AHMED
by MICROCOPY
[SMS108-0825]
Year: 2025
Labelcode: SMS108-0825
Releasedate: 16.08.2025
[Digital]
In July 2025, Microcopy turned Vienna’s Reumannplatz into both stage and studio.
Every sound on AHMED was captured there—through the ear of a field recorder, the focus of a shotgun mic, the pulse of the square itself. And it wasn’t only the raw material that emerged from the place: the entire act of shaping, layering, and producing unfolded under the open sky, amidst the rhythms of the city.
The title AHMED comes from a small kebab stand at the square, beside a busy bus stop where traffic and voices never cease. Many of the recordings stem from this corner—a hub of noise, smoke, and movement. By now the stand has changed hands, its name already replaced. This, too, belongs to the district’s dynamic: the constant arrival and departure, the coexistence of what is gone and what is still unfolding.
AHMED reflects the ambivalence of Reumannplatz: its multiple realities, its layered perceptions, its contested meanings. This square, at the heart of Favoriten, has long been used as a projection screen—framed by center-right politics and media as a place of blame, a symbol bent to justify regressive policies instead of nurturing the possibility of real integration.
Microcopy calls their work an “auditory catalyst of political failure.” And indeed, the soundworld here resists comfort. It is jagged, abrasive, at times almost hostile—yet within that harshness lies a strange magnetism. The push and pull between unease and fascination is at the core of AHMED: a reminder that contradictions can be fertile, that listening itself can destabilize our assumptions.
Sonically, the record drifts restlessly across borders: from the claustrophobic throb of techno into improvised hip-hop corners, always raw, sharp-edged, unpredictable. That such shifting terrain arises solely from field recordings is almost unthinkable. Samples were processed on site, fragments twisted and echoed back into the air from which they came. Creation happened in real time: recording, reshaping, constructing—sound as an act of presence.
TITLE: AHMED
ARTIST: MICROCOPY
RECORDING DATE: July 2025 | TRACKS: 16 | DURATION: 57:08 min
TYPE: Live Stereo Recording
01. Reumannplatz
02. Transition
03. Surveillance
04. Run
05. Strangers
06. Bus
07. Heat 1100
08. Rush II
09. Rush I
10. Amalienbad
11. Weirdo
12. Backdrop
13. Consequence
14. Zone
15. State
16. 2025
AHMED [SMS108-0825 (digital)] by MICROCOPY: Performative moments of transformation crystallize the permanent present within an ephemeral yet reproducible medium. All sounds on this album originate from field recordings at Reumannplatz, Vienna, Austria, July 2025. Remastered by The Darkforce. P: Trackscan (JMP). C: All rights reserved by MICROCOPY. W: www.stubenmusicstudio.com, M: office@stubenmusicstudio.com
(C) 2025 Microcopy (Element012, XYZ & The Icosaeon)(P) 2025 Trackscan