Jan 19, 2020

Sundaze 2003

Hello,  today's artist spent most of his life studying Sufism and Mysticism as such being 'out there ' that much may well have led him deciding to stay there, instead of returning to his aging body, after all he had given what he had to give..


Today's artist is is a German ambient drone. While the early releases of the early 80s (almost exclusively released on cassette) were characterized by droning singing bowls, tambouras, zithers and natural sounds, these natural sound sources were combined more and more delicately on the late works, so that the sound source itself can no longer be identified was. The result was a deep, dronic sound current. If you listen closely, you will discover the incredible complexity that swells up and down and gives the sounds something organic. Each album was under a spiritual (often Sufic) motto and probably opened a corresponding door in open-minded listeners to touch or awaken that emotional level. Do listen to this guy, whose music, while hardly including a single word, has so much more to say to us than words, no matter their number, could ever communicate. .......N-Joy

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Klaus Wiese (January 18, 1942 – January 27, 2009 in Ulm) was a veteran e-musician, minimalist, and multi-instrumentalist. A master of the Tibetan singing bowl, he created an extensive series of album releases using them. Wiese also used the human voice, the zither, Persian stringed instruments, chimes, and other exotic instruments in his music. Wiese is considered by some as one of the great ambient or space music artists such as Robert Rich, Steve Roach, Michael Stearns, Constance Demby, and Jonn Serrie. His musical style is much more appropriately compared to the organic soundscapes of drone and dark ambient music, such as Oöphoi, Alio Die, Mathias Grassow, and Tau Ceti.

He was briefly a member of the krautrock band Popol Vuh in the early 1970s where he played tamboura on the albums Hosianna Mantra and Seligpreisung. Eventually Wiese would move away from krautrock to his own version of long tone ambient music by the 1980s. In the 1990s he founded the Nono Orchestra to play the giant sheetmetal instruments of Robert Rutman. His music has regularly been featured on nationally syndicated radio programs such as Hearts of Space and Star's End.

Wiese is known also for his collaborations with Al Gromer Khan, Mathias Grassow, Oöphoi, Tau Ceti, Saam Schlamminger, and Ted de Jong. He collaborated with Deuter on his Silence is the Answer album in 1980 and East of the Full Moon in 2005. Outrageously, twenty-four albums of material were released in 2004 alone. He traveled the East for many years studying Sufism and Mysticism which clearly influenced his spiritual, ambient music. Klaus Wiese died on 27 January 2009 at the age of 67. "It wasn't obvious he was sick and he was not suffering from any known illness. He died unexpectedly during the night."

Wieses approach to ambient music is based on the minimalist tradition of composers such as John Cage, Steve Reich and Philip Glass; The greatest similarities between his space-flooding, ethereal, sometimes almost statically persistent, and genre-typical extended (sometimes over 60 minute long) drone passages exist for artists such as Robert Rich and Steve Roach. Wiese was a self-taught multi-instrumentalist throughout his life and used various Persian stringed instruments, drums, Tibetan singing bowls, chimes and a number of other instruments in addition to the zither on his recordings.

Klaus Wiese's life's work, however, is difficult to reduce to his music as such, because for him mystical elements were always an integral part of his art, he himself emphasized spiritual, therapeutic and healing motives. Multiple trips to the Orient brought him in particular in connection with the teachings of Sufis Hazrat Inayat Khan, experiences that should also be reflected in his musical expression (and many of his artworks). Through Wiese, a piece of the Sufis' love of music came to Europe, which, although distant from classical Sufi music, still has similarities such as ecstasy (wagd) and rapture (hal)

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Trance is consistently balanced, relaxed, harmonious, soothing, which for a full hour borders on a miracle. An ideal sound space for special actions of action and sanctification, initiation, meditation. Perhaps it's because of the pitches - the vibration of this recording touches the heart chakra in an incomparable way. Not an absolutely "everyday" experience but still really deep and nice



Klaus Wiese - Trance - Tibetische Klangschalen (flac 164mb)

01 Tibetische Klangschalen Part One 23:27
02 Tibetische Klangschalen Part Two 7:12
03 Tibetische Klangschalen Part Three 19:54
04 Tibetische Klangschalen Part Four 8:37

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Space, the final frontier this is the voyage of Klaus Wiese, it's atmospheric, hypnotic, meditative, repetitive, peaceful. Think minimalistic, spiritual, soothing, psychedelic, ethereal, instrumental and you get a perfect description of Claus Meadow's space



Klaus Wiese - Space (flac 192mb)

01 Space I 29:56
02 Space II 30:13

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"El-Hadra - The Mystic Dance" became Klaus Wieses "hit album". El-Hadra is a rhythmic meditation of the Sufis. Breath and heartbeat are equally involved and thus lead to trance-like states, not unlike Christian “heart prayer”, although Sufi meditation is carried out in a group and is anything but self-contained and quiet. Together with keyboardist and ambient musician Mathias Grassow (whose albums are always worth a recommendation) and long-time companion Ted de Jong on the tablas, Klaus Wiese merges and centers his previous sound achievements to a large whole and incidentally meets the taste of tens of thousands handset.

The focus is on the rhythm, which slowly but steadily increases in speed and leads the listener, or fellow dancer, ever further into the trance. Incidentally, the tablas were played through in a take, which probably also explains the natural flow of this recording. You are the pulse. The keyboards stretch the space and the zither seems to grind up all the rising thoughts and blow into an endless space. Even if the music seems very simple, very reduced, it is filled with treasures. Such music can only be a key, we provide the door and space.



Klaus Wiese - el-Hadra, The Mystik Dance ( flac   226mb)

01 el-Hadra, The Mystik Dance 52:28


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Klaus Wiese is a musical genius. He has proceeded beyond the purist's realm of acoustic singing bowls. Ceremony is a subtle blend of psychotropic bowls and psychoactive synths. Wiese explores the very limits of probability and goes to the nth degree of a new purity. The levels to which he can take the psyche build upon each other exponentially. It is like the proverbial upside-down pyramid. Thus, it is also a metaphor for life. As listeners travel this path of a conscious mind flux, they gather tools along the way. Some tools are intellectual, some are emotional, and some are devotional. All of the tools are, to some degree, spiritual. The six compositions are, in essence, merely movements in a long-form composition. The new purity is an essential device.



Klaus Wiese - Ceremony (flac   214mb)

01 Intro I 1:56
02 Déjà vu 28:19
03 Intro II 1:23
04 The Dream 16:53
05 Fergana I 5:16
06 Fergana II 6:31

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Two long meditative / obscure tracks from these masters of esoteric music done with sonorous sculptures resonances. Nono Orchestra are Klaus Wiese, Rick Rummler and Mani Reisser. They use what appear to be enormous sections of sheet metal formed into resonant instruments which make pluritimbral vibrations and layers of very low frequencies noise. This is very different than other deep noise projects. Often electronic artists create low noise using electronics and feedback but the sound here are formed much in the same principle of acoustic music. Various members of this quartet actually employ bows to create the vibrations of the metal in much the same way that a string musician would play his instrument. The result is an original and audibly vibrant low noise experience. Very textured, minimalistic, sombre, atmospheric, meditative, in short..fascinating.



Nono Orchestra - A-Kaori (flac 214mb)

01 A-Kaori 30:07
02 Dajjall 35:56

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

THoughtful uploading. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Thanks very much, Rho. I'll be helping myself to all of these. Cheers, tf