A 83
ε-MENGE (EPSILON-MENGE)

CD
Line • Line_020 • USA 2005

Tracklist
01 Teilmenge 35m 12’37“
02 Teilmenge 36 18’56“
03 Teilmenge 38 9’09“
04 Teilmenge 35l 18’32“

Annotations
01 / 04 Malte Steiner – source material

See project index for other MENGEN and track index for other Teilmengen.

Description
Like A74 DELTA-MENGE, just quieter. Dark weights under a narrow sky.

Source
02 A 22 LINEA; others: electronic sounds.

Reviews:
Ultimata la serie di ristampe su Die Stadt dei dischi del periodo Sky, da qualche tempo il decano Asmus Tietchens sembra vivere una nuova giovinezza, grazie anche alla frequentazione di giovani estimatori come Thomas Koner e Richard Chartier, con la cui Line ha stabilito un rapporto di solida collaborazione („E-Menge“ e infatti solo il primo capitolo americano di questa collana, inizialmente pensata per la Ritornell – quattro i volumi usciti per la label tedesca). Interamente basate su toni puri, onde sinusoidali e rumore bianco, le composizioni della serie ribadiscono l’interesse di Tietchens nei confronti della rielaborazione di materiali basici, trovati, propri od altrui (nella fattispecie Malte Steiner), che vengono costantemente riciclati e rilavorati, dunque mai considerati complet(at)i di per se. L’approccio colto e severo, isolazionista ed anti-accademico, dell’autore tedesco  ben rappresentato nelle sommesse astrazioni del full length su Line e della sua appendice su Tausend Fussler, austere spazializzazioni tridimensionali dal profilo acre come le immancabili citazioni dello scettico Cioran. (7) ad entrambi.
(Blow Up, IT)

„Epsilon quantity“ is what E-Menge means – at least if I could re-create the Greek E on my computer. This is the fourth part in a series but unfortunally the three previous (Alpha-, Beta- and Gamma-Menge) are not easy to get these days: the original label is bankrupt for some time. With this series, Tietchens breaks away from his older musique concrete work (the treatment of sounds through studio techniques; computers are not his thing) into a more electronic body of work. That is to say: I think. Maybe his Menge series is an extension of his previous musique concrete work, but with new technology. This new work, and so did the previous three, are works that shows that Tietchens is connected to the world of microsound. An almost empty sound, or maybe some faint background hum, and on top some sort of rhythmic construction, which is being repeated every now and then never seems to form any sort of repeating rhythm. Tietchens says that his work deals with space; not the one abo ve our heads or anything astronomical, but as in three dimensional. Some of the sounds are in the foreground and some are in the background. The background is usually the humming part and the foreground the rhythmic constellations – which, excuse me, sound like rotating planets and stars shooting by. As a truely devoted Tietchens man I can only applaud this CD, another fine small masterpiece.
(Vital Weekly, NL)