Rutger Zuydervelt

First studio meeting between two figures long circling each other in the Dutch experimental scene. The structure is itself a kind of mirror: Spiegeling is Machinefabriek's remix of Orphax's De Eerste Dag, Reflectie is Orphax's twenty-minute remix of Machinefabriek's 2007 piece Stofstuk, and the title track is the only fully joint composition. Long-form drone built through indirect dialogue, with each signature still audible but inflected by the other.

'Samen' collects tracks from singles, EPs, and compilations that came out between 2015 and 2025. 17 tracks, 76 minutes, presented as a continuous mix on a shiny compact disc. This album compiles some of my very favorite Machinefabriek music, and if you're a newcomer, 'Samen' certainly serves as a great entry into my discography.

*100 copies limited edition* After Kites, Sister, and Mask, House of Strength marked the fourth collaboration between choreographer/dancer Roshanak Morrowatian and composer Rutger Zuydervelt. The performance — and, by extension, the music — has a strong ritualistic quality and can be seen as an inclusive celebration of both spiritual and physical strength. Drawing inspiration from traditional Iranian percussion as well as contemporary club music, the score bridges old and new worlds, shifting be…

Comes in 4-panel cover in plastic wallet. Edition of 30 copies. "Because it's so much fun to make: another beat-oriented snack, after Hinkelstap, Tuimelval, Haast, and Kadans. As with the others, I'm not sure if it's any good, but let's hope y'all enjoy it."

Business card CDr. "It was about time that I released a business card CDr again. I also had this drawing which I thought would work great as a cover image. The only thing I had to do is make the music for it. So here it is. It turned out a bit dramatic, stylistically, with desolate fog horn like swells and faint electronic rumblings. It's all quite sombre, but with all the horrible conflicts in the world today, what else could I do?"

"Choreographer Daniel Linehan’s ‘The Wonder Of It All’ radiates joy and togetherness. From cerebral to wildly energetic, the piece feels like a ritual that slowly transforms into a euphoric dance party. Creating the music for this was a joy. It brought me back to the nineties, when I was discovering electronic (dance) music. That feeling of wonder and discovery seemed an apt comparative to the sense of awe that Daniel and the dancers convey in ‘The Wonder Of It All’.    Normally (if there is a ‘…

“I did this piano/Rhodes recording, played live, without overdubs. I believe your approach to sound could match very well these tracks….” That’s how Giovanni Di Domenico’s collaboration with Rutger Zuydervelt started, though the first seeds were planted when the duo did a short live improv together in 2019, and Giovanni joining Hydra Ensemble on stage in 2022. Painting a Picture / Picture a painting is -as the title suggest- an album of two long-form pieces, swapping the working method for each …

2025 stock ** “‘Crumble’ is full of dramatic turns, immersive drones, glitchy electronics and intimate gestures. The long form piece was made by having violin player Anne Bakker and vocalist Edita Karkoschka improvise on an electronic track, and using these recordings (and added electronics and field recordings) to sculpt a 34 minute piece..”

*Lathe Cut, Limited Edition, 66 copies. clear, 180g vinyl* 'Eventual' is the first album by double bass player Gonçalo Almeida and 'knob twidler' Rutger Zuydervelt. It's not exactly their first collaboration though, having released two EPs, 'Doze Ruinas' and 'Jangadas', and being colleagues in Hydra Ensemble (with cellists Lucija Gregov and Nina Hitz). When film maker Lex Reitsma commissioned Rutger Zuydervelt for the soundtrack of his documentary about photographer Koos Breukel, Zuydervelt prop…

*150 hand-numbered copies limited edition* Hardanger is a collaboration by Mariska Baars (aka Soccer Committee), Niki Jansen, and Rutger Zuydervelt (aka Machinefabriek). The title refers to the instrument played by Jansen, the Hardanger fiddle. It’s a fresh addition to the established musical chemistry from regular collaborators Baars and Zuydervelt. The music on Hardanger started with improvisations by Niki Jansen, guided by Mariska Baars, who responded with vocal and guitar recordings. Rutger …

Flag Day Recordings presents Omval by Machinefabriek.

*2023 stock* 15/15 was commissioned for the 32-speaker system Soundpiece, which is installed under the floor of the square. With the sound source being invisible for the listener, playing music on this system has something quite magical, as if the sounds are just floating in the air. Instead of ignoring or (to the contrary) overpowering the existing sounds, I decided to make it more like a dialogue. I wanted to keep space in the music, and to have the environment play a part in it. The sounds I’…

Kaleiding is the debut show of the contemporary circus company Lily&Janick. It's a play between light, reflections and new perspectives onto partner acrobatics. With a long mirror that lays on the floor, images are getting created that hypnotize – like watching an everyday life situation through a kaleidoscope. This distorted reality invites into a decelerated world where up is down and down is up. Kaleiding is a movement based show working on the border between dance, circus and visual arts.

This album wouldn’t exist without clarinetist Gareth Davis, with whom I’ve collaborated several times. When I asked him to participate on my + album, he was working with Monika Bugajny. She got wind of my project and asked if she could join. I agreed and reworked her beautiful clarinet recording into a ghostly one-minute piece. Apparently my concoction was convincing enough for Monika to propose another, more elaborate collaboration. Her suggestion was to use the same working method again, but t…

After 'Hinkelstap', 'Tuimelval', and 'Haast', this is the fourth EP of (mostly) rhythm based tunes. Fun times!  Comes in a 4-panel heavy paper sleeve.

*2023 stock* "Hello, hope you’re doing well. I just started a little project, and I’d like to invite you to participate. Not to worry, it won’t take up too much of your time. I’m asking drummers/percussionists to record a few short fills or phrases. It can be recorded by simple means; a hand-held recorder or even a phone will do just fine. These gathered recordings will be used as the ‘Lego bricks’ to build a series of short rhythmical collages with. It would be fantastic if you’d like to join t…

*2023 stock. In process of stocking* This isn’t a regular ‘original film score’ album. After working on the sound design and music for Joke Olthaar’s slow-paced BERG film, Hugo Dijkstal and Rutger Zuydervelt (aka Machinefabriek) decided to re-arrange the sound into one long 30-minute piece. In the film, Hugo’s auditory magic is blended with Rutger’s minimalist drones to create an immersive bed for director Joke Olthaar and cinematographer André Scheuder’s striking black and white footage of the …

*2023 stock. In process of stocking* After 'As Much As It Is Worth' and 'Engel', Marta & Kim asked me to compose the music for yet another dance/circus performance, 'Our Arms Grew Together'. This release presents an edited version of that score, tailored to the album format. The starting point of the 'Our Arms…' soundtrack was a series of home recordings that Marta and Kim made on my request. As the performance deals with their (romantic) relationship, it made sense to incorporate their daily li…

The plan for + arose from being a young parent, and dealing with the combination of working on music at the same time. Focusing on long-form music proofed challenging. So I came up with the idea to work on super short tracks that each could be made within a short span of time, and to do this with ‘a few’ collaborators. This concept worked out brilliantly (especially because of the enthousiastic responses from the artists I invited to join), and in no time the project grew a lot bigger than antic…

*Limited edition of 300 copies. 3 sided 2LP in gatefold sleeve.* Long time Roadburners will be familiar with Dirk Serries – he has performed at the festival under various guises a number of times. Having already hosted him with Fear Falls Burning, Microphonics, Year of No Light, Yodok III and Scatterwound already, we were due to welcome him back in 2020 with Kodian Trio. Fate had other ideas… but in with a creative spirit that never stops wandering and a thirst for experimenting, we knew that Di…

On 5 April 2022 I e-mailed Anne about working on a follow-up to our album Oehoe (released by Where to Now? Records in 2020). On April 7 she recorded a bunch of violin, viola and vocal improvisations at home. Gorgeous sounds and melodies, a gold mine to work with. The material basically wrote itself. I started editing and adding electronics (mainly virtual instruments, I don’t own a real harp), and by the end of that month, the album was finished. I always found the music that Anne and I make a b…

First compilation in a series where other musicians reframe pieces from Orphax's ongoing Dream Sequence cycle, an open-ended sequence of experimental ambient and drone works. Haarvöl, Jos Smolders and Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek) each take a different Dream Sequence as point of departure, returning quiet contemplative re-readings that fold their own languages into the source. A study in remix-as-translation across the Dutch and Portuguese electronic-experimental axes.

If Texturalis was a real word it might have something to do with the density or porosity of organic compounds. In the case of Machinefabriek's Texturalis, the word fits the sounds on this album. Sounds indeed, not songs. Anyone familiar with Machinefabriek knows his interest in anything crackling, fizzling and buzzing. For Texturalis, Machinefabriek choose to work on just that; not to be bothered with creating elaborate compositions, but to focus on creating intriguing textures. This resulted in…

Rotterdam-based quartet Hydra Ensemble features cellists Nina Hitz and Lucija Gregov, double bassist Gonçalo Almeida and Rutger Zuydervelt on electronics. The ensemble is a juncture of four distinctive expressions finding common ground – together they form a four-headed entity that emerges from highly pensive collective improvisations, creating an intricate patchwork of concurrent melodic lines, textural explorations and expansive drones. Its sonic language exists on the cracks of free improvisa…

The Portuguese word Selva means “Jungle”, and this collaborative opus with Rutger Zuydervelt aka Machinefabriek is one more incursion towards Paradox. The Selva made this paradoxal enterprise its trademark: a trio with two string players (cello, bass) and a drummer with free improvisation and creative jazz as the matrix of their playing, but combining it with other musical languages, going from a deterritorialized kind of imaginary folk or world music to the picking of Renaissance and contempora…

Four-CD box collecting reworks of Orphax's 44 Sketches of 44 Seconds, in which Sietse van Erve handed forty-four short source sounds to friends with an open brief to take them outside their usual practice. The contributing artists - TVO/Ruaridh Law, Modelbau, Fani Konstantinidou, Machinefabriek, Jos Smolders, Elif Yalvaç, Siavash Amini and Orphax himself - produce over four hours of new music, each retaining their compositional fingerprint while submitting to a constrained shared palette.

The soundtrack for Dutch/Belgium/Italian co-production Porselein (Porcelain), a psychological drama by Jenneke Boeijink. Besides the music from the film, the album contains 12 extra outtakes. Rutger Zuydervelt (who mostly works under his pseudonym Machinefabriek) regularly works for film, though mostly for documentaries. Porcelain is his second feature film score, after the Canadian mystery drama The Cold and the Quiet. A common modus operandi for Zuydervelt is to collaborate with instrumentalis…

The friendship and collaboration between Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek) and Alessandro Tedeschi (label founder of Glacial Movements, has been going on for several years now and it is constantly evolving. The Dutch artist, in addition to carrying out the graphic designs of all Glacial Movements' releases, is also part of the label’s catalog with the album Stillness Soundtracks released in April 2014. Almost 6 years from its publication, here is the new musical tale of the fantastic journey in…

2018 release ** "An adaptation from "Sileen", a composition commissioned by Musica For The Festival Oortreders at Neerpelt, Belgium, 2016 performed with 50 members of a local music school; "Sileen II" was realized with only Gareth Davis on bass clarinet plus sounds from Machinefabriek, recorded in the same pitch and tempo as "Sileen', then slowed to half its speed and one octave lower. Stunning!"

Originally released by Ghent's Dauw tape label in 2016 and quickly sold out, here reissued on CD with two new interpretations added. The original is a pair of eighteen-minute pieces: Dwaal layers orchestral washes against radio static and erratic noise, while Wold spreads sparse piano notes over a bed of fine hiss, supported by wind and bird recordings from Vriescheloo. The reissue adds remixes by Benoît Pioulard (organ and guitar) and Nicola Ratti (synth sputters and rhythm).

Pierdrie is a project by Marco Douma, Roel Meelkop and Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek) about the visual and sonic phenomena of pier drie in the Rotterdam Waalhaven. A colourful and atmospheric hommage to Rotterdam harbour industries, the images of the 3 monitors are merged and edited for use with one screen - the DVD format offers the opportunity to play this in full surround sound as well in stereo.This is a one screen version of the Pierdrie installation that was originally presented as a 3…

"I had sent Neil an electronic ‘backing track’ to improvise on, with the idea to keep my part intact as the spine of this new piece. But once I received Neil’s recording, things turned out differently. While toying around with his saxophone improvisation, I noticed it was full of fantastic details, and wanted to emphasize these. I tried overlaying looped parts, with wonderful results. So the original idea went out the window, and I decided to solely work with Neil’s improvisation. I approached ‘…

Late in 2011, Celer and Machinefabriek teamed up and recorded the 7" 'Maastunnel / Mt. Mitake', to coincide with their tour in The Netherlands. They then decided to make it into a trilogy of 7" singles, all self-released in limited editions. Now, Irrational Arts has compiled the six tracks of the 7"s onto a CD‚ titled "Compendium (Collected Singles and Remixes)". The CD also includes a new, additional track by Celer and Machinefabriek, and remixes by Stephan Mathieu, Sylvain Chauveau and …

Mini album, CD, self released by Machinefabriek, November 20, 2015. 200 copies. The Dutch word 'deining' (pronounced 'dining') translates to 'heave' and also 'commotion'. For 'Deining', I asked violinist Anne Bakker to bow each string of her instrument while sliding slowly from the lowest note to the highest, for exactly five minutes, as fluently as possible. Obviously, it turned out nearly impossible to do this really smoothly, but the unavoidable irregularities are a welcomed bonus. Anne also…

Following previous Low Point releases, Glisten (2009) and Patina (2011), Whorls is the third collaboration between Tim Catlin, a guitarist and sound artist based in Melbourne and Machinefabriek, nom de plume of Rutger Zuydervelt from Rotterdam. Catlin made initial recordings drawing upon a wide range of approaches, preparations and techniques for instruments including acoustic guitar, bowed piano and zither which were then sent to Zuydervelt for the addition of extra sounds, editing and sequenci…

The central concept behind Alvin Lucier's Memory Space is the representation of another time and place through the use of a new set of sounds. In his instructions, Lucier asks the performer/s to go to an environment and record by any means (notes on paper, graphics, audio recording or by memory) the sound situations that are present, then, at any later time, in a different space, attempt to recreate that situation. The purpose of the work is to avoid elaboration or embellishment, but given that …

**Initial copies pressed on Initial copies pressed on transparent wax** Driven by my love for solo albums by drummers and percussionists like Jon Mueller, Wil Guthrie, Nick Hennies and Burkhard Beins, I've made Drum Solos. It's my take on a solo drum record, despite the fact that I lack the talent to hit a steady beat or a play a drum roll. Instead, I used the sounds of a drum kit as a source for further processing.I booked a rehearsal room with a drum kit, and recorded as much sounds as I could…

"In December 2011 I recorded the album Stroomtoon, which was released by the French Nuun label the year after. The music was constructed using recordings from improvisations with a setup that I was trying out for upcoming live performances. It's the same setup that I still use nowadays, mainly consisting of an old Phillips analogue tone generator and a selection of effects units. When making Stroomtoon, it felt like moving into new territory that was worth explore more. While that album is very …

Rutger Zuydervelt aka Machinefabriek is a master of self-made sound and time-stretching, sensitively handling organic recordings and samples on countless releases, and regards preset sounds in an organ or a cheap keyboard as a tonal find, as a part of the cacophony of everyday life. These bontempi-rhythms plus the computer-stretched sounds of saxophone (Espen Reinertsen) and voice (Mariska Baars) are the base elements of "Vergezicht 1" and "Vergezicht 2." It is stunning how Zuydervelt man…

Beautiful new work from Machinefabriek. Secret Photographs was composed as a soundtrack to accompany a film made by Mike Hoolboom using photographs taken by notorious bank robber Alvin Karpis. Filmmaker Mike Hoolboom discovered a batch of Karpis' photos for auction on eBay. He was the lucky winning bidder. With his newly found treasure, Hoolboom began working on a film consisting of still images, slowly dissolving one into another. Intensifying the slow, hypnotic pace and transitions, the musica…