Asmus Tietchens

Active since the mid-'60s, synthesizer experimentalist and musique concrète producer Asmus Tietchens has been a major influence on several generations of avant-garde electronic musicians and sound artists. Heavily inspired by <a href="spotify:artist:5PkKmEWhfJ9jHVHXbZl0Ks">Karlheinz Stockhausen</a>, he has pursued "absolute music" through rigid formal exercises. His music is often harsh, alien, and abstract, but he's also recorded several albums of strangely playful material, including a handful of early-'80s <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Sky+Records%22">Sky Records</a> releases as well as later works as Hematic Sunsets. In addition to releasing over 100 recordings (including collaborations with <a href="spotify:artist:5UezsklPScipW64XJm7qql">Merzbow</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:2IZOC3H2mKRvJ5F1R34nuR">Vidna Obmana</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:02H68OmCeljWgjoVQVOB1v">Thomas Köner</a>), Tietchens has taught acoustics at Hamburg universities since 1990, and he has written liner notes for dozens of albums released by the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Bureau+B%22">Bureau B</a> label, particularly reissues of <a href="spotify:artist:5mNY0NPszdalbrb4ITO3M8">Cluster</a>-related albums.

Born in 1947 and based in Hamburg, Tietchens listened to German radio as a child and heard pioneering electric transmissions by the likes of <a href="spotify:artist:5PkKmEWhfJ9jHVHXbZl0Ks">Stockhausen</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:3qiDj7i2mPLTppN6wX7d0I">Gottfried Michael Koenig</a>. He began recording his own home experiments in 1965 with crude reverb devices and picked up a MiniMoog several years later. Also influenced by atonal Krautrockers like <a href="spotify:artist:5mNY0NPszdalbrb4ITO3M8">Cluster</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:4yBBNmdvVaoPEnr2lt14q7">Faust</a>, Tietchens met <a href="spotify:artist:6MVq6VQTSpc7T6xdH2dgEd">Okko Bekker</a> and began a partnership that lasted for decades (<a href="spotify:artist:6MVq6VQTSpc7T6xdH2dgEd">Bekker</a> has produced most of Tietchens' work). Tietchens participated in Liliental, a supergroup featuring <a href="spotify:artist:5mNY0NPszdalbrb4ITO3M8">Cluster</a>'s Dieter Moebius, engineer <a href="spotify:artist:1NvaYXFBSMlgokdn84mOkx">Conny Plank</a>, bassist <a href="spotify:artist:1N7NX0OiC8GYf79unh77nL">Hellmut Hattler</a>, sax player Johannes Pappert, and <a href="spotify:artist:6MVq6VQTSpc7T6xdH2dgEd">Bekker</a>. Their self-titled album was released by <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Brain%22">Brain</a> in 1978.

After <a href="spotify:artist:1BGN1IdyiSR0ZYrkoKNchl">Tangerine Dream</a>'s <a href="spotify:artist:4u9mLb6exlbHuNehyJ11jq">Peter Baumann</a> heard a tape of his work, he produced Tietchens' debut album, Nachtstücke, released in 1980 on the French label <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Egg%22">Egg</a>. His four albums for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Sky%22">Sky</a> during the early '80s (Biotop, Spät-Europa, In die Nacht, Litia) focused on surprisingly accessible electronic pop, though 1984's Formen Letzter Hausmusik (recorded for <a href="spotify:artist:7BqVdvWeMLlWkZAOGRPe0I">Nurse with Wound</a>'s <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22United+Dairies%22">United Dairies</a> label) began a period of more abstract, concrète recordings that often use tape experiments as well as synthesizers. These include albums released by A-Mission Records, Discos Esplendor Geométrico, and <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Multimood%22">Multimood</a>. In 1986, upon invitation from the Goethe-Institute, he began traveling to South America to present lecture-concerts of his work, after which he began teaching in Hamburg.

During the '90s, Tietchens recorded for dozens of experimental labels including <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Barooni%22">Barooni</a>, <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Staalplaat%22">Staalplaat</a> and <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Syrenia%22">Syrenia</a>. In 2000, he initiated the Menge series of extremely minimal microsound works, initially released by <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Mille+Plateaux%22">Mille Plateaux</a> sublabel <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Ritornell%22">Ritornell</a> and later continued on <a href="spotify:artist:0GjxGQsnFjuHfQUE9vMmCY">Richard Chartier</a>'s <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Line%22">Line</a> imprint. In 2003, <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Die+Stadt%22">Die Stadt</a> began reissuing Tietchens' early albums on CD for the first time, starting with the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Sky%22">Sky</a> releases. Tietchens wrote liner notes for these reissues, as well as reissues of <a href="spotify:artist:5mNY0NPszdalbrb4ITO3M8">Cluster</a>-related albums. In 2012, Tietchens collaborated with Moebius for a self-titled album issued by <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Bureau+B%22">Bureau B</a>. The label subsequently reissued the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Sky%22">Sky</a> albums on CD and vinyl, with the bonus tracks from the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Die+Stadt%22">Die Stadt</a> reissues compiled as Der Fünfte Himmel. He continued releasing new works on labels such as <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Auf+Abwegen%22">Auf Abwegen</a> and Stille Andacht. ~ John Bush & Paul Simpson, Rovi