Reinhold Friedl

The commitment to presence by a listener/viewer continues to be a question that must be the elephant in the room for any composer living in this age of ADD-inspired sound bites. Friedl's uncompromising vision has brought us the Zeitkratzer ensemble's acoustic version of feedback odyssey Metal Machine Music and with this acoustic tribute to Xenakis's compositions for tape he pushes the boundaries to the extremes. The piece is 54 minutes of sustained washes of drones, high frequency arco, throbbing industrial bottom and highly accurate interpretations of the music of magnetic tape hissing across playback heads. The question remains as to the commitment to presence by the listener but this has been somewhat addressed by the inclusion of a DVD of some amazing abstract imagery by video artist Lillevan, which is synced to the audio track. This, in particular, presents a very sympathetic, hypnotic and highly rewarding experience, one that shouldn't be missed.