pivot rotations is the sound of dust imagining what it’s like to be alive. Belgian musicians Pieter Dudal and Adriaan de Roover work with tape loops the way some people work with prayer beads, returning to the same fragments until they reveal something beyond themselves. Over two years of performances, they captured moments on magnetic tape, letting machines with off-speed motors and decades of wear become co-composers. The melodies are ghosts. Dudal and de Roover find magic in texture, solace in decay, and deterioration.
Aural fragments rotate like a mobile, catching light differently each time they pass. The euphonium breathes through layers of hiss, found sounds flicker and vanish, and everything moves with the patience of someone watching clouds. These aren’t static compositions but living systems, constellations where each element stays in gentle orbit around the others. Glimpses of patterns appear before they dissolve, brief and beautiful, then gone.
pivot rotations will be released tomorrow, November 21, by VIERNULVIER Records.
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I’d love to hear about your earliest memory of sound that felt significant to you. Not necessarily music, but a sound that stayed with you, that you kept returning to in your mind. What was it about that particular sound?
Adriaan: I don’t trust my memory here, as I notice my mind is looking for a fairytale answer, so, to be honest, I don’t know.
Pieter: I guess there’s a huge archive of significant noises and sounds at the subconscious level, but I wasn’t able to unlock that one yet. Giving it a try, I’d say the sounds of the games at the football stadium close to where I grew up still resonate with me. A whistle, “you’ll never walk alone”, a touch on the ball… There’s joy and happiness, but also sadness and anger that I still link with these sounds when I was growing up.
Adriaan, when did you first understand that you wanted to make music rather than just listen to it? Was there a specific moment or piece that made you think, “I need to figure out how to do this”?
Adriaan: I was always in music school, but I feel a weird disconnection to it. I don’t feel like I was making music; I feel like I was going to school. I have no memories of being enthusiastic or inspired about it. It only happened when I was 15 and started discovering electronic music through my brother, and looking up to what he was into, and exploring more; it stuck with me. I remember totally idolising Justice, Boys Noize, then also drum n bass, High Contrast was another obsession. Anyway, at some point, I bought my first DJ gear from someone (Nick! <3) from the boy scouts that I was in, and he taught me how to mix records. A bit later, through a second-hand website, I found someone in my village who was selling records, and I went to his place. When I was there, Joris, the seller, also had music software open on his computer and not only decided to show me, but also decided to help me install it and guide me through it. Pretty soon after that, I wanted to study music production. I heard that there was a school where you could study it, and I was lucky enough that my parents were supportive about that.
Pieter, you run Dauw, which has this particular sensibility around patience and texture. How did you first start composing? What were you working with in those early days, and what were you trying to express that you couldn’t find elsewhere?
Pieter: I come from a guitar background, and my first experience with my own music was with guitars and pedals. At that point, it was definitely not about composing. It was more about exploring what I could do with a guitar in terms of sounds. It resulted in an album, but it didn’t really express anything.
The next album, can you say it again? felt like I actually composed music in response to a certain state of mind and difficulties I was facing then. On that album, I expanded my instrumentarium to piano, synths, found sounds, and tape, and actually found a way I could translate ideas into compositions.
You’re working with tape machines older than you are. There’s something almost devotional about that. What drew you to this specific medium? I’m curious about the first time you put your hands on one of these machines and realized this was the language you wanted to speak.
Adriaan: I have to thank Pieter for inviting me to work with him and his music machines, because I had no experience of properly working with tape machines and approaching them as the instrument itself. What I really like is the slow pace. When you think ‘I want to record a melody’, you first find yourself puttering with scissors and scotch tape. And then you record something, and if it’s not good, you have to erase it, start again, listen carefully, is there magic inside or not? It just goes so slowly. It feels in sync with how my brain works. And you can only listen, trust your ears, as there’s no computer screen putting an image to what you hear.
Pieter: Yes, I totally second that remark on slowness. I’m a very patient person, and the machines allow you to be so, too. There’s also something to say about the randomness and unpredictability of them. For instance, if you use found (and often used) tapes instead of new ones, you’ll never know beforehand if and how you can use them: is there still something to hear? How’s the noise ratio? How’s it going to respond to my music?
Maybe for other people this would be too risky or time-consuming, but I like that this process already makes decisions (or at least gives some options) for me. It’s also about accepting the material world in your direct environment. I guess this basic idea or principle can be applied to life in general for me.
Adriaan, one of your machines has a slightly off-speed motor, which most people would consider a flaw. But you’ve kept it, worked with it. Can you talk about when you realized that imperfection was actually material you could build with, not something to fix?
Adriaan: Mmm, yes, well, people also consider a hole in your clothes a flaw unless it’s fashion, which I find super confusing. With the tapes, you have to work with what you have. Does it resonate or not? If not, you abandon the full recording. There’s an incredible amount of pops and hiss all over the record, which, in many cases, could be considered as flaws, but I feel the mechanics of the tape recorders, bad quality magnetic tape, are as much part of the ensemble as Pieter and me.
The album pulls from two years of performances across different spaces. When you were assembling this continuous collage, how did you know which fragments belonged together? What were you listening for?
Adriaan: It feels like it became clear quite quickly. It’s also connected to the feeling that sticks with us after performances. I still have warm memories from the moments that ended up on the record.
I love this idea of “constellations revolving like a mobile.” That suggests something where all the elements are in constant relation to each other, but the whole thing stays balanced. How conscious was that structure going in, versus something you discovered through the process?
Adriaan: A friend of mine, Willem Schonenberg, makes mobiles, and I’ve been intrigued with his work. He once gave me a mobile for my birthday, and I’ve spent quite some time watching its movements from my bed. Just like a clock, it feels like another valid representation of time. And so do the different tape loops, with different lengths constantly moving over each other. Slowly, while Pieter and I were finishing the record, we started connecting the two.
Pieter: All pieces on the album were created as separate pieces initially. However, when we were rehearsing for the live shows, it was already clear that these were interrelated and could be connected in multiple ways. The visual representation of a mobile perfectly matched this vision and feeling.
Pieter, there’s this mention in the album description about the “soft roar of room air” and “the crackling, creaking bodies of the machines themselves” as part of the sonic texture. At what point did you decide those weren’t things to minimize or edit out, but rather essential voices in the piece?
Pieter: I think this was never really a question! It was just there, and its place on the record felt like a natural one. At no point did we discuss – or sometimes even notice – the presence of these sounds. Again, it was about accepting what was recorded on the tape loop. Giving it opportunities rather than hiding it.
“Control meets surrender” is a phrase in the description that caught me. In performance, when you’re working with these loops, adjusting by hand, letting things drift, what does surrender actually feel like for you? How do you know when to intervene and when to let the system do its thing?
Adriaan: Maybe surrender means listening first, instead of playing first.
Pieter: Surrender feels like slowness and giving breath to a minimal set of tapeloops. Intervening here is almost a risky thing, as most pieces on the album consist of only a few tape loops. After a while, you feel like it’s time for a change, both in the choices of loops or the way we’re processing them. Again, these changes felt quite natural. We didn’t have to force or overthink any of these loops. There’s always something happening (small changes, lost frequencies…) which doesn’t make it too boring, I think. The material doesn’t need a lot of interventions.
The Meakusma performance is part of this album. What’s different about creating these pieces live, with an audience present, versus in a studio? Does that change how you listen, how you make decisions?
Adriaan: I think that most of the time we spent was about recording sounds on the loops. And looking for the right combinations and sequence of things. Which we then rehearsed and locked in a way. The live performance is a bit like dj’ing with those loops, but replacing the loops, manipulating those, not creating chaos, requires focus, concentrated, and slow listening. With the latter, there’s no difference between us and the audience, and it’s wonderful to get in this mode with a group of people in one room, find a shared rhythm.
The artwork by Jelle Martens draws from patterns in daily life. What was it about his approach that felt like it belonged with this music? Did the image change how you heard the album, or did it confirm something you already knew was there?
Adriaan: For me, it gives a different, extra colour to the sound.
Pieter: Ha, interesting response, Adriaan. For me, it confirms more than it adds, and I would describe it as a decayed De Stijl piece. The rotating patterns in the artwork are closely related to the way we envisioned the album, in line with the mobile reference. Also, the decayed background is very much connected to the tapeloops we’ve been using. I feel like this visual work connects all aspects of the music nicely.
Now that this document of two years exists as a fixed object, has it changed how you think about the next live performance? Will you return to any of this material, or does it feel complete?
Adriaan: I’ve been walking around with the same questions. Our first concert is in February, so we still have a bit of time to chew on it.
Pieter: Yes, I think so. The record is out, and it’s fun to play it again live to promote the album, but I’m also eager to explore new paths together with Adriaan.
And lastly, to close as always… What are some of your favorite sounds in the world?
Adriaan: When I can also mute them, I love the sound of electricity, squeaky bleepy digital noises, harsh things, but outside of my studio: the voices from the people that I love, wind, flutes, choirs, crackles, animals, forests, music, …
Pieter: It must be the sounds I’m hearing from the outside of my studio/office where I work every day. I recently moved into a bit busier area of the city and I’m finally reunited with the sounds of public transport, traffic works, schools, etc. It gives me a feeling of comfort that I’m just here at home while everyone else is in flux.
Foxy Digitalis depends on our awesome readers to keep things rolling. Pledge your support today via our Patreon or subscribe to The Jewel Garden. You can also make a one-time donation via Ko-fi.
