The Squid's Ear Magazine


Banabila, Michel: The Unreal Realm (Tapu Records)

A collection of works from Netherlands composer Michel Banabila, including a piece developed with saxophonist Dave Liebman and previously released only digitally; a work with Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek); a work with Pierre Bastien; and excerpts from scores for Yin Yue's choreography in two works: "Somewhere" for New York Live Arts and "Timeless Tide" for BalletMet.
 

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Personnel:



Michel Banabila-composer, performer

Rutger Zuydervelt-electronics

Pierre Bastien-trumpet

David Liebman-soprano saxophone, flute

Mete Erker-tenor saxophone

Salar Asid-Kamancha

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UPC: 198391221033

Label: Tapu Records
Catalog ID: TR2024-1002
Squidco Product Code: 34576

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2024
Country: Netherlands
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
No recording data listed.
Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

Artist Biographies

"Michel Banabila, born 1961, is a sound artist, composer, and producer. Banabila releases music since 1983 and has produced musical scores for numerous films, documentaries, theatre plays and choreographies. He worked / performed in The Netherlands, Poland, Lebanon, UK, South Africa, Russia, Japan, Spain, China, USA and Belgium. Banabila is especially keen on mixing disciplines and music styles, using elements and influences from jazz, electronic music, classical and world music. Therefore there is no particular genre to categorize Banabila's music. In addition to acoustic instrumentation, Banabila uses electronics, field recordings, and snippets from radio, tv and internet. He collaborated with different types of artists like Anton Goudsmit, Erkan Oğur, Hanyo van Oosterom, Holger Czukay, Joshua Samson, Machinefabriek, Mete Erker, Oene van Geel, Radboud Mens, Salar Asid, Sandhya Sanjana, Scanner, Yaşar Saka , Eric Vloeimans, and Zenial, among others.

Besides making albums and musical scores, Banabila works with theatre, dance and visual art on more conceptual artistic projects. He builds a database with samples; uses the city environment as a recording studio, collects fragments of spoken texts, which he composes into soundscapes, audio/visual installations and performances. Using recordings of speech in several languages Banabila experiments with the tonality of words and the "sound system" of languages. Banabila worked on various projects with video artists Geert Mul, Olga Mink, and photographer Gerco de Ruijter. With Geert Mul he has an audiovisual set, Big Data Poetry, which they performed live in venues like The Barbican (London) during the Logan Symposium 2014, Yukunkun (Beirut) during the Global Week For Syria 2014, and TENT (Rotterdam) during Sound Spectrums 2012. With Olga Mink he performed at the LUX Festival (Sevilla), the VAD Festival (Girona) and the State Of The Image Festival (Arnhem) in 2006. For Gerco de Ruijter he did sound design for several stop-frame animations, like the critically acclaimed Crops, shown in the Hirhshorn Museum (2013 / Washington DC) and Ringdijk at Panorama Mesdag (2016 / The Hague)"

-Michel Banabila Website (http://www.banabila.com/biography)
4/25/2026

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Machinefabriek is the alias of Rutger Zuydervelt. Rutger's music combines elements of ambient, noise, minimalism, drone, field recordings and electro-acoustic experiments. His pieces can be heard as an attempt to create sonic environments for the listener to dwell in. Finding tension in texture, tone and timing, the result can be very minimalistic at first glance, but reveals itself upon closer listening. The devil is in the details.

Rutger was born in 1978 in Apeldoorn (The Netherlands) and now resides in Rotterdam. He started recording as Machinefabriek in 2004. After a series of self released cd-rs, his official debut Marijn was issued in 2006, with great critical acclaim. Since than, a solid stream of music was released on labels such as Type, Important, Home Normal, 12K, Entr'acte, Dekorder, Miasmah, Consouling Sounds, Experimedia and Staalplaat. He performed all over the globe, from Canada to Israel and from Russia to Japan.

Rutger collaborated (on record and/or live) with numerous artists, such as Steinbrüchel, Jaap Blonk, Aaron Martin, Peter Broderick, Frans de Waard, Mats Gustafsson, Steve Roden, Gareth Davis, Stephen Vitiello, Michel Banabila, Dirk Serries and Dead Neanderthals, amongst many others.

He frequently works with film makers, like Makino Takashi, Mike Hoolboom, John Price, Paul Clipson and Chris Teerink, for whom he composed a soundtrack for his documentary about Sol LeWitt. Rutger also recorded the music for the Canadian drama The Cold and the Quiet from 2014. Furthermore, his music was used in Edward Burtynsky's Watermark, the drama Stone (with Robert DeNiro and Edward Norton) and Josh Fox' influential Gasland and Gasland Part II documentaries. Besides films, Rutger also composes music for dance pieces, like Alix Eynaudi and Kris Verdonck's EXIT (premiéred at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin), Alexander Whitley's The Measures Taken (for the Royal Opera in London) and Beheld (for Candoco Dance Company), and multiple pieces by Spanish/Dutch choreographer Iván Pérez. Then there's Rutgers installation work, in which the dialogue with the environment plays an important role. He did projects for Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NAi (Dutch Architecture Institute), the new Armando Museum MOA, Sounds Like Audio Art in Saskatoon (Canada), the Into the Great Wide Open Festival, Netwerk in Aalst (Belgium) and children's museum Villa Zebra in Rotterdam."

-Machinefabriek Website (http://www.machinefabriek.nu/about/biography)
4/25/2026

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Pierre Bastien's is a French musician born 1953 who builds his own machineries, at the cross between music and visual art, that blends live trumpet sounds with screen projections of on-site, mechanical sound sculptures in a very poetic way. His work is described as "a timeless sounding orchestra, both futuristic and slightly dada, conjuring ancient traditions in its surprisingly sensuous music."

Bastien has been called a "mad musical scientist with a celebrity following" by The Guardian. Collaborating in the past with filmmaker Pierrick Sorin, fashion designer Issey Miyake, singer and composer Robert Wyatt and Aphex Twin (who released three of his albums on his label Rephlex) to name a few, he is one of the most influential experimental musicians working in the field. In 1986 he formed his own self made one man orchestra, Mecanium and made over 20 records over the years.

-Cafe OTO (https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/artists/pierre-bastien/)
4/25/2026

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"NEA Jazz Master (2011) David Liebman's career has spanned nearly five decades, beginning in the early 1970s as the saxophone/flautist in both the Elvin Jones and Miles Davis Groups, continuing as a bandleader since. He has played on over five hundred recordings with nearly two hundred under his leadership and co-leadership. In jazz education he is a renowned lecturer and author of several milestone books: Self Portrait Of A Jazz Artist, A Chromatic Approach To Jazz Harmony And Melody, Developing A Personal Saxophone Sound (translated into multiple languages), in addition to teaching DVDs, journalistic contributions to periodicals and published chamber music. Lieb's autobiography What It Is-The Life Of A Jazz Artist (Scarecrow Press) is a fascinating look into Lieb's career. His bands over the years have included noted musicians such as John Scofield, Richie Beirach, Bob Moses, Billy Hart and others. The current group Expansions features some of the best of the younger generation. Lieb is the Founder and Artistic Director of the International Association of Schools of Jazz (IASJ) existing since 1989, which is a worldwide network of schools from nearly 40 countries. Liebman's awards, besides the NEA honor include the Jazz Educators Network (JEN) Legends of Jazz (2013); the Order of Arts and Letters (France 2009); Jazz Journalist's award for Soprano Saxophone (2007); Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Solo (1998); Honorary Doctorate from the Sibelius Academy (Finland-1997). He is currently teaching at the Manhattan School of Music and a guest lecturer at Berklee College of Music. Dave has consistently placed in the top positions for Soprano Saxophone in the Downbeat, Jazz Times and JazzEd polls since 1973."

-David Liebman Website (http://davidliebman.com/home/bios/)
4/25/2026

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"Dutch saxophone player Mete Erker is renowned for his rich and warm sound, strong drive, and his very personal style and expressive way of playing: a combination of raw energy and lyricism, at times reminiscent of the great jazz tenors of the '60's.

Throughout the years he's worked with music masters like Peter Erskine, David Liebman, senegalese master drummer Doudou N'Diaye Rose, southafrican jazz legend Winston Mankunku, and russian piano virtuoso Simon Nabatov.

He released 50+ albums and toured the world in a variety of settings, ranging from a modern dance choreography by the hungarian Reka Szabo to popular dutch crossover acts like New Cool Collective and Zuco 103.

Currently Mete Erker is working with his own Mete Erker Trio and his duo with pianist Jeroen van Vliet, the Artvark Saxophone Quartet and dutch-impro-group Estafest."

-Mete Erker Website (http://www.mete.nl/?page_id=28)
4/25/2026

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Salar Asid (born 14 November in Erbil, Iraq), is a professional Kurds violinist and composer who specializes in middle eastern and western classical music. Salar is best known for his musical contributions in over 60 albums, both as a soloist and composer for various artists and orchestras. He has performed live for famous singers, such as Kadim Al Sahir, Assi El Hallani, Majid Al Mohandis, ivan Perwer, and more. He joined the band Oxford Maqam in 2017, and together worked on Walt Disney's Aladdin (2019 film) movie soundtrack and featured in the palace scene of the movie as the musical band in the background. He has also contributed musically to the movies, Son of Babylon and Kavoka Spi.

Asid started playing the violin at an early age. He completed his Bachelor's degree in Music at Fonty's Academy of Music and Performance Arts in the Netherlands where he resided in the past. Salar completed his Master's at the Salahaddin University (Fine arts) in Erbil. He currently resides in London, United Kingdom."

-Wikipedia (https://wikitia.com/wiki/Salar_Asid)
4/25/2026

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:
Related Categories of Interest:


Cassettes
Electro-Acoustic
Compositional Forms
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Soundtracks, Movie Scores, &c.
Electronica
Solo Artist Recordings
Duo Recordings
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