‘Kleine Geluiden’ is Dutch and means ‘small sounds, ‘ which leads me to think Kunrad might also be Dutch. Of course, it might not be accurate, but he is. He has a Bachelor of Music in Composition for Electronic Music at the University of the Arts Utrecht and a Master of Music at the Interfaculty ArtScience in The Hague, where he resides. While he is interested in small sounds, that doesn’t mean his music is tranquil. His website, http://kunrad.net/, shows many of his installation pieces, some of which are full of small sounds. It maximalist minimalism. On this CD are recordings from installations from the last six years, “from machines that transform rain and paper into the first Physical Audio Workstation, to contraptions that send 1,000 small brass tubes ringing and tumbling through the air. Performances where stones are thrown into the water with intent, or a human-powered carillon, spanning 50 meter long ropes, harnesses, and rubber hammers striking a bridge at the heart of a city.” To quote is sometimes better than to summarise. I admit the music had more impact after I studied his website. I first heard the CD, put it aside to return at a later point, then read and watched his website and finally played the CD again. While I find the music interesting, I think seeing the action makes the difference, especially since Kunrad takes quite some time to play his pieces, quickly between 11 and 17 minutes, which is quite long, as I certainly ‘got’ the idea halfway through. This longitude might work much better when sitting and taking it all in. ‘Brass & Sand’ and ‘Stones & Water’ are relatively quiet music pieces, the latter reminding me of Etant Donnes. The other four pieces, three of which deal with water and paper, are much noisier constructions, of which the last one, ‘Bridge & water’, has an interesting sparse character. Perhaps this is more a document of sound art than an album of independent music pieces. (FdW)