Peter Rehberg, the Vienna-based computer musician who makes records under the name PITA, has spent most of the last decade actively defying expectations. He’s a techno music adherent whose first records sampled refrigerator tones and who, despite his lack of formal training, exploited his keen listening skills to become a member of the heavyweight MIMEO (Music in Mouvement Electronic Orchestra) with the likes of Keith Rowe, Phil Durrant, and Thomas Lehn. His last few recordings broke with the quiet minimalism of so much experimental electronic music and embraced loud, jarring, and deliberately rude noise, but on Get Off (Hapna), the first new Pita album in several years, he creates a gentler, more contemplative sound. There are still some deeply cacophonous passages, such as the crushing static on “Like Watching Shit on a Shelf,” but even these achieve an ethereal glow. Released last month under Rehberg’s real name, Fremdkoerper (Mosz) is music for a dance piece choreographed by Chris Haring, but it’s captivating on its own, alternately spectral, piercing, and psychedelic. –Peter Margasak
