Asmus Tietchens - Spät-Europa (1982)

Spät-Europa (Late Europe) was the second in Asmus Tietchens' series of four albums for Sky Records (links to the other three below).  It took the succinct economy of Biotop to extremes, with no less than 20 tracks lasting between two and three minutes in a variety of styles, to create a kind of compendium of avant-garde synth-pop.

Despite being the first Tietchens album I ever bought, Spät-Europa took me the longest to get in to.  It is meant to be his most accesible album (although I might be more inclined to give that to Litia), and it does have zippy little melodies in spades alongside darker-hued material; I reckon it's because there's just so much of it that it took me a while.  

 

Regardless, there's tons of timeless creativity to enjoy between the bookends of the choral overture and the piano with electronic whine that memorably closes the record.  Some of the most immediate highlights include the endearingly daft samba of Lourdes Extra, the quickly-souring earworm of Schöne Dritte Welt and the Roedelius-waltz gone dark swirl of Wein aus Wien.  There's at least half a dozen tracks that would make great sci-fi themes, like the pounding Ausverkauf, nervous-sounding Passaukontrolle and the Gary Numan-like Größenwarnung.  Try it all on shuffle and see what catches your ear.

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pw: sgtg

 

Previously posted at SGTG:

Biotop

In Die Nacht

Litia

Moebius & Tietchens

and featuring Asmus Tietchens

Liliental

Cluster & Eno

Cluster & Eno - s/t (1977)

The first fruits of Brian Eno's collaboration with Moebius & Roedelius to be released (Harmonia sessions from 1976 would stay in the can for two decades), Cluster & Eno took the loveliness of Cluster's maturing sound on Sowiesoso and made it even lovelier.  The album opens, like Sowiesoso, with a simple monochordal pulse, but made much more delicate and less overtly electronic, with Roedelius on piano.  Holger Czukay, who'd have been on the brink of leaving Can at the time, drops by for a relaxing busman's holiday.

The second track, Schöne Hände, is barely there at all - just a gentle breeze of synth that whispers across an open field, causing small stirrings in the flora & fauna.  Even more than on the previous Cluster album, the move to rural Forst was working wonders on Moebius & Roedelius' sonic outlook, as was the addition of Eno's unique lightness of touch. 

The album continues in this meditative mode until it picks up a little in the second half with the more rhythmic Selange and Die Bunge, before taking a turn into the more Eastern-sounding One, featuring guest appearances from Moebius' Liliental bandmates Asmus Tietchens and Okko Bekker.  The most gorgeous track is saved for last, the shimmering sunset magnificence of Für Luise.  I've often though of Cluster & Eno as a winter album, but been trying to mix things up a bit of late, and it works just the same magic at any time of year.

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pw: sgtg

Asmus Tietchens - Biotop (1981)

By request, here's Asmus Tietchens' first album for Sky records - a perfectly timed request, as I'd been pondering the recent lack of classic German electronica on this blog and trying to figure out what would be a good one to go for.  Between '81 and '83, Tietchens would make a quartet of albums to represent what he called his 'Zeitzeichen' (time-signal) phase, of "rhythmic-harmonic set pieces and gaudy records sleeves".  Previously posted at SGTG are the third one, In Die Nacht, and the fourth, Litia, so that just leaves Spät-Europa to post someday.  

Gaahh, bloody Spät-Europa... it was the first of all of the four that I bought, but every time I try to give its gleefully obnoxious 20 tracks an airing it still just ends up annoying the crap out of me.  Which probably means I do actually like it, in much the way that Tietchens may have intended.  But anyway, for now, here's the somewhat more accessible 16 tracks of Biotop.  Tietchens certainly gave his Zeitzeichen project a memorable curtain-raiser with In Die Zukunft, sounding like the theme to a suitably futuristic sci-fi movie, especially in its wonderful, propulsive second half.  

From there in, the electro-weirdness just gets dialed up to the max, sounding like a hyper-caffeinated version of Cluster's largely energy-deficient release from the same year.  The garish album cover couldn't be more perfect for the music it contains, and fluent German speakers (i.e. not me) will probably get the most out of what seems to be an overriding concept of mocking contemporary consumer society, in the punning track titles and the satirical vocals on Moderne Arroganz, the lyrics of which are apparently a list of different types of insurance. 

Biotop does eventually wind down to offer a bit of respite in the gorgeous, melodic penultimate track Träumchen Am Fenster, before ending on the beatless title track.  Biotop, the track, points both backwards to Tietchens' first (pre-Sky) LP Nachtstucke and forwards to the more avant-garde stuff to come.  As he says (in German) in the final moments, which formed a lock-groove on the original LP, "Let's see how things go".

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Dieter Moebius / Asmus Tietchens - Moebius + Tietchens (2012)

 According to Liliental lore, Dieter Moebius suggested a future duo collaboration to Asmus Tietchens as that six-day supergroup went their separate ways.  Only took them 35 years to get round to doing it.

Recorded in 2011 and released the following year, Moebius + Tietchens is the wonderful combination of two unique pioneers in electronica simply plugging in and coming up with something fresh and bang up to date.  Sounding like it's emenating from the laptop of a circuit-bending envelope pusher half their age, the warped electronics of Moebius + Tietchens sometimes result in the formless, industrial ambience of Vincent, Fontenay, Windkanal, sometimes in the grinding rhythms of Thorax, Yes Yes and Grimm, and are always engaging without any filler.

Highlights for me are the two longest tracks, Kattrepel and Lange Reihe, each subjecting a seemingly static idea to around ten minutes of infinite tweaks to ensure the track never gets boring.  Essential stuff from two masters in their field.

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Asmus Tietchens - In Die Nacht (1982)

In Die Nacht was the third of Asmus Tietchens’ four albums of mutant electro-pop for Sky Records.  I posted the fourth a while back, and this one is every bit as good. Originally planning to release a third collection of two-minute minatures, Tietchens found himself pressed for time to finish and deliver In Die Nacht, resulting in time-stretching on half of these tracks by necessity as much as any wish to experiment with longer pieces.

This, and the new acquisition of a Polymoog to fill out the sound, make for a fascinating record in which bouncy opener Mit Zebras Rennen is followed up by two lengthy, queasy explorations of minor key noir-ish synth and odd little rhythms, and the second half is stranger still.  Spanische Fliege percolates around its descending melody as the cheesy home-organ rhythm track grinds on, and the more gently pulsing Regenwald lives up to its title with some rainforest ambience, if the forest in question were under a biodome on a deep-space outpost.

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Asmus Tietchens - Litia (1983)

Five years on from Liliental, Hamburger Asmus Tietchens took a decisive turn in his fledgling solo career by signing to Sky Records and recording a quartet of albums that remain his best known and arguably most accessible work.

All four (Biotop, Spät-Europa, In Die Nacht and Litia) are worth a listen.  Going through these in order traces Tietchens' development from pointedly short pieces that sound like a sort of feral Cluster responding to the NDW movement, to trying out longer tracks and an expanded synth palate on In Die Nacht, to finally finding (IMO) the perfect balance with Litia, which is the one I keep coming back to. 'Unterhaltsmusik' is my personal favourite here - just before the minute mark, a gorgeous major-key melody breaks through the harsh, metallic clouds.

After Litia, Tietchens would take a sharp left turn into electroacoustic experimentation, but the Sky era did leave over an album's worth of offcuts that are now available as Der Fünfte Himmel (5th sky - geddit?).

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Liliental - s/t (rec. 1976, rel. 1978)

A krautrock supergroup of sorts that existed for the grand total of six days in the summer of 1976, Liliental came about purely by chance, and wrote and recorded one track per day throughout their existence.  The results were eventually released two years later.

It's a fascinating story to ponder over, especially in terms of what might have been.  The original plan was for Dieter Moebius, on a break from Cluster and Harmonia, to record an album with his friend Asmus Tietchens (who at that time had yet to be heard on record) and Tietchens' friend Okko Bekker (who had released a couple of solo albums).  Conny Plank was to produce, because, let's face it, who else?  Once in the studio, they ran into two members of krautrock/jazz fusion band Kraan, who had just finished up their own recording session and were spontaneously invited to join the project.

The result was this great little album.  What might've been a solid, quirky electronic record from Moebius/Tietchens/Bekker is given room to breathe and expand into languid, sometimes Pink Floyd-esque extended drifts (most of Side 2), super-catchy earworms like Wattwurm, and a comedy closing track that, had the instrumentation been a bit less smooth, might've sat comfortably on a Faust album.

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