New Music by Karlheinz Essl

Live recording, performed by Karlheinz Essl at Museum Liaunig on June 20th, 2026. https://www.essl.at/works/zuschreibung

Using synthesisers he has developed himself, composer Karlheinz Essl explores the sculpture gallery at the Museum Liaunig and the art work by Robert Tauber on display there. Using sounds never heard before, he makes his mark on this gigantic space with its extraordinary acoustics and sets it vibrating. In doing so, the gallery becomes an integral part of a hybrid instrument that combines analogue electronics with acoustic resonators.

Instead of the usual mixing desks, amplifiers and loudspeakers, Essl uses equipment stripped down to the bare essentials, with which he embarks on a tentative and exploratory journey through space and time.

Binaural production - listen with headphones!

An acoustic portrait of Krakow, a vibrant and energetic city in Poland. This generative soundscape is based on a two-dimensional random walk between four binaural soundscapes, recorded in Krakow, Poland on June 7th, 2026. Released: 10 Jun 2026

1) Cleaning up Rynek Square on Sunday morning.
2) Roadworks with an excavator.
3) Florianska Street with bells and trumpets.
4) In the Adam Mickiewicz Park.

Binaural production - listen with headphones!

An acoustic portrait of the Cistercian Abbey of Heiligenkreuz, founded in 1133 and world-renowned for its Gregorian choral school. As well as nourishing the soul, the body should not be neglected either – a shaded outdoor dining area is available for this purpose.

A generative soundscape based on a two-dimensional random walk between four binaural soundscapes, recorded in Heiligenkreuz between 2020 and 2026.
Released: 25 May 2026 (Pentecost)

1) The monks’ noon prayer
2) A requiem for a deceased brother
3) The gravedigger and mourners
4) In the monastery’s outdoor restaurant

Electronic music based on a recording of a self-developed modular synth called L0P7OP, performed on 18 May 2026 at Studio khz. Produced with REAPER.

L0P7OP is another addition to my ongoing work in progress, 'My Daily Wobble': minimalist modular system comprising a phase-locked loop, a random generator, a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) and a resonating voltage-controlled filter (VCF), with lots of feedbacks and cross-modulations.

Gerhard Eckel: electro-dynamic feedback system
Karlheinz Essl: modular electronics
Recorded live at Studio kHz on May 1, 2026. Mastered by Gerhard Eckel.
https://www.essl.at/div/rhibozom.html
YouTube video: https://youtu.be/JKOG74rIdNs

rhibozom is a duo of Karlheinz Essl and Gerhard Eckel working at the intersection of electrodynamic feedback, analog synthesis, and shared physical instrument-making. Gerhard Eckel performs on an electrodynamic instrument played with ferromagnetic objects that act as resonators, modulators, and sound sources within the instrument's pickup and speaker field. Karlheinz Essl performs on a compact modular synthesizer, its sounds projected through a separate loudspeaker on the shared table. Both performers place, move, dampen, and excite the resonating objects — the handling of physical material is a joint practice, not divided by instrument.