Tip! "Whether we experience music as abstract or concrete depends largely on our sensitivity to the richness of perception. Common opinion – often reductive – draws a sharp distinction: music is abstract when it does not “speak,” when it seems diffuse, branching into multiple, elusive directions. It is concrete when it “tells” a story, when its sounds and structures feel familiar, graspable. Yet this distinction quickly dissolves. From a scientific or cognitive perspective, structure itself is inherently abstract. Harmony and rhythm – even in the most conventional music – are among the most abstract of constructs. At the same time, nothing is more concrete than the immediate sensation of sound when it is perceived as matter, as presence. 

In this recording, Christian Wolfarth navigates and dissolves this apparent contradiction. His approach lays bare these opposing notions and fuses them, like strands joined in a single splice. The listener’s sense of surprise arises not from the spareness of the work, but from the precision and depth of attention brought to listening itself. Wolfarth offers an abstract metaphor for concrete phenomena – sound in its pure unfolding. Gradually, we forget the mechanics behind the sounds, the techniques that produce them. What remains is their effect: how they shape our listening, inhabit space, and resonate in memory. Immersed in this experience, we can relinquish the urge to “understand,” as though understanding were a form of possession, and instead simply receive.

Such music demands a contemplative stance. With only the most elemental materials – skin, metal – Wolfarth embraces detour and restraint. Through this approach, he opens up a field of listening attuned to everything that emerges: the space revealed both by intention and by surrender. Here, surface and depth converge – the act of listening, and abandonment to it." - Lê Quan Ninh