Martin Kohlstedt's opus "Strom" is a coup d' ?tat of the mercilessness of exposing the piano to the elements. In the flow of the 9 pieces, the composer dissolves and makes music experienceable in its very own dynamic. One witnesses how closeness and intimacy are transformed into vastness and violence, as well as beauty in all this - but above all in decay. Strom "consistently develops a wide variety of shapes, appears foggy and dangerous, then quite direct, almost playful, even to the point of freezing in front of one's own size. No points were thought up for "Strom" and no measurements were taken. Instead, it seems as if Martin Kohlstedt has managed to build a monument to his intuition. However, monuments are not Kohlstedt's speciality, quite the contrary. The Thuringian musician has become famous for the energy and unpredictability of his concerts. After two solo piano albums, he took stencils for the instrument and developed his own self-evident ability to play electronics and effects as if they were just other keys on the black and white keyboard. Electricity "is Martin Kohlstedt's third studio album and a distillate of this development as well as a glimpse into the future: before the composer meets his audience, he collides with himself in this first of all rooms. Staging is out of place here. Sound and structure are behind the desire to reach other places with music. You listen to him - his hands - who do all the work, sensitive and megalomaniac at the same time. And yet he stays with himself, just like at his concerts. There is no need to know more about Martin Kohlstedt
