Machinefabriek & Anne Bakker — Short Scenes
Bakker is a singer/songwriter, violinist and viola player who has worked with a number of different projects over the years including working as part of an acoustic trio with former Iron Maiden vocalist Blaze Bayley and guitarist Thomas Zwijsen. Anyway, I’m digressing, several of Bakker’s unused recordings from the soundtrack session got under the skin of Zuydervelt, who decided they were far too good to go unused and so he took those recordings and began moulding them into new tracks – short pieces reminiscent of movie cues. The finished album consists of twenty tracks the majority of which come in at under two minutes in length each and are labelled appropriately from Scene 1 to 20.
Bakker’s violin recordings form the basis of all of the tracks featured on Short Scenes, twenty short songs that resemble the cues from movie soundtracks. Bakker’s emotive playing gives the whole thing a neo-classical flavour, whilst Zuydervelt simply and cleverly constructs the electronic backing tracks to fit around the musical centrepiece that is Bakker’s violin. Bakker’s playing is beautiful and very emotive, and I’m so pleased that Zuydervelt has been so respectful to Bakker’s work that he has allowed it to take centre stage. What he does is to accent it perfectly, his ambient electronics are the perfect accompaniment to Bakker’s violin, there is nothing too invasive or overblown they just add that little extra something. Subtlety is the key here and it is used to great effect.
As mentioned earlier the tracks are labelled from Scene 1 to 20, and this feels most appropriate as the whole album naturally feels like a movie soundtrack, each track evoking different emotions from the listener from great joy and positivity to melancholy and sadness.
Overall, Short Scenes feels like a soundtrack waiting for a film to fit around it. Beautiful, thought provoking music that is a joy to dive into and just swim around in. My only criticism and it is a minor quibble, is that at times it feels like certain tracks are just hitting their stride when they end, however the overlying experience is a positive one as the album provides a very pleasant listening experience. Perhaps one day a film maker will undertake the challenge of constructing a film around this album. It would certainly be a fascinating approach to film making.