Music is seldom unadulterated. The aesthetic process – both of composition and of perception – is almost always influenced by extra-musical phenomena. Historical, physical, and ethnological forces have 'gotten in the way' of the compositions on this CD, determining the values between the sounds, the crossings into those musical realms where hearing becomes, in the best sense of the word, unclear. In Vassos Nicolaou's ensemble piece Farbenmaschinen structurally completely different tonal layers continuously interact with each other, whereas Johannes Schoellhorn's Pièces croisées is like a musical game of memories. Sound and notated noise collide in Gerard Grisey's Partiels, and Dieter Mack's Kammermusik V points to intercultural communication problems and even speechlessness.

The artwork of the CD booklet shows Gerhard Richter's STADTBILD SL from 1969, commenting in an artistic manner on the thematic concentration of the programme from the highlights of the 'Musikfabrik im WDR' series. Richter, one of the most important living German artists, has been a member of the board of trustees of the Ensemble Musikfabrik since 2009.