Belgian musicians dudal (Dauw) and Adriaan de Roover unveil Pivot Rotations, out November 21 on Viernulvier Records. The album captures two years (2021–2022) of tape-loop explorations, weaving together fragments from live performances in Ghent, Brussels, and Eupen’s Meakusma Festival into one slowly turning constellation. At its heart, Pivot Rotations is about movement and return: constellations revolving like a mobile, blocks of sound circling on their axis, clocks whose hands fold back into themselves. Layers of tape loops glide past each other, creating a measured calm that invites meditative stillness while holding subtle tension — a quiet pull that draws the listener forward.
Recorded live and later assembled as a continuous sound collage, the pieces carry the grain of their making: worn tapes with sun-bleached grit, accidental bleed from earlier forgotten recordings, the soft roar of room air, and the crackling, creaking bodies of the machines themselves. Working with tape machines older than themselves, including one with a slightly off-speed running motor,, the duo embraced imperfection as material. Loops are mounted on stands, adjusted by hand, and allowed to drift, transforming the process into a meticulous, almost artisanal craft — a performative act where control meets surrender. This physical, performative practice shapes the album’s pacing: changes arrive with patience, textures overlap, and patterns hover between calm and unrest. Found sounds, the warm, coppery voice of a euphonium, and hushed electronics flicker through a field of magnetic tape hiss, forming constellations that gradually rotate and dissolve.
With Pivot Rotations, dudal & Adriaan de Roover present more than a document of performance — it is a patient study of time, texture, and chance. In the spirit of William Basinski, Cristina Vantzou, and the early works of Tim Hecker, the album opens a space where loops breathe, collide, and subtly reconfigure, revealing new contours with each turn. The album artwork features a picture by visual artist Jelle Martens, inspired by patterns found in daily life, and resonates with the album’s tactile, evolving sonic textures.
