Machinist * Of What Once Was (cd 2011)
Quite by accident I learned about a new Machinist cd, I missed the previous one. Machinist is a Dutch “drone” outfit that created some pretty dark ambient, but this new album is more ‘soundscapish’. Two long tracks that mostly seem to consist of long strengted guitar sounds (so ‘drone’ as description is not a bad one), but like the first track goes “Mono Tone”, a bit too monotone for me. Nice packaging though and released by a label unknown to me.
Links: Machinist, Moving Furniture Records
A week or so ago I ran into Machinist and decided to order “Cyclus I”. While doing that, my eye fell on another release called “Black Block” which is a magnificent dark ambient soundscapes album. “Cyclus I” slightly differs in style, it is more “noisescapes”. Again there are three tracks, but this time only making half an hour of music. The first track is a bit too monotous noisy and not all that great. The other two tracks are darker and better, but also more noisy (especially in some parts) than “Black Block”. I guess this is more of the sound that I expected (hoped for), but I think “Black Block” is better, especially regarding atmosphere. But… the second and third track of “Cyclus I” are not bad either.
Not quite the first release of this Dutch project, but I didn’t know it. Shame on me! However I expected something more noisy and soundscapes are usually not my thing, this pretty damn dark soundscape album is very good! Low frequencies, deep beats, dark drones, a threathening atmosphere, it is all there. Three tracks making a 67 minutes album released on an “ambient/ noise/ drone/ audio-collage/ fieldrecording label based in Groningen, the Netherlands” that I also didn’t know. “Black Block” is impressive, well recorded, comes in a nice package and I think this is a must-buy for people who like 