"This lot have been one of Germany's most interesting musical exports of the last few years." (Pete Marsh, BBC Online)

The sky over Karlsruhe is densely clouded with ideas, so much so, that they’re disputing their significance while claiming vigorously but to no avail the priority of their musical territory. But "Absencen" is only partly about these ideas, about things that are present and immediately penetrable, rather than about the stuff that is (almost) absent. Here, absence is the conditio sine qua non for presence; it is what is absent that forces the Kollektief's art into existence.

The consistent negation of execution, the music that "goes without playing", the stuff that seems to be happen at random and without consequence – these are the key characteristics of "Absencen". Musique Concrète, soundscapes, country, free jazz, jazz, the scores of yet unmade films etc. – all these components live a parallel life in the Kollektief's art without ever being there simply for their own sake, a fact which they communicate to the listener. It is not by amalgamating clearly attributable fragments that life is breathed into this work; neither does anything in this music ever want to be a simple quotation. It is not the chaotic twitching, nor an arbitrary musical rebellion in the vain hope of an accidental deliverance from the superabundance of a myriad of musical possibilities such as improv, sampling and random quotations, but rather a sophisticated puzzle picture of the absent and the present (thinking of Giuseppe Archimboldo may help here).

In other words: when, how and to what end a musical action takes place is something that is meticulously calculated by the Kollektief. "Absencen" is a tapestry woven from many and diverse translucent threads. The side that we behold is shimmering in a holy manifoldness, while from beholding it we can anticipate and construct the averted side. After all, we are not only endowed with the ability to hear, but also to think.

"Their instrumental drones and central european freakouts on violins and reeds are drenched in prickling static. A kind of European down home NoWave." (The Wire)