-m a k- cd
fotos: claudia märzendorfer
  http://ampersandetc.virtualave.net/ampersand.html

Another in the 10-in-a-year series of 32 disks from this mysterious Austrian ensembles (see 305 and 2001_14, and 2001_05 for their Material disk), this one recorded in Vienna. In one part of the festival the Austrian Military Orchestra or the Goldberg Quartet played - a live take was piped through to the Thilges room where they messed around with it. A political motive is outlined in the PR - suggesting that for Austrian artists the landscape has changed with the recent right wing government, even if only conceptually, and that they were looking for an ironic relationship with the military band. They also talk about the malesness of techno, but the how this relates to that I am not sure.
There are three tracks. The first opens with audience noises and the Orchestra warming up before short clicking pulses of typical Viennese music (think Strauss new year concert etc) between whooshwoosh electrofluff, until about halfway when the audience applauses. Another fractured period ensues, crackling noises and almost identifiable fragments into a breakdown. The next track is an almost straight seeming recording of the string quartet, apparently playing a piece by Ali Schindloffsky, which is a mellow piece, but with the suggestion of light hums and buzzing environmental noises building behind it. The audience applause ends the track. A puttering and pulse are the base for some spedup extracts of the songs in a quite bright piece of techno begins the third track. Ambient noises lead to a small noise explosion, a slight pause, and then a return of music (William Tell is in there), whizz synths, clicks and drones to the end. As with their other 32ers, a nicely constructed piece that uses its time well, and works in a different way to the previous ones. A series well worth following.