Karlheinz Stockhausen – “Cosmic Pulses”  is the last electronic composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, and it is number 93 in his catalog of works. It is the 13th "hour" of Stockhausen's originally-planned 24-part cycle Klang ("Sound") which is based on the 24 hours of the day.  This electronic work is composed of 24 layers of synthesizer-generated melodic material, with each layer having a different speed and pitch register.  The layers enter one by one, starting from the lowest/slowest layer, and go up in sequence to the highest/fastest layer.  After a period of several minutes where all 24 layers are active, the layers begin to individually drop out, again starting from the lowest layers and moving upwards (gradually leaving just the higher/faster layers).  This "draw down" is about twice as fast as in the "build-up

"As I listen again through Cosmic Pulses, it is also this that I hear, the roaring, resounding thunderclap repercussion of fresh, uncompromised intellectual will and a daredevil creative force, as unstoppable as energy per se: star shine through timelessness. There are numerous ways to listen to  Cosmic Pulses… no, not listen TO, because you can’t stay outside of it when it roars towards you and engulfs you: You listen in  Cosmic Pulses, right inside the torrent!  However, my description may sound like  Cosmic Pulses can be perceived but as one, brute, blunt tour de force of violence and danger. That is – be sure to note! – not the case. Inside these violently moving Jupiter storm clouds, you’ll discover innumerable delicate, minuscule Planck-length vibrations, at the core of sound, at the core of core; tiny, multi-dimensional twitches and tics right in the face of the complete standstill of the horizon of events, beyond which even hypothesis is hypothetical, and thought unthinkable.

That is how deep this music cuts, how low it flies, and how lofty and distant it may rise, like a horse on its hind legs, neighing loudly between the star clusters as you suddenly change perspective, involuntarily, the way you may change point of reference in an optical illusion. In  Cosmic Pulses you shoot from macro to micro and vice versa in a flash, completely altering the way you perceive the sound and your own spatial predicament.  The duration of  Cosmic Pulses, including fade-out and silence, is 32’58. It comes in one single track on the CD. Then come 24 tracks with the beginning 90 seconds of each of the individual layers of  Cosmic Pulses, preceded by a brief introduction in German and English by Professor Stockhausen. Stockhausen starts with layer 24, counting backwards down to layer 1, presenting each layer: “Anfang Schicht 23; beginning of layer 23”, and so forth. Hearing them in full clarity like this opens up new insights into the sound as it storms in its completeness." (Excerpt from Ingvar Nordin / Sonoloco extensive review)