proud indeed to be releasing such a powerful and organic work by two hugely talented artists.

Ian Hawgood

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