The music of Sergej Maingardt is at the pulse of time. He draws inspiration from socio-political topics and the effects of the digitized and globalized world on our perception and thought processes. The use of modern technologies, pop cultural influences and “noise”-elements form a sonic connection in his works. The pieces of the album “straight run” interrelate, complement, and comment on each other. “SMOG” is the initial point of this portrait. Its sonic material is generated from electromagnetic fields of computers scanned and selected with solenoids. “The noise inherent to SMOG leads subtly to a continuum spanning all nine pieces. The sonic noise is partly joined by ‘pictorial noise’”, as Egbert Hiller points out in the booklet’s essay. Six audio-visual works were created in productive interaction with video artist Jens Standke. The musical journey leads from distorted (self-)perception in social networks (“Construct ¬– deconstruct”) to the splitting up of features and patterns of pop and rock music (“It’s Britney, bitch!“ and “HeroIn“) and ends with a declaration of the own artistic independence of the composer in the last work of the album: ‘Moreover, Declare Independence is a rebellion and is meant to show that above all I am curious, always on the lookout and ready to embark for new shores.’