Swiss percussionist and electronician Günter Müller is a past master when it comes to laying down carpets of rich, textured digital sound, and with the discreet guitar interventions of Tomas Korber, and the laptop interjections of Ralph Steinbrüchel, both fellow countrymen, Momentan, which was recorded live in Zürich in November 2002, breathes the self-assurance of what has, in recent years, become a well-defined genre of improvised music. Traditional notions of foreground / background (solo / accompaniment) have been replaced by superimposed strata of activity, any one of which can become the focus of attention or just as well coalesce into a rich, shifting soundscape. The three subsequent tracks, each entitled def.rmx are remixes of Momentan by each of the protagonists (Werner Dafeldecker, Uli Fussenegger and Dieb13 released a similar project, Printer on Durian in 1999). Working with loops necessarily imposes an element of rhythm, and Korber's remix occasionally makes pulse explicit without nonetheless dragging the music into pale, post-techno cliché. Steinbrüchel's remix freezes one of Momentan's moments into a harmonic-rich drone, and dusts it with a fine powder of digital crackle. Müller's mix combines elements of both approaches. All three are beautifully paced and draw the listener deep into the music at every level. Even if you're not a devotee of the genre, you'll find much to appreciate and surprise you on Momentan def. ~ Dan Warburton, Rovi