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TIETCHENS, ASMUS - Linea +

Format: CD Label & Cat.Number: Klanggalerie gg266 Release Year: 2018 Note: LINEA appeared originally as a cassette on KORM PLASTICS in 1988 (with the two long pieces "Linea 1" and "Linea 3", later once re-issued as CDR); this first time CD issue has about 35 minutes of previously unreleased bonus material ("Linea 12" and "Linea 13") => extremely minimal quasi-rhythmic patterns that move in circles and strange harmonic forms, very hypnotic and slowly shifting in tone and colour... Price (incl. 19% VAT): €14.00 More Info "Asmus Tietchens is a sound artist and composer from Hamburg, Germany. He got interested in Musique Concrete by listening to a German radio programme when he was 10 years old. In 1965, at the age of 18, Asmus started experimenting with tape loops and turned them into musical collages. Soon, the use of synthesizers was added. In 1980 his debut album Nachtstücke was released, produced by Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream. This was soon followed by a series of albums of electronic pop music for the Sky label, home of many Krautrock bands. Tietchens often uses special source materials for his compositions such as water (Seuchengebiete), human voices (Von Mund zu Mund), paper (Papier ist geduldig). He is associated with the Industrial music scene through his collaborations and releases on labels such as United Dairies, Esplendor Geometrico or Dom Records. Tietchens never studied composition, he has no academic background, everything he does is self taught or learnign by doing. Nevertheless, he was professor for sound design in Hamburg in recent years. Linea was originally released on cassette on Dutch Korm Plastics label, later re-issued as a CDR in 1999. It is one of Tietchens's most minimal compositions, and has a special place in our music hearts here at Klanggalerie. For our new edition, Asmus Tietchens has dug deep into his archive and unearthed two further Linea pieces that have so far never seen the light of day. Full running time now 75 minutes. Remastered and repackaged. Full tracklist: 1 Linea 1 2. Linea 3 3. Linea 12 4. Linea 13." [label info] "Linea+ represents some of the composers most minimal works. The opener, Linea 1, offers a taut repetitive beat/rhythm that slightly blurs and bounces over time. It is a circular, hypnotic rhythm that is drawn into a bit of an oblong shape as it crosses from the left to the right channel ever so slightly. Musique Concrete at its finest, Tietchens takes sweet time to add minor electronic effects which throw the steady beat off some, making the listener pay closer attention to the conversation between the up and down layers. (...) The original release was a diamond in the rough, and this reissue has expanded its karat size two-fold and given this excavated classic the full restoration it deserves. Now Linea+ can be re-presented to new audiences looking for a futuristic sound that was way before its time, here reserving its timeless place." (Toneshift, September 2018) "This is not a review at all; this is a personal observation. About thirty years ago I started to meet Dolf Mulder, who was slightly older than me and about every once in 2 weeks we would meet up and he would play me weird records. Or I'd play some weird cassettes, as this I was I already much into. These days Dolf still writes for Vital Weekly about weird music, just as I do. I'm sure at one of those occasions he played me a record by Asmus Tietchens, I'd like to think one of the Sky Records or 'Formen Letzter Hausmusik' and Dolf told me he was in contact with Tietchens and that there was unpublished work, refused by Ladd-Frith on the basis it was too monotonous. For the small cassette label I had this seemed to me like sure-fire hit, selling more than the usual thirty copies. I wrote to Tietchens, got the master tape, liked it, and had a very professional cover printed, unlike all the Xerox business so far. A decade later, when CDRs became household, I re-issued all of the cassettes I did on Korm Plastics on that format and gave 'Linea' a second life. Not bad for a boring piece of music, indeed. Now it gets a third life, including two lengthy bonus pieces, both from the same series, but with 'Linea 12' and 'Linea 13' a bit further down the line. If Tietchens doesn't release a particular composition it is probably not good enough. On the original we have 'Linea 1' and 'Linea 3'. The fist is a very straightforward rhythm machine and sequence along with a repeating loop. It is very much at the tail end of Tietchens' Sky Records phase; very electronic, nothing concrete and yet also very minimal indeed. 'Linea 3' is also minimal yet with a stranger attack on the keyboard and rhythm machine pushed a little to the background. In both pieces there is very little development but it slowly shifts around. 'Im Atelier Zu Hören' is the tip Tietchens gives us, 'listen in your workspace' and that's where this works well indeed. In the two bonus pieces, Tietchens gives something away from the working methods behind 'Linea', which I didn't hear to the same extent as before. In these pieces the rhythm machine has disappeared and it's only arpeggio synthesizers, playing repeating lines and feeding through various delay lines, so sometimes we only hear the residue of the delay of the original line, chasing each other on end. Again this is all very minimal and again it works very well. 'Linea 12' has a darker touch and 'Linea 13' is the lighter side of things. Excellent re-issue." (FdW/Vital Weekly)