On the new album 7 Runs (In Arc Mental Styling), Max Eilbacher juggles a series of electronic tones, carefully sculpted and spaced to form what the Berlin-based composer describes as “a structural mirage made from constant movement.” Following a conceptual compositional algorithm, Eilbacher’s effervescent, repetitive digitally constructed electronic tones seem to endlessly rise across two side-long climbs that bend and twist like a barber pole. It’s a quality extenuated by a series of diagrams included in the release that map the arcs, arches, and columns created by this sonic shadowplay. As tones and repeating patterns layer and imperceptibly shift in the moment, the music seems to grow more solid and spectral all at once. Eilbacher may explain the “movement” of his illusory structures and even show his work, yet we are still left in awe at the seamless magic that is generated. A debut release on OMA, a new label co-founded by Eilbacher and his bandmates in Horse Lords, 7 Runs makes for a bemusing and breathtaking liftoff. -- Miles Bowe 2025

A. 7 Runs (in arc mental styling)

Recorded March - April 2024 in the USA tour van and Berlin DE

A compositional structure built entirely from constant movement creates the illusion of a stable architecture. Within this contained structural mirage, an array of sounds seep through, wrapping, camouflaging, and revealing their compositional scaffoldings, conjured up from a simple method of counting. By placing these simple counters alongside one another, different structural configurations are formed. In the fashion of Siah Armanjni’s miniature models, where a plethora of staircases reveal the architectural surface as both bidirectionally mobile and at a standstill, “7 runs” achieves a status of motionlessness through constant repetition. Is descending a ladder to nowhere the same as sitting? Are 7 pulses equally partitioned through time, no longer a discrete measure of time?

B. The Third Part of the Night

Recorded April-June 2024 Berlin DE Violin by Henry Birdsey

A piece for piano, violin, and metal percussion, all realized through digital synthesis (with the exception of H. Birdsey’s violin textures, used to approximate a digital synthesizer noise I enjoy). This work represents a digital amalgamation of synthetic materials, spanning from copper-wound strings to cylindrical-shaped rocks. At the heart of The Third Part of the Night lies a digitally rendered choreography, where three hands slam microphones against precise nodal points on piano wire. These digital hands serve as compositional elements, moving in a deliberate dance to create a sense of “music.” Their movement generates sounds that evoke objects and substances striving to escape their own essence. Attacks and meters act as sculptors, shaping the real into the digital and the digital into an uncanny yet almost tangible reality.