Los Modulinos

Karlheinz Essl & Otto Wanke – „Los Modulinos“ (Serge Bulat)
in: music austria, 26 January 2026

Los Modulinos approaches modular improvisation as translation, where feedback becomes grammar and machines learn how to speak back. A review by Serge Bulat.

The modular system is not a tool – it is a machine of possibilities. In Los Modulinos, Essl and Wanke treat their self-configured modular instruments as living systems, where signal and feedback are not just sound but a language in motion. Recorded live at BMCA Storage in Vienna on February 11, 2025, the album captures a performance where two machines begin to talk, hesitate, and respond in real time.

The opening textures shimmer and bubble, like sound hitting the inside of a cave and being translated through a synthesizer. The music feels like a field recording turned into MIDI, then turned into an opera: a strange and beautiful translation of raw data into emotional shape. Signals collide, fold, and refract, creating the sensation that the sound is not being played but discovered. Glitches and distortion act as a narrator, guiding attention while leaving room for interpretation.

As the record progresses, the interaction becomes more explicit. Modular sounds converse with the “narrative” of glitch, distortion, and spatialized feedback, as if trying to translate emergency sirens, traffic cues, and environmental textures into a shared sonic language. Feedback becomes grammar; distortion becomes punctuation. The systems are not trying to explain themselves, but to understand each other.

Dream Machine introduces a new frequency layer, bringing an extra character into the play, while Ghost Notes pulls the listener toward a liminal, almost theta-like state – yet never fully letting the mind drift, because the music keeps shifting, keeping attention alive. In Happy People Making Blips and Blops, the joy of experimentation becomes explicit: the performers are clearly having fun, and the machines respond with equal delight, producing a mutual, playful exchange.

Released on Nachtstück Records, Los Modulinos documents a live encounter rooted in Vienna’s experimental electronic scene – a shared experiment in attention and translation. Essl and Wanke aren’t soloists here, but co-engineers of surprise.

Updated: 27 Jan 2026