Mathias Grassow

Last updated
Mathias Grassow
Origin Wiesbaden, Germany
Genres Ambient
Drone ambient
Dark ambient
Instruments Steel Cello
Associated acts Klaus Wiese
Oöphoi
Alio Die
Bruno Sanfilippo
Website www.mathias-grassow.de

Mathias Grassow is a German ambient musician whose recordings can also be classified in the genres of dark ambient and drone ambient. His music often has a meditative and emotional and spiritual context, which induces deep feelings of introspection in listeners. Over his long career, he has collaborated extensively with other notable ambient composers such as Klaus Wiese, Oöphoi, Alio Die, Bruno Sanfilippo, and Tomas Weiss.

Germany Federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe

Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north, and the Alps, Lake Constance and the High Rhine to the south. It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, and Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands to the west.

Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. A form of slow instrumental music, it uses repetitive, but gentle, soothing sound patterns that can be described as sonic wallpaper to complement or alter one’s space and to generate a sense of calmness. The genre is said to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual", or "unobtrusive" quality.

Dark ambient is a genre of post-industrial music that features an ominous, dark droning and often gloomy, monumental or catacombal atmosphere, partially with discordant overtones. It shows similarities towards ambient music, a genre that has been cited as a main influence by many dark ambient artists, both conceptually and compositionally. Although mostly electronically generated, dark ambient also includes the sampling of hand-played instruments and semi-acoustic recording procedures, and is strongly related to ritual industrial music.

Contents

Origins

Mathias Grassow played drums and guitar in the 1970s and moved on to keyboards in the early 1980s. Later, he became interested in keyboards and electronic synths. [1] He had an interest in Alan Watts books and spirituality. His interests progressed over from Buddhism to Sufism and to the mystical side of Christianity. He became interested in overtone and subharmonic chants, long deep synthesizer drones, and in Indian classical music. [2] Later he was influenced by the singing bowl sound recordings of Klaus Wiese. [3]

Guitar fretted string instrument

The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that usually has six strings. It is typically played with both hands by strumming or plucking the strings with either a guitar pick or the finger(s)/fingernails of one hand, while simultaneously fretting with the fingers of the other hand. The sound of the vibrating strings is projected either acoustically, by means of the hollow chamber of the guitar, or through an electrical amplifier and a speaker.

Alan Watts British philosopher, writer and speaker

Alan Wilson Watts was a British-American philosopher who interpreted and popularised Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. Born in Chislehurst, England, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York. Pursuing a career, he attended Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, where he received a master's degree in theology. Watts became an Episcopal priest in 1945, then left the ministry in 1950 and moved to California, where he joined the faculty of the American Academy of Asian Studies.

Spirituality philosophical / theological term

The meaning of spirituality has developed and expanded over time, and various connotations can be found alongside each other.

Discography

Notable albums include the following: [4]

Notes

  1. ↑ Mathias Grassow at Discogs.com
  2. ↑ Biography at the official Mathias Grassow web-site Archived 2012-06-21 at the Wayback Machine .
  3. ↑ Wiese, Wiese (1994). Uranus: Tibetan Singing Bowls. Amber Lotus Publishing. ISBN   9781885394064.
  4. ↑ Mathias Grassow discography
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