Open by spruit

The overall overload of input and the short attention span we culture
Little things we overlook or neglect
This work is about both
By endlessly reworking the sounds only the energy and essence remain
Microscopically created cut-and-past compositions that are quite frantic/fast and precent
And still I’ve tried to keep things open


Headphones or a good Hifi-set strongly advised.


What is better than an artist returning after a long hiatus? An artist returning after a long hiatus with their best work to date. That’s what. This is exactly what is happening with Marc Spruit. After releasing ‘Juxtapose’ and ‘Small Bit of Indigenous Space Between the Grains’ in 2013 and 2014 respectively Spruit’s musical solo output when quiet. In 2019 he returned with ‘Pure Fragmentations’. This was followed by the ‘Collapse EP’ earlier this year. He has now released his second album ‘Open’. This is an album that feels twitchy and paranoid but also very, well, open and tender. It is the strongest collection of songs Spruit has released to date. On top of this, it is also a very playable album too.
After a barrage of glitches ‘Open-01’ settles down and creates a static soundscape unlike much else I’ve heard this year. ‘Open’ was conceived around the idea that we are living in a period of time where we are being bombarded with information. Be that 24-hour rolling news cycles, cultural ephemera and as individuals, we seem to be constantly braying into the void on social media. Spruit also believes that we are also suffering from short attention spans too. Because of these two factors, we’re neglecting a lot of stuff while being oversaturated by others. It’s an interesting concept and one that he tries to understand on this album.
Spruit has created one of those rare albums that it doesn’t matter where you begin. There is no real start, or end, point. After playing the album on loop for a while I decided to try it on shuffle, like the classic Gescom release, to see if the tracks work as well out of sequence. And they do. Each track is its own contained vignette. But when they are played back-to-back, then you start to notice motifs recurring throughout and it becomes something greater. Whilst listening to ‘Open’ is starting to feel like a musical version of when you’ve been awake too long and have too much to do. There is a hallucinatory vibe to it. After repeat listens you start to imagine things going on that aren’t actually there and what is there make your question your ability to discern reality. And this is its biggest virtue. The album works best on headphones as you can really hear all the subtle changes Spruit is making to these cut-and-paste compositions. This is an album made by someone who hit that sweet spot of knowing what they want to do and being able to do it. Vital Weekly/Nick Roseblade.

I am an Dutch sounds artist.
my work is all about destroying acoustic and digital sounds into cut-up compositions, which I then use for improvising.

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