SPEX
V.A. "pop ambient 2008"
CD (Kompakt, Germany, 2007)

"Klimek lässt in »The Ice Storm« Streicher und Sirenen raumfüllend wehklagen und könnte damit zarte und traurige Seelen an den Rand der Ohnmacht bringen – oder sich mal von Burial remixen lassen."

FLAGPOLE
V.A. "pop ambient 2008"
CD (Kompakt, Germany, 2007)

"Klimek underwhelms a bit with his sappy "The Ice Storm," which relies too much on canned strings."

OTHER MUSIC
V.A. "pop ambient 2008"
CD (Kompakt, Germany, 2007)

"Album standout, Klimek's "The Ice Storm" is probably the most cinematic five minutes of Pop Ambient 2008, with watery string swells ebbing and flowing like the cycle of a tide on a full moon night. (Earlier this week, my iPod shuffled to a choral piece by Arvo Part right after the Klimek track, and the hairs on my arm literally stood on end. It was one of those moments where two seemingly different styles and cultures of music flowed perfectly, and eerily into each other.)"

BOOMKAT
V.A. "pop ambient 2008"
CD (Kompakt, Germany, 2007)

"Possibly best of all is Klimek's magnificent 'The Ice Storm' which achieves the kind of electronic/orchestral ambience you might find on a Marsen Jules or Deaf Center release."

GROOVES MAG
V.A. "pop ambient 2007"
CD (Kompakt, Germany, 2006)

"Klimek’s “Ruined in a Day (Buenos Aires)” is driven by a reverb-heavy acoustic guitar chime that puts a completely different structural and textural emphasis on the track, to the extent that you could believe it to be the work of David Pajo or early Tortoise."

Kiran Sande

TEXTURA
V.A. "pop ambient 2007"
CD (Kompakt, Germany, 2006)

DEERHUNTER on KLIMEK´s "Ruined In A Day (Buenos Aires)"

"It's really melancholy; it doesn't really rely on any beats or anything constant. It just works for me. I don't really know what makes certain types of ambient music like that stick out to me, and some of it is just kind of forgettable. But it's a pretty memorable song; it's really evocative of-- it's kind of desert-like actually."

PITCHFORK
V.A. "pop ambient 2007"
CD (Kompakt, Germany, 2006)

"Klimek's “Ruined in a Day (Buenos Aires)” is a decent example of shuddering guitar ambiance but it's wholly indistinguishable from the pieces on the Milk & Honey and Music to Fall Asleep full-lengths (in Sebastian Meissner's defense, the same criticism could be levied against Gas and Marsen Jules too)."

ANOTHER BIG RIOT
V.A. "pop ambient 2007"
CD (Kompakt, Germany, 2006)

"klimek contributed the lovely "ruined in a day" for the new pop ambient, which i can't stop talking about and listening to. i burned out on it briefly, but i'm back."

POP MATTERS
V.A. "pop ambient 2007"
CD (Kompakt, Germany, 2006)

"Meanwhile Klimek offers a bit of a surprise with the plaintive “Ruined in a Day (Buenos Aires)”. Music to Fall Asleep To, the act’s 2006 LP, lived a bit too well up to its name, but this piece sounds verdant and vibrant, with strands of spliced guitar and piano echoing ad infinitum in a way that would make Fennesz grin."

SONOMU
MEISSNER / SLAVIN / SACHS "into the void"
CD (Sub Rosa, Belgium, 2006)

"Sebastian Meissner is of mixed Polish-German ancestry. Thus during the Second World War, in his own words, "One part was fighting for Nazi Germany, the other part persecuted by the Nazis". As a man and an artist, he grew to need to know what happened to the survivors of the Holocaust. His visits to Israel on this mission led to an unexpected detour; he found himself inexorably drawn into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, needing to know about that, too. As a result, he created "Jersualem: Tales Outside the Framework of Orthodoxy" and "Walking in Jerusalem" under the monicker Random Inc., and the masterful audio/video set "Intifada Offspring" (Mille Plateaux Media), which features music (mixed and manipulated by Meissner, for this calling himself "Bizz Circuits") and film by dozens of radical Israeli artists. Hope is thin, but still alive, that a similar set featuring input by like-minded Palestinians is in the offing.

Back on his original trek, together with Ran Slavin and Eran Sachs, two of the multimedia artists he met in Israel, he created an installation reflecting on the history of the 700-year-old Jewish quarter of Crackow and recent occurrences which include visible attempts to "reanimate" Jewish culture there. While this is encouraging, it also highlights the fact that local, organic, real Jewish life is only conspicuous through its absence. Each summer, thousands of visitors throng to Crackow´s annual festival of Jewish culture, while the streets of the old ghetto remain abandoned throughout the rest of the year.

It is in these empty streets - the concrete aspect of the "void" in the present CD´s title - that Meissner collected field recordings during his visit in February 2003. His eleven-piece suite opens with a female guide instructing him on the history of the quarter, and although some voices do recur to make plain the fact that the culture has perished, Meissner deftly conveys both the spirit of the past and the (im)possibility of reviving it with his deftly manipulated and multivaried source material, ranging from field and archival recordings to contemporary New York Jewish avantgardists Frank London and Raz Mesinai.

Perhaps his ultimate gesture is quoting the score to "Schindler´s List", referring to the fact that Spielberg´s film, felt by much of its audience to be such an authentic relic of the Nazi extermination of the Jews, has led to the place becoming a site of pilgrimage - again, "virtual reality" standing in for real reality.

Having accompanied Meissner to Poland that winter, Slavin and Sachs are also occasionally sampled. They have also both contributed their own impressions, in the form of Slavin´s desolate "Segments from the Snow" and Sachs´ briefer "Memory Gaps"

Stephen Fruitman

ALL MUSIC
MEISSNER / SLAVIN / SACHS "into the void"
CD (Sub Rosa, Belgium, 2006)

"In February 2003, Sebastian Meissner (aka Random Inc), Ran Slavin and Eran Sachs visited Krakow, Poland to make some field recordings. They focused mostly on the districts of Nowa Huta, an abandoned industrial area, and Kazimiers, the 700-year-old Jewish district of the city decimated by the Nazis. No need to say that these locations are rich in historical and cultural heritage. For Into the Void, each artist produced his own work. Meissner's "Into the Void" gives the CD its title and deserves it. It is the strongest piece of the set, a true 35-minute "cinema for the ear." Using field recordings from Kazimiers (footsteps in the snow and conversations, among many other sounds) and samples of Jewish music or music by Jews (Itzhak Perlman playing "Stolen Memories," for instance), Meissner evokes, tells, and reflects on the hardships he found etched in the buildings. An acute sense of spatial composition and narrative structure the work and draw the listener into a captivating aural tale. "Into the Void" is Meissner's most mature and accomplished work to date. In comparison, Ran Slavin's "Segments From the Snow" (30 minutes) is somewhat cold and abstract. Slavin chose to focus on Nowa Huta, which translates into a more metallic sound palette and larger, emptier spaces. The human element that makes Meissner's piece so attractive and moving is lacking here. "Segments From the Snow" contains a fair amount of interesting twists and clever compositional processes, but it covers little new ground. Eran Sachs contributes the two-part, 15-minute "Memory Gaps" marks a return to the Kazimierz district. More electronic-sounding than Meissner's concrete music-like piece, "Memory Gaps," despite its clarinet samples, is the work farthest removed from the real-life Krakow, yet, paradoxically, it feels more in touch with the human element of the city than Slavin's piece. The clarinet transformations in "Crackle" (the second part) are particularly imaginative and gripping."

François Couture

ORF
MEISSNER / SLAVIN / SACHS "into the void"
CD (Sub Rosa, Belgium, 2006)

Spurensuche im jüdischen Krakau

"Bereits seit vielen Jahren beschäftigt sich der Multimediakünstler und Musiker Sebastian Meissner mit dem Holocaust, dem Judentum und dem israelisch palästinensischen Konflikt, eine Arbeit, die sich in den letzten Jahren in einer Reihe von CD-Veröffentlichungen, Soundinstallationen und vor zwei Jahren in dem CD- und DVD-Projekt "Intifada Offspring" manifestierte, zu dem begleitend damals auch eine Internetseite erschienen ist. Ziel von "Intifada Offspring" war es eine Plattform zu schaffen, für Künstlerinnen und Künstler aus Israel, Palästina und anderen geographischen Regionen, die ihr Schaffen der Dekonstruktion des so genannten Nahostkonfliktes widmen. Meissner hat hier wichtige Pionierarbeit geleistet.

In der Leere:
Ein Projekt, das bereits im Jahr 2003 stattgefunden hat und von dem nun unlängst auf Sub Rosa eine CD-Dokumentation erschienen ist, ist "Into the Void". Die im CD-Titel angesprochene Leere bezieht sich auf jenes Vakuum, das sich angesichts der Wiederbelebung des jüdischen Viertels Kazimierz in Krakau auftut, die vornehmlich auf eine ökonomische Nutzbarmachung der Geschichte von Krakaus jüdischer Bevölkerung setzt, ohne sich dabei auch gleichzeitig der nötigen Vergangenheitsbewältigung zu stellen, wie Sebastian Meissner kritisiert.

Der Vergangenheit auf der Spur:
Seinen Ausgangspunkt nahm das Projekt "Into the Void" im Februar 2003. Ausgerüstet mit dem entsprechenden technischen Gerät haben sich Sebastian Meissner und die beiden befreundeten israelischen Musiker Ran Slavin und Eran Sachs in Krakau auf Spurensuche begeben, um die Stimmung in dem 700 Jahre alten jüdischen Bezirk Kazimierz einzufangen. Slavin verschlug es nach Nova Huta, in die mächtige Wohnstadt am Rande Krakaus, die während der ersten Blütephase des Kommunismus für die Arbeiterinnen und Arbeiter der Tadeusz Sendimir Stahlwerke aus dem Boden gestampft worden war.
Die damals entstandenen Audio- und Videoaufnahmen haben Meissner, Sachs und Slavin schließlich im Zuge einer gemeinsamen Performance im Juni 2003 im Krakauer Club Krowoderska 52 und dann später nochmals als vierkanalige Soundinstallation im Zentrum für jüdische Kultur im Rahmen der dreizehnten Ausgabe des Krakauer Festivals für jüdische Kultur präsentiert.

Film für die Ohren:
Die unlängst erschienene CD "Into the Void" basiert auf dem Mitschnitt der Performance im Club Krowoderska 52, wobei die drei Musiker hier nun hintereinander auftreten, mit aus den Konzertaufnahmen für das CD Projekt eigens komponierten Stücken, beziehungsweise Audiofilmen. Wie in einem Anflug von Erinnerung scheint sich die spürbare Leere am Anfang des Stückes von Sebastian Meissner, das auch gleichzeitig das erste Stück auf der CD ist, langsam aber beständig mit Geschichten aus der Vergangenheit zu füllen, mit gebrochenen Geschichten, die nur mehr in Fragmenten vorhanden scheinen.
Als Basismaterial für seine Komposition dienten Meissner neben den aufgenommenen Fieldrecordings unter anderem auch Stücke von diversen jüdischen Musikerinnen und Musikern, entnommen dem Archiv des Krakauer Festivals für jüdische Kultur.
Auch Eran Sachs präsentiert in seinem Beitrag zur CD "Into the Void" traditionelle jüdische Musik im Spiegel der Gegenwart.

Endlose Weiten:
Ran Slavins Komposition "segments from the snow" lässt demgegenüber an die scheinbar endlosen Weiten der Plattenbausiedlungen in Nova Huta denken und an den gescheiterten kommunistischen Traum vom gleichen Wohlstand für alle, der nicht zuletzt ebenfalls auf die Kosten der jüdischen Bevölkerung Polens ging, welcher wiederholt nahe gelegt worden war, das Land zu verlassen.

Wider den Ausverkauf:
Die in Kazimierz dargebotene Kultur dürfe nicht lediglich auf die Geschmäcker und Erwartungen jüdisch amerikanischer Touristen zugeschnitten werden, schreibt Ireneusz Socha im Booklet zu der CD "Into the Void". Kazimierz dürfe nicht zu einem jüdischen Themenpark oder zu Krakaus größtem Bierlokal verkommen. Stattdessen sollte Kazimierz zu einem Ort der Präsentation für neue jüdische Kunst und Kultur werden, so Socha.

Eine Mahnung, die sich wohl auch noch andere ehemals kommunistische Städte Europas zu Herzen nehmen sollten, man denke etwa an die Wiederbelebung des jüdischen Viertels in Prag.

[Susanna Niedermayr]

DEMBNITZER
MEISSNER / SLAVIN / SACHS "into the void"
CD (Sub Rosa, Belgium, 2006)

"... a courageous and good choice was to invite the german composer of electronic music sebastian meissner. i see this choice as an anouncement of change (at the FESTIVAL for JEWISH CULTURE) from the formula of "preservation of memorials" into what´s modern in jewish culture."
(...)
"the multi-media installation by meissner presence/absence:::into the void - created with the help of two israeli artists Ran Slavin (video projections) and Eran Sachs (audio projections), who´s family roots are connected with Poland - is a personal refelction upon the recent changes in kazimierz. an attempt most successful and most interesting at this years festival. it has an character of a critical meditation upon the space of the krakowian neighbourhood, which - in his opinion - remainds more of a movie scenery than of a place filled with authentic, jewish every-day-life. meissner used fieldrecordings of kazimierz done during winter: a time when the crakowian jewish neighbourhood - compared with the over-acive summertime - is asleep. the atmosphere of absence and chill evoced by foggy and slowly fading images of wintertime streets in kazimierz and the mysterious transformed electronic sounds were supported by the symbolic usage of young vineyard plants and frozen grapes at the galery of the CENTER for JEWISH CULTURE. this is a reference to diana pinto´s essey, which was quoted at the exhibition:..."
(...)
"Today however, the surviving members of the past are coming back to life in Europe itself, fanned by the winds of pluralist democracy and by the healing powers of history and with the help of American Jewish institutions. The comparison that comes to mind is with the California vines that were sent back to Europe after the phyloxera epidemic of the 1870's had destroyed Europe's most prestigious vineyards, so as to bring them back to life. The California vineyards had of course originally come themselves from Europe. European Judaism will be the product of a similar grafting. Of course Jewish life in Europe can only have a future if it is rooted in Europe itself and if it confronts its own very special challenges".
(...)
"Diana Pinto´s thoughts and meissner´s installation are pointing out three main problems of the rebirth of european jewish life: 1. the need of implementing plural ideas of the outside world through the traditional and hierarchical judaism, 2. the need of choice of a appropriate attitute towards the multi-cultural surrounding of modern europe and 3. the need of chosing the apropriate reactions to the evocation of the so called "jewish space" in europe, which is mostly initiated, animated, populated and administrated by non-jews."
(...)
"according to Pinto´s and Meissner´s symbolism one can say, that the organisators of the FESTIVAL of JEWISH CULTURE are limiting themself to "thawing the grapes". Nostaligic returns to the past are not enough. What the festival - as concepted by Michael Albert and Janusz Makucha - is needing, is a fresh view from the outside. The changes in life of european jews need to be shown in vast presentation of modern jewish artists (preferably from europe itself), who´s voices will sound more natural with hope. kazimierz need not to become a jewish amusment park nor "the best selling beer-pub in krakow". this depends - of course - on local municipal authorities, who together with the FESTIVAL for JEWISH CULTURE should create a program which corresponds more with development of the kazimierz as neighbourhood. Not forgeting about the dark side of jewish past in poland, we need to emphasize toward the modernity of this culture, so the vineyards can bear the fruits."

[Ireneusz Socha]

Rui Eduardo Paes
MEISSNER / SLAVIN / SACHS "into the void"
CD (Sub Rosa, Belgium, 2006)

Sebastian Meissner (mais conhecido por Random Inc), Ran Slavin e Eran Sachs receberam individualmente da Sub Rosa a incumbência de proceder a uma “reflexão aural” sobre as mudanças culturais ocorridas num velho bairro judeu (700 anos!) de Cracóvia, e eis aqui o resultado, num único álbum com diferentes perspectivas sobre o tema. Estamos em território do paisagismo sonoro, não necessariamente identificável com a “ambient music” mas com aspectos em comum, sendo de assinalar a generosa utilização de “found sounds”. Com destaque para Meissner, que nas suas edições pela Mille Plateaux havia já dado mostras do seu especial interesse pela recolha e pelo tratamento dos sons “in situ”, e que em “Into the Void”, título de sua própria lavra, ocupa as 11 primeiras faixas, pelo caminho referenciando os novos conceitos com que se entende a realidade (“Virtual Jewish Space”) ou piscando o olho a investimentos artísticos outros (“Radical Jewish Culture”, em alusão a John Zorn). Na sua contribuição destaca-se muito especialmente o processamento electrónico a que procede de gravações de um grupo klezmer, algo a que a crítica já chamou de “glitchcore”. Slavin, pelo seu lado, volta aos “drones” gelados que lhe ouvimos na portuguesa Crónica, numa incursão em seis partes que ora se perde ora se encontra nos meandros de uma memória feita de impressões sensoriais – o título “Into Krakow on the Night Train / Melting Snow Tracks / Quiet Town” diz, aliás, tudo a esse respeito. Sachs, o menos conhecido do trio de artistas, apenas ocupa 15 minutos do CD, indo dos “field recordings” à electrónica “hardcore”, despertando-nos a vontade de saber o que mais tem feito. Um disco estranho, poderoso e a merecer cinco estrelas.

GAZ-ETA
MEISSNER / SLAVIN / SACHS "into the void"
CD (Sub Rosa, Belgium, 2006)

"Kazimierz is a distinct part of Krakow [Poland] where for hundreds of years Jewish culture co-existed with Polish. After the exterminations during World War II, Kazimierz was left by the wayside and became a ghost-town of sorts. Three composers came together to re-examine Kazimierz of today. How can an area of town so full of promising cultural events geared around the Jewish culture be so devoid of the living Jewish mass? And vice versa, what effect does the absence of Jewish community in Kazimierz have on the events that happened to promote the very culture it has lost? Commissioned especially for the 13th Festival of Jewish Culture in Krakow in June of 2003, the album is based on two factors.
First, there were field recordings the trio collected in Kazimierz, Nowa Huta [a rather ugly, communist industrial area of Krakow] and Brzezinka [Nazi concentration camp]. Then there are samples that were used [without permission but with respect] from Frank London, Itzhak Perlman and various archives of Krakow's Jewish Culture Festival. Finally, excerpts of interviews made it into the final piece, along with conversations with Eran Sachs and Ran Slavin. To make it clear, each of the artists comes from a different background. While Sebastian Meissner is a music composer, sound designer and photographer who has worked in audio-visual medium, Ran Slavin is mainly a film maker as well as an audio-visual artist. Eran Sachs works as an improviser, composer and sound-artist, as well as a curator. While collecting source materials for the project, each of the men were in fact preparing for a multi-media performance that took place at the Krowoderska52 in June of 2003. This and the sound-sources is what "Into the Void" is based on. At times like these, words simply fail. Sure, it would've been nice to be at the performance to get a full aspect of the trio's message.
The audio portion itself is full of brief samples of various vocals and chants. From Meissner's section, "(The larger the distance from Krakow is the more) Kazimierz is sexy" is a perfect contender of mysterious sample / source material of the day. While it may resemble music, it could have very well been recorded while walking down a busy street. The next piece features some crazed improvisation that is muffled by effects and spliced up for good measure. "Barszcz z Pierogami u Polakowskiego" features a steady drum beat that is lightly augmented by an accordion and turntables. Ran Slavin's portion "Segments from the Snow" features alien audio forms recorded mostly in Nowa Huta. Its ultra-realistic industrial feel spells abandonment right through. Eran Sachs' "Memory Gaps" is even more alien than Slavin's industrial attempts. Taking the cue from industrial music and field recordings, his section is full of static, grating industrial-like sounds, metal on metal. Then, on the closing piece "Crackle" he settles down into an orchestral-ambient mode. The piece sounds like trickling of rain drops one minute, while moving into laser sounds and unrecognizable modulated synth sounds the next. Ideal finish to a project that shows a progressive side to the Jewish culture that has been so vital in the make up of the beautiful [and once again] lively Kazimierz."

[Tom Sekowski]

ALLMOST COOL REVIEWS
MEISSNER / SLAVIN / SACHS "into the void"
CD (Sub Rosa, Belgium, 2006)

"As with just about every genre, ambient music is difficult to really recommend and sometimes even describe in terms of the nuances between different pieces. What sounds glorious to one person will sound like trash to another and small variations in sound can make all the difference. A perfect example of this is Into The Void, which features the work of three different artists, two of which I have really enjoyed previous work by.

Sebastian Meissner (otherwise known as Random_Inc) released several great albums on the Mille Plateaux label several years back and has continued to create music that incorporates field recordings and electronic processing, while I first heard the work of Ran Slavin only recently on his excellent Insomniac City DVD and CD release. Created several years ago for an installation, the release is an aural reflection upon the history and the cultural changes in the 700-year Jewish Krakovian neighborhood of Kazimierz. The three artists walked around area interviewing people and gathering field recordings for several months before putting everything together into an audio and video (for which Slavin created impressions) installation.

As an audio document, Into The Void is bizarre and sometimes extreme. The release opens with twelve tracks from Meissner, and his series of tracks opens with icy ambience, as cold processed sounds are interrupted occasionally by interview fragments that are chopped and blurred at points. "Kazimierez: Empty and Ghostly Place" is a longer track of murky piano meanderings that sound like prepared piano tinklings gone array, while "...1998-2005..." sounds like klezmer glitchcore as playful horn melodies are turned into sprays of noise and chopped conversations become hiccuping chants.

Slavin's contributions to the release aren't quite as developed as his newer material, but have a similar glacial progression as processed instrumentation bursts and blooms in glorious ways in places ("Into Krakow On The Night Train / Melting Snow Tracks / Quiet Town") while not doing much in others. With only two tracks clocking in at fifteen minutes, Eran Sachs has the least amount of music on the release, and his work keeps the same course, pushing broken conversations and field recordings into sometimes heavy passages of extreme power electronics. As a whole, Into The Void offers some inspiring moments, but also sags pretty heavily in places, with lots of unfocused spaces that work better for backdrops (or installations, as it were) than attentive listening. I suppose it could be argued that all ambient music suffers from this same fate, but this one just seems too random for repeated listening."

EXCLAIM
MEISSNER / SLAVIN / SACHS "into the void"
CD (Sub Rosa, Belgium, 2006)

"Begun as an investigation into the presence/absence of Jewish culture in one of the oldest European Jewish neighbourhoods, Sebastian Meissner and Eran Sachs did field recordings in the nearly empty winter streets of Kazimierz, Poland. Meissner then worked on the sounds to unravel a tale of coldness and disappearance, representing the populace only in the traces of footsteps, car sounds and briefly overhead conversations. Eventually a spare musical element creeps into “Kazimierz: Empty and Ghostly Place,” a spectral piano phrase that is a near mirrored opposite of Jurgen Kneiper’s score for Wings of Desire. Appropriate for the portrait of a city not watched over by guardian angels. The fast-forwarding of “…198819901992199419951996…” takes amassed samples and blends them into a blurred acceleration that has an erasing effect. Ran Slavin — who also shot video for a 2003 exhibition of a version of the piece in Krakow — and Sachs also both contribute more abbreviated suites using the same sources. Slavin’s “Segments from the Snow” and Sachs’s “Memory Gaps” are both more sculptural in their approach, reducing the mass but sharpening details until both are left with intricate snow globe representations of the frigid city."

XLR8R
MEISSNER / SLAVIN / SACHS "into the void"
CD (Sub Rosa, Belgium, 2006)

"Inspired by the Kazimierz neighborhood of Krakow, Poland, most of whose Jewish inhabitants died in the Holocaust, Into The Void captures the sonic response from three Jewish ambient-music producers: Sebastian Meissner (Klimek, Random Inc., Bizz Circuits), Ran Slavin, and Eran Sachs. Meissner's 11 tense, desolate tracks evoke the hollowed-out feeling of intense sorrow and pity, while also excavating obscure shreds of that culture in John Oswald-esque homage. Over six compositions, the artists show their clicks-and-cuts pedigree with delicately daubed microtonal haikus of riveting content-a heartfelt, abstract tribute to a place irrevocably transformed by hate."

FOXY DIGITALIS
MEISSNER / SLAVIN / SACHS "into the void"
CD (Sub Rosa, Belgium, 2006)

"First staged in 2003 at the Festival of Jewish Culture in the Polish city of Krakow and now released on CD, “Into the Void” displays the collective sound studies of Sebastian Meissner, Ran Slavin and Eran Sachs at the city of Krakow, especially its Kazimierz neighborhood and the industrial site of Nowa Huta.

Meissner, also recording under the Klimek moniker and as Random Inc. and Bizz Circuits among others divides his contribution in 11 shorter pieces starting with modern composition, moving on to digitally manipulated traditional Jewish music taken from the archives of the Jewish Culture Festival and ending in almost dub-infused post-electronica. Sprinkled in are little bits of field recordings recorded at Kazimierz. According to the liner notes, Meissner´s pieces depict the “contrast between the rich […] presence of the material culture and the dreadful absence of the community exterminated during the Nazi days.” It needs a lot of vivid imagination to reconstruct Meissner´s impressions on CD, especially because his music was originally accompanied by a video courtesy of Ran Slavin. Still, some aspects get through.

Ran Slavin who has recorded on such labels as Mille Plateaux, Cronica and Sub Rosa presents a cohesive 28-minute piece of digital composition. His contribution is actually even more abstract than Meissner´s and the images inspiring him to the music remain hidden. There are hints of Klezmer and lots of crackles and hiss. Church bells are heard on the last part of the piece, which is the most sinister, but also the most interesting, while the rest of the piece not quite reaches the atmospheric density present in Meissner´s contribution.

Eran Sachs finishes the disc with lots of field recordings and waves of digital debris conceived by altering two traditional Jewish clarinet tunes. You can only hear the clarinet on his second piece which is lightyears better than his first one because there are atmospheric changes as well as some development throughout the track. But also Sachs´ pieces can´t compare with Meissner´s, which makes the whole disc appeal mostly to those who are interested in the concept of it. The music represented on the CD has some good moments, but also a lot of rather unexciting material."

METAMKINE
MEISSNER / SLAVIN / SACHS "into the void"
CD (Sub Rosa, Belgium, 2006)

"´Presence/Absence ::: into the void´ est essentiellement une réflexion musicale sur l'histoire récente et les changements du quartier de Cracovie nommé Kazimierz - cette partie de la ville polonaise était le centre de la vie juive depuis 700 ans. Aujourd'hui le quartier est vide - sa population a été déportée et exterminée lors de la deuxième guerre mondiale. Restent les lieux, ces lieux déserts, plein de souvenir qui s'effacent. Ce qui est particulier, c'est que cette réflexion se fait à travers les moyens musicaux de la musique électronique et une série d'enregistrements réalisés sur place - tout se combinent et donnent trois visions qui se complètent - Meissner tente de souligner l'absence - Ran Slavin, un renouveau possible - Eran Sachs, une vision à travers le souvenir du passé. Les trois créateurs se sont retrouvés sur place à plusieurs reprises - en hiver 2003, notamment, où la plus part des enregistrements ont été effectués, ils se sont retrouvés en juin de la même année pour compléter leurs travaux et les combiner en un travail commun. Le vent glacé, les craquements dans la neige, les conversations… tout crée un nouveau film sonore au delà de la désolation initiale. C'est donc un projet à la fois musical, et politique, dans un sens large du terme. Une réflexion sur l'Histoire et ses désastres. Sebastian Meissner. Travaille comme musicien, sound designer et photographe à Vienna. Il a travaillé avec le Goethe Institute Buenos Aires, Kulturhuset Stockholm , le Forsythe Ballet. Sa music sous le nom de Random Inc a été publiés sur les labels Mille Plateaux, Ritornell, Kompakt, Beta Bodega… Ran Slavin. Travaille comme cinéaste, artiste audio-visuel et musicien à Tel Aviv. Son dernier film INSOMNIAC CITY dont la première eut lieu en 2004 à la Biennale de Venise. Il poursuit son travail sur le cinéma expérimental et ses compositions de pièces électroniques. Eran Sachs. Travaille comme compositeur, improvisateur, sound-artist et curateur à Jerusalem. En tant qu'artiste sonore, il tente toujours de combiné esthétique et politique comme ce fut le cas pour"Yannun Yannun", qui traitait du harassement de villageois palestiniens par des colons israéliens fanatisés. En outre, il a fondé et gère Yad-Vashem bookstore - la seule libraire en Israël exclusivement consacrée à l'Holocauste"

PITCHFORK MEDIA
V.A "clicks´n´cuts 4"
CD (Mille Plateaux Media, Germany, 2004)

"I wish CC 4 had a cliffhanger ending such as Bizz Circuits' stroboscope horrorshow "Ghetto Ambient" instead of Håkan Libdo's anemic dub shrug, "Lebensformen". Sebastian Meissner (Bizz Circuits) boils a Middle Eastern orchestra in raw diesel, causing it to jitter for dear life, cutting it off when the tension sinks the soul, and proving there is still some kick left in glitch."

STYLUS MAGAZINE
V.A. "pop ambient 2003"
CD (Kompakt, Germany, 2002)

"Klimek´s meditative and contemplative guitar-based tracks ´Milk and Honey´ and ´(Sun)rise´ add a new wrinkle to the conventionally keyboard-based Pop Ambient style. Plucked notes and strummed chords hover over glistening drones that evoke the mysterious ambiance of night..."

CYCLIC DEFROST
V.A. "pop ambient 2003"
CD (Kompakt, Germany, 2002)

"This is the third volume in the series from the Koln based label and initial hopes that it would comprise of three minute ambient ditties are immediately dashed thanks to the opener Milk & Honey from Klimek, a gorgeously restrained warbling tome that clocks in at just over eight and a half minutes."

AMBIENT REVIEW
V.A. "pop ambient 2003"
CD (Kompakt, Germany, 2002)

"Pop Ambient 2003 begins with Klimek's "Milk & Honey-- a lovely guitar strum looped and expanded to create a chiming, deep sound, reminiscent of what the Durutti Column might sound like if Reilly decided to update the sounds on Return of the Durutti Column rather than move to the poppy sound of The Guitar and Other Machines. This track conjures up a lovely sunlit space, with faint motion of air and clouds above."

EVIL SPONGE
V.A. "pop ambient 2003"
CD (Kompakt, Germany, 2002)

"Pop Ambient 2003 begins with Klimek's "Milk & Honey-- a lovely guitar strum looped and expanded to create a chiming, deep sound, reminiscent of what the Durutti Column might sound like if Reilly decided to update the sounds on Return of the Durutti Column rather than move to the poppy sound of The Guitar and Other Machines. This track conjures up a lovely sunlit space, with faint motion of air and clouds above."

BOMBEN
V.A. "pop ambient 2004"
CD (Kompakt, Germany, 2003)

"Pop Ambient 2004 also features Donnacha Costello and Klimek: with their guitaresque jewels, they manage to close the narrow gap between Johnny Cash and cosmic noise blown through the open doors of the endless universe of pop ambient sounds. To be announced in the Pop Ambient year 2004. As in Heaven, so upon the Earth."

GULLBUY
V.A. "pop ambient 2005"
CD (Kompakt, Germany, 2004)

"Klimek (aka Sebastian Meissner) goes out of his way to give a nod to the band Felt by naming his track Let The Snakes Crinkle Their Heads To Death (after the short instrumental album of the same name released in 1986). The guitar strums do remind me of Maurice Deebank's solo work, I only wish there was more of it here. They only really kick in, in the last minute.