Composed and originally performed in 2019 in Vienna for the Wiener Modern festival, Ingrid Schmoliner's MNEEM is a feat of endurance and minimalist precision, interpreted by the work's author in front of an audience for over an hour! Written for prepared piano, MNEEM is a pre-digital loop: a circular phrase played by Schmoliner's right hand, while the right makes percussive work of the lower register. As with much in the post-Steve Reich orbit of new music/minimalism, the discrete separation of coordinated tasks and notes creates the possibility for an acute appreciation of the subtlest nuances within the looped arrangement of single notes. Without the benefit of a larger ensemble or any electronic device, Schmoliner's playing is breathtaking. Becoming author and interpreter in one, Schmoliner manages to isolate her limbs and hands in a manner as surgical as the steady march of MNEEM's constrained tonal vocabulary. There is no mistaking the recording and playing for anything less than analog and acoustic, with all of its restless movements and unavoidable flaws.
Given Schmoliner's list of collaborators, I wouldn't think it entirely impossible that the programmed sequencing of electronic instruments is one that influenced MNEEM, even obliquely. This does not explain away the circularity of MNEEM's composition; rather, it puts the current album within a context that includes, even exceeds in some respect, the digital. Nothing as quaint as Warhol's desire to be a machine is present here, but the calculated repetition of MNEEM is one that is framed by such pairings of the organic with the inorganic. What is more, Schmoliner follows in a genealogy of such practices, from Stockhausen on, where the distance between compositional and interpretative acts is essentially nullified, something which is all but taken for granted today.
Fans of new music and minimalist composition will certainly find MNEEM worth multiple listens, as will those who come from the world of prepared electronic music, in which the body effectively takes the place of a sequencer. And those who are simply curious about the physical requirements of playing a work like MNEEM, will be amazed by the accuracy of Scmoliner's playing. For all those interested, a simple search for the piece on that certain video platform is recommended, where there is a short, edited version of MNEEM's Viennese premiere. Even the video had to be cut down to accommodate current attention spans. To check it out for
yourself 
