Ultrablack of Music: Feindliche Übernahme
Andrzej Steinbach/Achim Szepanski

Nowadays music produces social relationships that no longer require any proprietorship. But it still cannot operate independently of the system without itself being part of a powerful logic of commercialism. This inextricable conflict is the bassline for a mix that is presented by Andrzej Steinbach and Achim Szepanski in Ultrablack of Music: Feindliche Übernahme (Hostile Takeover). Steinbach montages three different texts: a TV talk show as chamber play, a roll call of all the Red Army Faction members in the form of a score, and the computer code of a chopped-up McKinsey advertisement. In 1971 WDR broadcast “Open Ended: Pop and Co — The Other Music between Protest and Commerce!” during which Nikel Pallat,
a member of the band Ton Steine Scherben, produced an axe from under his jacket and repeatedly smashed it down on the table with all his might. The table didn’t break but the gesture was unambiguous.