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Asmus Tietchens
German electronic music pioneer, active in Hamburg since the mid-1960s, pursuing rigorous 'absolute music' through musique concrète and synthesis.
Asmus Tietchens (b. 1947, Hamburg, where he has lived ever since) began recording sound experiments with electronic instruments, synthesizers, and tape loops in 1965, heavily inspired by Karlheinz Stockhausen and pursuing what he calls “absolute music” through rigid formal exercises. A 1970s partnership with producer Okko Bekker proved decades-long; Tangerine Dream’s Peter Baumann produced his 1980 album Nachtstücke, and four albums for Sky Records in the early 1980s (Biotop, Spät-Europa, In die Nacht, Litia) explored surprisingly accessible electronic pop before 1984’s Formen Letzter Hausmusik turned back toward abstract, concrète composition. He has taught acoustics in Hamburg since 1990, across more than a hundred recordings including collaborations with Merzbow, Vidna Obmana, and Thomas Köner.