There is a particular kind of honesty in artists who admit they occasionally need to escape their own commissions. Not dramatically, not with some tortured manifesto, just quietly stepping aside to make something that answers to no one. With “Spelonk”, Rutger Zuydervelt, better known as Machinefabriek, does exactly that. No brief, no external narrative, no polite obligation to synchronize with images or choreography. Just sound, left alone to see what it becomes.
Released on Crónica, the album consists of three long pieces, austerely titled “I, II, III”. Which is either refreshingly minimal or mildly passive-aggressive, depending on your tolerance for conceptual restraint. Either way, it sets the tone: this is not a record interested in guiding you. It barely acknowledges your presence.
Zuydervelt’s process here is deceptively simple. “Hardware jams”, he calls them. Oscillators, pedals, small electronic devices, hands moving, decisions made in real time. But the real work happens afterward, in layering and recombination, where fragments of improvisation are folded into each other until something coherent, or at least compellingly unstable, emerges. The emphasis on listening as a phase of composition is crucial. These are not performances captured; they are environments discovered.
The title “Spelonk” translates roughly to “cave”, and the metaphor holds. Not in the cliché sense of darkness and echo, but as a space that reshapes perception. Inside a cave, distance behaves strangely, sound reflects unpredictably, and your sense of orientation quietly dissolves. That is more or less what these pieces do.
“Spelonk I” opens the record with a relatively contained exploration. Textures flicker in and out, like light filtering through an unseen opening. There is movement, but it feels cautious, exploratory. The piece seems to be testing the acoustics of its own world, sending out signals and waiting for their return.
Then comes “Spelonk II”, which expands everything. Duration stretches, layers accumulate, and the sound field thickens into something closer to a living organism than a composition. Low frequencies pulse beneath granular surfaces, while higher elements drift like debris in slow motion. It’s immersive without being overtly dramatic, which is harder to achieve than it sounds. Many artists equate length with significance. Zuydervelt simply lets time pass and trusts that something will reveal itself within it.
By “Spelonk III”, the album reaches a kind of equilibrium. Not resolution, exactly, but a steady state where the elements coexist without needing to assert dominance. The piece breathes. It contracts and expands subtly, maintaining a tension that never quite resolves into narrative. If the previous track was exploration, this feels like habitation.
Zuydervelt has been refining this kind of practice for years, moving fluidly between commissioned work and more personal releases. His discography under the Machinefabriek name is vast, often orbiting themes of memory, texture, and spatial perception. What distinguishes “Spelonk” within that body of work is its immediacy. There is less mediation here, less conceptual framing. The sounds feel closer to their source, even when they become abstract.
That said, “immediacy” does not mean simplicity. The album’s strength lies in its balance between control and unpredictability. Each layer is carefully placed, yet the overall effect retains a sense of discovery. You can hear the process thinking, adjusting, reacting.
There is also a quiet refusal embedded in the record. In an era where music is often optimized for context – film, playlists, background consumption – “Spelonk” resists utility. It does not accompany anything. It does not explain itself. It exists, patiently, asking only for attention.
Which is, admittedly, a demanding request.
But if you grant it, the reward is a set of spaces that feel strangely alive: alien, as Zuydervelt suggests, but not hostile. Just unfamiliar enough to remind you that listening, when taken seriously, is still a form of exploration. Vito Camarretta
via Chain DLK