Looking for inspiration for a new live setup, I stumbled across some videos of the Korean-American improviser Bonnie Jones. She used a few guitar effects pedals, but turned upside down, with the bottom plate taken off. Pressing a plug to the pedals’ circuit board, glitchy, buzzing sounds emerged. A eureka moment!
I screwed open some effects units, and started fumbling around with an unraveled microphone cable, attaching a needle to each copper wire, to be able to work precisely on the circuit boards, as if performing surgery on electrical equipment. From some pedals I could hardly get any sounds, but there we three (two Boss reverb/delays and a Behringer equalizer) that yielded some great popping, squeezing, and buzzing sounds.
Since I still wasn't sure if these circuit bent pedals would work (for me) in a live situation, I used the recordings of these experiments to sculpt a new piece with. ‘Sprank’, the result, is like a more subtle sequel to ‘Kluwen’, my previous Norwegianism release. 20+ minutes of pure electronic sounds, from gentle, high-pitched drones, to nasty crackling and low-frequency pulses.
credits
released March 20, 2016
A collage made with recordings of circuit bent effects pedals.
Rutger Zuydervelt, February 2016
I go to sleep listening to this song, and I wake up in a beautiful dream state in the morning. It also helps me focus while I write and work. I was heartbroken when this song disappeared on Spotify, so the hunt began. I must say, this song was very difficult to find, but all the more rewarding when I found it. Jonathan Tilley
The 17 mindbending songs on this compilation represent minimalist experimental music at its best, a collage of blips and static. Bandcamp New & Notable Dec 3, 2022
Steadily rising to be one of my favourite Zuydervelt's albums. Payton's words are extremely powerful and fantastically accompanied (and often times countered) by Rutger's soundscapes. Not your typical Machinefabriek soundscapes either, much more melodic than usual but still preserving the trademark sonic details of the Dutch. Simply superb. Subespai