new Elektronengehirn album Hardware

Elektronengehirn released a new album Hardware on block 4, as download and first time for Elektronengehirn since the 2001 album e/a, in physical form as CD, as hardware.

Malte Steiner initiated Elektronengehirn in 1996 as an experiment to create music exclusively using software-based sound synthesis. Elektronengehirn is an old-school term from the 60s for computers, when they were referred to as electronic brains. What sounds trivial today was, back then, a pretty radical idea, especially when one lacked access to the computational resources of institutions like universities. Computer sound synthesis for the masses was in its infancy, and not much was possible in real time. Initially, Steiner used Csound in non-real-time mode to create complex soundscapes. Later, with more powerful computers, he also employed Pure Data and Max/MSP, which both run strictly in real time.

Meanwhile, block 4 studio added more and more hardware, like the ever-growing Eurorack Modular system since 2002. It became silly to ignore all the equipment and not incorporate it into the electro-acoustic world of Elektronengehirn. With the album 'Hardware,' it was time to break with the original concept and combine all the possibilities: software and hardware, digital and analog, virtual and physical.