IMA_experiments 8

At the 8^th edition of the series IMA_experiments the audience can expect performances by Asmus Tietchens (live), :zoviet*france: (live) and DJ Zipo (DJ-Set).

The avant-garde composer Asmus Tietchens who lives in Hamburg is one of the most important personalities and pioneers in non-academic electronic music. He started experimenting with a tape recorder in 1965, recording tape loops and putting together collages; synthesizers were added from 1971.
 
Asmus Tietchens has released more than 70 CDs on international labels such as Staalplaat, Multimood, line and aufabwegen and worked together with sound artists such as Thomas Köner, Vidna Obmana, Okko Bekker and Achim Wollscheid. Tietchens' primary musical interest is in processing sounds that are sometimes alienated beyond all recognition and put in new adequate contexts for them. Since the turn of the millennium he has again been working increasingly with the synthesizer, which Tietchens only uses as a pure source of sound for his reductionist condensed compositions though. Tietchens’ work adopts a skeptical gesture that is not least evident in the regular quotations by the philosopher E.M. Cioran on his sound media. He has commented on his work and the corresponding musical environment several times in essays. Asmus Tietchens has been awarded with the Karl Sczuka Prize donated by Südwestrundfunk (SWR) twice so far. Tietchens also gives seminars at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences.

:zoviet*france: have been active in experimental electronic music for more than 30 years. In terms of style the group from Newcastle can be classified as post-industrial and ambient. :zoviet*france: produce experimental sound collages from acoustic and electronic sounds that are often combined with field recordings.
 
Their releases include more than 20 albums in the meantime that have appeared on labels such as Mute Records, Soleilmoon Recordings, alt.vinyl and their own label Charrm. In the last few years they have also worked together with dance companies and were commissioned among other things with composing soundtracks for the London Random Dance Company.  :zoviet*france: produce the weekly »A Duck in a Tree« radio program and podcast, which is described by them as “a 60 minute continuous mix of some of the best genre-refusing, zero BPM and maximinalist recordings”.

DJ Zipo plays a mixture of ambient, field recordings and noise collages. In real life he is called Till Kniola and runs the label aufabwegen, whose releases include works by Asmus Tietchens, Marc Behrens, KK Null & John Wiese and Carl Michael von Hausswolf.

Till Kniola curates music events in Cologne, regularly writes about music and sound and is the artistic director of the Geraeuschwelten Festival in Münster, which is co-produced by WDR 3. As a DJ he has worked internationally with Aube, Troum, Marc Behrens and Asmus Tietchens, among others. His motto: “It’s all pointless.