Top Bar
Musique Machine Logo Home ButtonReviews ButtonArticles ButtonBand Specials ButtonAbout Us Button
SearchGo Down
Search for  
With search mode in section(s)
And sort the results by
show articles written by  
 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Asmus Tietchens - Soirée [Line - 2011]

Asmus Tietchens, the Hamburg-based acoustician and experimental electronic composer, follows up his recent collaborations with Richard Chartier (or ‘Fabrications’, as they put it) with a set of solo recordings for Chartier’s Line imprint.

The fifty minute disk bears eight cryptically-named and sounding pieces created through rendering a selection of earlier works unrecognisable via a ten-part recycling process. And one can assume he must have been pleased with the results as he asks on the brief sleeve notes “Is it really necessary to create further new electronic music if only one piece as a nucleus is sufficient to derive hundreds and hundreds of different distinct individual variants?” Given his vast discography this approach perhaps poses more questions as to the composer’s intentions behind his work as much as the specific methodologies involved, where presumably chance now joins mathematics in determining his output.

And while there seems to be some kind of algebraic naming convention here – there’s a ‘P’-series of three, another three ‘L2r’s and a couple of Nox’s – the titles seem wholly interchangeable: P1’s sleight shafts of soft, aerial tones form a light, breathy cascade both solemn and contemplative, only to be interrupted by the briefest of cracks or ticks. The opening track, P1b, displays similar wafty properties, but is much more sibilant and ominous, where its snake-like elegance is intruded upon by a sharp, shrill train whistle, while P2a closes the set with a series of rhythmically regular passages yet is, on the whole, still closer to the eerie sounds of an empty corridor on a sci-fi spacecraft.

Whatever the source or the process, the results consistently combine fragile, at times barely detectable, passages of amorphous synthetic vapours with sudden surges and unexpected glitches that briefly but strongly pierce through the ambience. Like phantoms of their former selves they make a haunting, if unintelligible listening environment.

Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5

Russell Cuzner
Latest Reviews

Asmus Tietchens - Soirée
Asmus Tietchens, the Hamburg-based acoustician and experimental electronic composer, follows up his recent collaborations with Richard Chartier (or ‘Fabricat...
290324   Stuart Argabright & AfterAfte...
290324   Piranha - Piranha(DVD)
280324   Typhoon Club - Typhoon Club(B...
270324   Jerzy Skolimowski Collection ...
260324   Latex Choker - Sealed
260324   Occlusion - 59: No Input Wall
260324   Nihil Impvlse - Anabasis
260324   Marta Forsberg - Sjunger För...
260324   The New Boy - The New Boy( Th...
250324   The Stargazer’s Assistant - ...
Latest Articles

The Music of Clay Ruby & Burial H...
Over the last couple of decades Wisconsin native, Clay Ruby has been creating some of the world’s finest dark electronic music under the Burial Hex mon...
280324   The Music of Clay Ruby & Buri...
290224   Sutcliffe No More - Normal Ev...
100124   Occlusion - The Operation Is...
181223   Best Of 2023 - Music, Sound &...
051223   Powerhouse Films - Of Magic, ...
181023   IO - Of Sound, Of Art, Of Exp...
210923   Lucky Cerruti - Of Not so Fri...
290823   The Residents - The Trouble W...
110723   Yotzeret Sheydim Interview - ...
250523   TenHornedBeast - Into The Dee...
Go Up
(c) Musique Machine 2001 -2023. Twenty two years of true independence!! Mail Us at questions=at=musiquemachine=dot=comBottom