In spring 2003 steinbrüchel received an invitation from the Swiss music festival „Taktlos“ in Berne to contribute a track for their listening room equipped with a surround 5.1 sound system. During the two-day festival in November 2003 steinbrüchel’s track entitled „opaque” was played back in cycle mode (among tracks from various other artists). The listening room focused on the experience of being able to listen to music in a very quiet and large environment – unlikely to most home listening situations. Additionally the possibility of working in surround gave the musicians a chance to create very special audio sculptures in the space.
The track „opaque“ by steinbrüchel and five remixes is being released by the Australian label room40. The remixes were created by the internationally well known artists Oren Ambarchi (AUS), Taylor Deupree (US), Frost (AUS), Toshiya Tsunoda (JP) and Chris Abrahams (NZ). Each of the contributing artists was chosen for his unique working method (Oren for his work with guitar, Taylor for processed sounds, Frost guitar feedback, Toshiya for field recordings and Chris for piano). To make the remixes more varied and special, each artist received only three samples/soundfiles from the original track, but none of the artists have received the same samples or even have heard the original „opaque“ track by steinbrüchel before the release of the CD.
