by Geoff OrensA purveyor of digital manipulations of existing music, Ekkehard Ehlers released his debut, Betrieb, in 2000. The record drastically manipulates samples from such early 20th century composers as Arnold Schoenberg and Charles Ives, Ehlers seeing each piece as a closed system with which to experiment. He has worked on a trilogy of mini-albums on which he assumes the spirit of great artists from the past and applies it to electronics. The first in this series was Ekkehard Ehlers Plays Robert Johnson followed by Ekkehard Ehlers Plays Albert Ayler, on which he manipulated compositions for cello. The final record in the trilogy was Ekkehard Ehlers Plays John Cassavetes. With Stephan Mathieu, he recorded Heroin. In addition, he has recorded under the alias Auch, as well as with the duo Autopoesies and the group März.