Asmus Tietchens would be familiar to anyone steeped deep in experimental electronic music. This German electronic music pioneer made his first experiments in 1965 with tape recorders and electronic sound devices along with concrete sound material. Over the years he has developed his techniques and worked with luminaries such as Peter Bauman of Tangerine Dream, Nurse with wound, Arcane Device, Thomas Kroner and more recently with Richard Chartier. Tietchens has taught sound design at the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg and more recently at the University of Fine At in Hamburg.
Soirée is a composition of recycled compositions, sounds and movements of sound have been processed to extremes, or to be clearer they have been processed multitudes of times, sometimes to the 10th generation. It is a reclamation and negotiation of the past not a replaying, it takes the art form of sound design in it’s current state and processes the sounds of past experiments into the frame of the contemporary context and possibilities. The first sound that introduces the first track ‘p1B’, a sharp metallic awakening tone, almost metal on metal scraping except processed with an electronic gleam. This gives way to minimal drones and sound events as the redcurrant noise makes it’s way back to the center of the audio perspective. ‘Nox’ is an abstract fragile environ evoking images of whisps of ephemera delicate and poised as if close to shattering. ‘L2RB’ holds clunks of communication over a wire of thin deep spatial transmission. ‘L2RD’ introduces more variations in tone and as close to a ‘narrative’ form as Tietchens is likely to perform, given that structural form and considerations of the the nature of the aspects of the miniature of composition are more heavily considered than the presentation of an available text for the listener. However when this track introduces metallic drum aspects, it almost lends to Asian influences and cultural form of composition. ‘Nox 3’ has some very close environmental recording aspects as well as the more processed drone like aspects, an almost choral effect with modulation aplenty. ‘p1’ does the recurring frontal sound trick again with a shark click like sound of static as the glacial electronics fill the backing.
Soirée holds a soundscape not unlike glacial ambient works, but is perhaps better considered as an exercise in sound design and will appeal to people who have a distinct ear for sound design possibilities, immersive sound environments and developments in the art of electronic sound art.
Innerversitysound
