about 'kontakte'
kontakte is probably the first 4 channel music production ever. stockhausen let invent a special rotating loudspeaker provided with a horn which got picked up by four microphones standing in a circle around the rotating speaker table. thus the four channels got organically connected to a telefunken m10 four track tape machine and the dolby surround system is only a logical continuation of this idea.
but how did stockhausen invent this never heard and imagined rhythm 'n' sound universe? being one of his students he told us that he first created special rhythm profiles unlike the profiles of a car tire. speeding them up these rhythm patterns got converted into sounds (remember the hammond organ principle or test stripe profiles on the motor way) and the overtones of those creations 'were going out of the chimney' as he remarked. it seems that he was going to redifine what a tone is from its very beginning embedded in floods of emptiness. that might sound a bit far out for you but don't forget he really created what he called flood sounds. and stockhausen wouldn't be stockhausen if his mighty soul wouldn't have taken care of it all like a mother of the universe.
forget about all these pattern-level-rhythm-tone-floods or whatever emptinesses and let it leave your chimney. be surprised how new this music still sounds as if it never grows old.