AHMED by MICROCOPY

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.

est. 1999

We release since 1999 digital and limited hand assembled records.

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