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| RUTGER ZUYDERVELT - STAY TUNED |
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karu:31, CD (digipak)
1 audio track, (p) 2014
| OUT NOW
Release date: 04/07/2014
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A walk through the orchestraThat's exactly what Rutger Zuydervelt invites us to do: to take a walk through the orchestra. Stay Tuned started as an installation where each speaker plays a continuous loop of a group of instruments playing an A note, as if they were tuning up. Visitors walk freely in this environment, literally walking through the orchestra; each step they take changes the mix of what they hear. In the summer/fall of 2013, this installation was presented indoors at Sounds Like Audio Art in Saskatoon (Canada) and in an outdoor setting at Into the Great Wide Open in Vlieland (The Netherlands).
For the CD version released by Baskaru, Zuydervelt produced a 50-minute mix that slowly takes us from section to section of his 153-piece ensemble â a who's who of the global avant-garde music scene, with names ranging from Oren Ambarchi to Richard Youngs, by way of John Butcher and Nate Wooley. There's the expected orchestra instruments (woodwinds, strings, brass, tuned percussion), and also, electric guitars, piano, and voices. The result is a drone in A that develops impressive levels of richness, depth, and movement. It feels like this orchestra will never stop tuning up, and you won't want it to.
Dutch electronicist and conceptual artist Rutger Zuydervelt is best known for the experimental ambient/electro-acoustic music he has been releasing since 2004 as Machinefabriek. Under that name he has garnered critical acclaim for albums released on labels such as Type, Important, 12K, Dekorder, and Experimedia, and collaborations with Steinbrüchel, Jaap Blonk, Peter Broderick, and Steve Roden, among others.
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Stay Tuned (excerpt) |
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50:00 |
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What's amazing is that the sense of expectation never leaves. Stay Tuned is an act of preparation, a held breath, or a vase held aloft before being dropped, preluding a piece that never actually comes. It's a purely functional exercise, but it's a beautiful one.
ATTN:MAGAZINE, November 2014
A truly majestic and hypnotic drone work, one of the more rewarding and re-playable drone based releases in recent memory.
MUSIQUE MACHINE, November 2014
A fascinating fabric of noise that comes together in a homogeneous moment of endless music.
HAWÁI, October 2014
An impressive block of sound.
BLOW UP, October 2014
Unique is this sound in any case.
MUSIK AN SICH, September 2014
The ear will quickly discover in this fog, landscapes with ethereal reliefs, made ââof layers of sounds and timbres of tones gently disjointed and constantly stumbling.
DMUTE, September 2014
Stay Tuned appears as a successful experiment in contemporary music
OBSKÜRE, September 2014
A bit extreme, but also very exciting. Wow!
FREISTIL, August 2014
It's truly a compelling sonic work, where the subtle disintegration of the uniformity of the drone elements initially make it all about textures and modulation, moving from feeling like a (admittedly pretty amazing) science project and unburdening itself into a real live musical composition freed from constraints. Yet then in what I can only assume is some form of peculiar magic, and thanks in no small part to the power of the human voice, it moves from being merely a musical composition into a profound spiritual experience.
CYCLIC DEFROST, August 2014
A simple idea, but what a way from A to A. And what a magnificent effect.
BAD ALCHEMY, August 2014
A huge, hypnotizing meditation on one single musical expression and a fascinating take on what's possibly the most thrilling vision of acoustic zen released in 2014.
NITESTYLEZ, August 2014
Addictive thing.
NOWA MUZYKA, July 2014
If you think a continuous performance of a single A-note can hardly be interesting enough to keep your focus for the full 50 minutes, you owe it to yourself to try it out. I'm sure you'll be surprised. And amazed!
HEADPHONE COMMUTE, July 2014
A very strong piece, [...] a serious modern composer!
VITAL WEEKLY, July 2014
There's a ceremonial feel to Stay Tuned, perhaps arising from the associations between droning, chanting and plainsong with religious rituals worldwide; but whether secular or sacred at heart, the music Rutger Zuydervelt and his many friends and collaborators offer up here is often also serenely blissful.
FREQ, July 2014
A beautiful yin and yang of the monotony.
KINDAMUZIK, June 2014
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