Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Oi Polloi
2. Uiterwaarde
3. Chinese Unpopular Song
4. Color Rosa
5. Hieperdepiep
6. Voor Het Meisje Met Mijn Dooie Mus
7. Onweer
8. Stotterpiano
9. Roes 9
10. Wintervacht

Disc 2:

1. Schrijven
2. Donderwolk
3. Bye Bye Boat, Bye Bye Building
4. Kale Bomen Langs de Weg
5. Gruis Uit Het Plafond
6. Lief
7. Rose 4
8. Carps [Remix]
9. Maris
10. Ryan
11. Fluister
12. Monster

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #355050 in Music
• Released on: 2007-05-15
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .24 pounds

Album Description
This is Dutchman Rutger Zuydervelt's second release for the Lampse Audiovisual Recordings label. His Machinefabriek project has captivated many listeners with his stunning and regular supply of home-made 3" CD-Rs, a project which Zuydervelt had been working on since 2003 and is still working on today. So, it was almost inevitable that at some point a compilation would have to be made from the series' finest moments. After a long period of deliberation, Lampse boss-lady Monika Herodotou and Zuydervelt came up with the perfect selection -- two full CDs of audio which play like "proper" albums rather than simple, haphazard collections of tracks, yet still contain enough audio insanity to confirm the rumor that Machinefabriek is a true musical enigma. It strikes us as quite horrifying how a man can actually produce this volume of music while keeping such an obvious level of quality control but somehow he does it -- there's not a dull moment on Weleer's 22 varied tracks. From the Eastern-flecked tongue-in-cheek gorgeousness of "Chinese Unpopular Song" to the ear-shattering cave-dwelling noise of "Hieperdepiep," and from the squealing power-electronics of "Bye Bye Boat, Bye Bye Building" to the truly epic 20-minute grandeur of "Lief," there is truly something here for every listener. There is also a great deal of hype surrounding Rutger Zuydervelt at the moment, and if you want to find out what the whole Machinefabriek thing is about anyway, there couldn't be a better place to start than Weleer. We simply couldn't imagine a finer collection of disturbed experimental music.

Customer Reviews

Atmospheric soundscapes
This is a 2 cd product and not a cheap one, there's lots of non-electronic sound on here from piano to guitars. But not what I would call songs. The music here, like music from many contemporaries Arve Henrickson, Fennezc, Opal, and others, is more along the lines of beautifully constructed movements of music and sound, some of it sounds very like movie soundtracks, and has a tendency to be quite relaxing. Very little of any kind of danceable driving pulses, and generally nothing to sing along to. This requires your appreciation of natural, found, and free-style music. Where Merzbow attempts to blow you down with the assault, Zuyderveldt caresses, and lulls with his very artistic creations. Wikipedia says he's got more than 50 releases. Lots to enjoy.

Shimmery: that's a word right?
I first heard Machinefabriek on the UK based Wire magazine compilation CD. It was a track called Somerset and my girlfriend and I were making out. It was so strikingly beautiful that we just sat there, listening to it over and over again.
So now I have the album and I can honestly say that it is consistently gorgeous and dreamlike, though not all of them are good dreams. This music often sounds very far away, and it has the tendency to carry you along with it as it drifts about spatial fields of cropped electro-acoustics. That detachment in it can be very menacing. Oftentimes the textures make you go visual in a way that is foreboding, like degraded video. But once you stretch your ears a bit, this music never seems dull, never overloads you. The variety of texture is scintillating and always comes around to deliver you back to (somewhat moody) good cheer.