Shivers
Gareth Davis – Bass Clarinet
Leo Fabriek – Drums
Rutger Zuydervelt – Other
CD and LP on Miasmah, released 2014
1 – Ash
2 – Otomo
3 – Rabid
4 – Brood
5 – Spacek
6 – Replicant
Shivers is the trio of Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek), Gareth Davis and Leo Fabriek, who join forces to conjure up a surreal album of parasitic intimacy and intensity. Though the three have played and recorded together in various combinations, this Miasmah release marks their first output as Shivers and manages to pull out quite a few surprises.
Named after David Cronenberg’s first film, Shivers the album readily adopts this concept of body horror, the fear of bodily transformation and infection–a theory and technique that Cronenberg brilliantly captures with his first film and many thereafter. An aural invader immediately travels through your ears into your body, to infiltrate your soul with gorey supernatural sci-fi.
Crawling through the thick sludge of Ash and into the chaotic Otomo, you’re treated with what sounds like a beyond-the-grave collaboration of Albert Ayler with Alva Noto producing the soundtrack to Transformers. From entering Rabid, a chorus of intense destructive voices blindfolded leads you to an abandoned spot amidst a buzz of florescent lights. Here you’re abducted into a new life hundreds of years in the future, moving you through stumbling jazz, John Carpenter styled themes, repeating organ-beats, and Moroccan doom. The psychological and physical combine to make Shivers a collective understanding of the grotesque, fascinating, and personal. You might not be the same.
REVIEWS:
A closer listen
Supergroup alert! Shivers is the latest collaboration from Machinefabriek (Rutger Zuydervelt), Leo Fabriek and Gareth Davis (also on Erik K. Skodvin’s new album). The album is a tribute to the film of the same name by David Cronenberg, an investigation of the melodramatic and the macabre. Even today, the trailer (seen below) evokes chills, at the same time betraying a sick sort of humor, as evidenced by the final line.
Shivers skips the humor and goes right to the seeping, mounting dread. The album is all about atmosphere: claustrophobic, threatening, sinister. The wormlike creatures of the film invaded the body; this music seeks to create earworms. While it’s unlikely that anyone will be humming these songs soon, those who listen may experience a humming paranoia. This is lights-out music, music for creaking closets and open windows that we were sure we had shut.
“Ash” sets the scene with synthesized sounds that crawl and lurk, drums that attack and retreat and a clarinet that strikes like a snake. “Otomo” leaps from the closet, knife in hand. We like to play with our food, but sometimes we get hungry fast. The gurgling, snacking sounds may be from the film; if not, they’re darn close. And the children? They really shouldn’t be so close to the … oh, never mind, just clean up the mess.
The thick synthesized growl of “Rapid” is a perfect reflection of its title. When the sound jumps from speaker to speaker, it sets up a surprisingly rhythmic section; but it’s clear the danger is still present. This is a musical respite, like a tiny romantic scene in a horror film But we all know what happens when people have sex in horror films. Fast forward if you like, or wait it out – it won’t be long. By “Brood”, the Carpenter synths have returned. Too much has already happened; there won’t be a happy ending. The movie ends with a virus being unleashed on the world (don’t blame me for the spoiler; you’ve had 39 years to see it), and the album ends in a similarly dour fashion as the music is engulfed by feedback. The recording ends in nearly half a minute of silence. Hold onto hope if you will, but no rescue is coming.
Richard Allen
Heathen Harvest
Nestled in a film-noir sleeve that depicts a decaying man with a gun, Shivers is the debut release for the trio of Rutger Zuydervelt, Gareth Davis, and Leo Fabriek. Zuydervelt, who will be well-known to many for his work as Machinefabriek, is responsible for electronics on Shivers; likewise, Davis plays bass clarinet while Fabriek is on drums.
Loosely inspired by the David Cronenberg film of the same name, Shivers is an astonishing, horror-infused journey of sustained excellence. Comprising six taut pieces which morph between free jazz, noise, psychedelia, and drone with a nod to the horror film scores of John Carpenter along the way, Shivers is at times menacing, confusing, bracing, and even slightly absurd. Shivers, the film, charts the demise of a man infected by a parasite which causes uncontrollable sexual desire. If you want to know what such a thing would sound like, wonder no more.
The opener, ‘Ash’, arrives via a delicate drone before slowly morphing into a throbbing wall of distortion flecked with periodic stabs from the drums of Fabriek while Davis coaxes mysterious tones from the bass clarinet.
By the second track, ‘Otomo’, the journey has become seriously weird. The bass clarinet slides all over the place producing sounds akin to voices, the hi-hats fizz and fade, leaving noise to envelope us. Muffled indecipherable sounds fade into being in a way that leaves their presence veiled; is that an alarm in the distance? As the piece develops, the action appears to move onto the street, with an urban sound beginning to develop that is akin to the experience of walking past a nightclub late at night. Clangs and clatters punctuate the spluttering buzz of electronics and bass; a train may be pulling up, or perhaps it is simply someone aggressively rummaging through a bin.
‘Rabid’, the album’s third piece, is equally memorable, arriving with an epic slab of distortion before quickly morphing into a blissful yet minimal jazz-infused meditation. But any comfort we might have taken from this is quickly ripped away when the fourth piece ‘Brood’ presents us with a Carpenter-styled soundtrack which makes clear the horror which surrounds us. It’s all black cars, pink neon, and yellow street lights which illuminate a sludge-filled vista of doom, before a cloud of static envelops us once again.
‘Replicant’ closes the EP with driving drums, more fuzz and distortion and Davis’ mournful clarinet lines echoing amid the ruins. In the end, Shivers leaves few answers and leaves one wondering: what on earth happened here? We will never really know, and the tracks themselves offer few clues, but one thing is surely clear: it really is all over.
Kate Carr
Ondarock
Leo Fabriek è un batterista con la passione per la cacofonia, un appassionato di free-jazz e improvvisazione che da sempre preferisce i suoi luccicanti piatti e il loro frastuono al rumore bianco generato elettronicamente. Gareth Davis è un clarinettista e sassofonista che da anni vive con la missione di esplorare tutti i mondi ai quali il suo strumento permette di accedere: ecco spiegate le infinite presenze in gruppi e supergruppi di ricerca collettiva improvvisata e le numerosissime collaborazioni non per forza pertinenti ad un singolo ambito. Nella lista di queste ultime spicca anche quella con Rutger Zuydervelt, per tutti o quasi Machinefabriek, fresco di pubblicazione di due delle sue opere più interessanti (una delle quali per la prima volta a proprio nome) e che di presentazioni non ha certo bisogno.
Letta così, quella degli Shivers potrebbe tranquillamente sembrare nient’altro che l’ennesima esperienza di free improvisation a più tinte, non troppo diversa dalle tante che hanno deciso da anni a questa parte di seguire a ruota il modello (ad oggi insuperabile) dei Necks. Non fosse che l’omonimo debutto che il trio piazza su un catalogo esigente come quello Miasmah è probabilmente la cosa migliore che sia stata sfornata negli ultimi anni in questo sempre più affollato ambito, seconda solo alla meraviglia con cui i maestri erano riusciti a dare l’ennesima lezione giusto l’anno scorso. La policromia che era lecito aspettarsi anche solo giudicando il background dei tre è senza dubbio l’elemento in più a fare la differenza, ma un ruolo fondamentale lo gioca anche un affiatamento indubbiamente fuori dal comune.
“Ash” è un attacco quasi sottovoce, un crescendo che sembra rivedere il krautrock più crudo (Can e Faust) trasformando lo spazio da infinita dilatazione a opprimente costrizione. Il legame con la Germania musicale vive un secondo, breve capitolo in “Brood”, un chiaro omaggio ai suoni analogici e al DigiSequencer a cui è affidato il compito di spezzare il ritmo. Su “Oto” protagonista indiscusso è Davis che fa vibrare l’ancia del suo clarinetto fino a massacrarla, dipingendo una visione tetra e scura che assume progressivamente i contorni della rassegnazione. A conti fatti si tratta di un presagio che sfocia nell’orrore rumoroso del primo minuto di “Rabid”, che inizia con uno sfogo noise degno del Kevin Drumm più furente salvo poi spegnersi di colpo e fare un salto dalle parti del lussureggiante post-jazz di casa ECM.
La “pausa” dura giusto il tempo di prender fiato, prima che “Spacek” riprenda il cammino mirando stavolta all’oscurità dei sample di Zuydervelt, che duettano con i contrappunti dell’irriconoscibile sax di Davis, lasciando a Fabriek un fondale ridotto all’osso. Qui si consuma anche il legame più stretto con il minimalismo, da sempre fra i terreni preferiti per i lavori di Machinefabriek, in precedenza soltanto accennato e in generale surclassato dalla libertà cercata e trovata nel disco. Il finale a sorpresa di “Replicant” si veste quasi di una tinta sci-fi (il legame del titolo con “Blade Runner” ha indubbiamente il suo perché): otto minuti in cui si assiste prima ad un attacco di droni rumorosi, poi alla replica offerta dal clarinetto, poi ancora ad una tesa sosta di sussurri, alla ripresa delle ostilità e infine a pochi secondi di pace autentica prima del silenzio. Tutto da godersi.
Matteo Meda