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Auf Abwegen

Auf abwegen is a magazine for music and culture and an experimental music label focused on uncompromising sound research. It plunges the depths of counter-culture since 1992, with the magazine and label's main focus being on the various forms of alternative music.

Senderkennungen
*300 copies limited edition* Senderkennungen marks the first ever collaboration between Hamburg veterans of sound art Asmus Tietchens and Felix Kubin, whose friendship began in the early 1990ies. The double album collects 25 original „Senderkennungen“ and their artistic deformation and further processing. Long wave, mid wave, short wave and ultra short wave – long since disappeared radio waves in forgotten ethers, where lost souls linger on a quest for a music that so far did not exist and essen…
Terra Incognita
*200 copies limited edition* Two beautiful pieces merging piano, electronics and field recordings. "you had that uncertain landscape / in your mouth / a slightly opaque breath / chewing distances / into the ear of a land still without a name / the morning had settled askew / on the slow stones / and the motionless grasses / everything seemed to be waiting / for something very ancient / that never quite arrived / on my side / i had filled my pocket with silence / and repeated several times / what…
Minority Of The Dead
The backstory: 5 September, 2012 was the day John Cage would have turneed 100. Centenary celebrations for a prominent artist would seem rather conventional. Inappropriate for an extremely unconventional artist. But seemingly inappropriate things can be quite appropriate in unconventional contexts. So why not participate in a 100th birthday commemorative project? No sooner said than done...
Pax Westphalica
*200 copies limited edition* While listening to old [Multer]-recordings for a potential 25 years anniversary edition we were highly impressed by the direct two track recording of this concert in 1999 due to both the concentrated and quiet audience and the setup of some of our songs, which were preversions for the following Neskt-10” release. All in all this concert is very intense, so instead of the anniversary edition we decided to release this concert; we hope you like it too… The group starte…
Cancer
*250 copies limited edition* Originally released in 1992 via Tesco, »Cancer« was recorded one year earlier by Thymme Jones, Dan Burke, Mark Klein, Mitch Enderle, Chris Block, and Jim O'Rourke. This one was mostly a group effort focused on a dark ambient atmospheric environment and experimental minimalism that crawls under your skin. Mark & Thymme’s heavy synth is omnipresent, Mitch & Chris scraping every piece of scrap metal they could find, Jim’s extended piano & tabletop guitar is apparent, t…
Lichthöfe
*300 copies limited edition* The musical material on „Lichthöfe“ is based on modular recordings by Thorsten Soltau. Conceptually these recordings deal with the spaciality of sound and the stereo field, while still maintaining an improvisational character. Asmus Tietchens has treated the material to intensive deformations, ranging from reductionist clusters to brittle textures. In each treatment a fragment of the original material remains audible.
One
300 copies limited edition Debut album by new trio Autonister. In this cooperative work spread-out software synthesizer improvisations meet with manipulated string instruments, vocal experiments and heavily treated field recordings. Analogue and digital sound components collide. These main ingredients are arranged with the help of an audio editing software and complemented and enriched by various overdubs.Autonister is a musical project, which was founded in 2022 by Siegfried Syniuga, Bernd Kast…
The Mosaic Of Starlight Slips Back Like The Lid Of An Opening Eye
This piece is the newest element in the ongoing Garden Of Instruments project which began in 1997 with Second Site.Since then the project has expanded to include sound, writings, video, virtual photography, printmaking, light-boxes, installations and lenticulars. The new piece, which at one hour and twenty-five minutes is broken across two CDs, further explores the astronomical/architectural phenomena of the Janta Manta instruments. To me they have always stood as monuments that collapse the ill…
Topology of a Quantum City
"A couple of years back, during a period of frequent relocation, and with no permanent studio set up, I came across the original DAT parts of a project I completed in 1992 just before I moved from Australia to The UK. The sessions for New Maps Of Hell evolved out of a rhythm track I’d built in my studio. I was (and still am) fascinated the twin, revolutionary, 70’s phenomena of electric jazz (Miles, Hancock, Williams, Priester) and Krautrock (Can, Faust, Tangerine Dream). I was trying as a solo …
Bubendey. Memorialmusik Auf Eine Brache
Statische Musen is the follow-up project to Hematic Sunsets, operated by Hamburg musician Asmus Tietchens.
(else)where
*150 copies limited edition* (else)where is a collaboration between composers Bruno Duplant + Seth Nehil and photographers TJ Norris + Harrison Higgs, consisting of two CDs and 10 cards in a box set. Fifteen soundscapes, each a consistent length (5:00 and 10:00) are placed in conversation with 19 images, each a pairing of halves. Cards and sounds may be shuffled by the listener to create new juxtapositions. A poem by David Grubbs completes the set.With Higgs & Nehil in the Pacific Northwest, Nor…
Symbiosis
First ever vinyl reissue of Troum's Symbiosis EP, with unreleased extra track
Ohne Titel
*300 copies limited edition* Helmut Neidhardt, Chris Sigdell and Sascha Stadlmeier first met in 2020. They decided to record together and booked a studio in Dortmund. The recording session was spontaneous and somewhat chaotic. Thus it turned out, that only Helmut’s tracks were really usable. Using some sections as a basis, Chris completely re-recorded his guitar, added a little bit of vocal here and there, and then sent a rough mix to Sascha, who in turn added violin and musique concrete. The fi…
Arctic Salon
*300 copies limited edition* Planned in the early 90's executed in the early 20's: The Arctic Salon. Another Cranioclast Expedition, this time to the Pole. A long time between planning and execution, but much shorter than the time between the first fake reports of having reached the North Pole on foot across the ice and the first expedition that really made it without motorization. But also a long time in which things in the Arctic and Antarctic got worse and worse and continue. Double LP almost…
Nifbin Circle
*112 copies limited edition on transparent violet vinyl* Nifbin Circle is the fourth release by Detlef Funder, aka Konrad Kraft, on the Cologne label Aufabwegen. Sounds generated with two apps on the iPad,provided the basic structures and the sound space. The strangely enraptured textures created in this way, with a subtle percussive touch, were partly combined with supporting beats in the course of further processing. Thus, after more than 30 years, tracks with rudimentary melodies and rhythms …
Diskretion. Funktionsmusik Für Verrichtungsboxen
*300 copies limited edition* Hematic Sunsets are gone - here come the Statische Musen. A new outlet by Asmus Tietchens for musical endeavors that are more formlular or genre based The four long-form tracks of Diskretion explore "ambient" in the broadest sense of the term. Dense layers, slow dynamic progression, moody atmospheres.   Asmus Tietchens was born in Hamburg in 1947. Since 1975 he has been working as an independent musician; in 1980 he released his first solo record Nachtstücke. After p…
R
*200 copies limited edition. * First collaboration between Ralf Wehowsky (Germany) and Richard Francis (New Zealand). On a trip from Auckland over Worpswede to Eggenstein Richard Francis visited Ralf Wehowsky on the weekend of September 28th and 29th, 2013. For the recording sessions taking place during these two days Richard used his analogue synth and electronics, while Ralf had a desktop and a laptop for producing digital electronic sounds at hand. For bridging the anatgonistic sound worlds t…
Manifold Vista
*150 copies limited edition.* Six new floating and dense pieces by Greek sound artist Thanos Chrysakis. Manifold Vista is the new album by composer/producer Thanos Chrysakis. Rarely can something so meticulously assembled together sound so fluid. A distinct, disciplined sense for composition emerges from each of these works, displaying formal integrity while at the same time, they are also effervescent, forceful, fiercely idiosyncratic and beautifully shaped and transformed. The album discloses …
Don't Ever Let Me Know
*200 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* Don't Ever Let Me Know is Sheffield's first solo release since 2018's Repair Me Now (Glistening Examples) and is a work in a similar mode to that album in that it comprises two lengthy pieces of multiple movements and moods. For this new work, and as a kind of ode to his late father, Sheffield has employed samples entirely taken from (or inspired by) the city in which both men were born. In this way, the sounds have been utilized as a kind of …
Octagon Sphere
*300 copies limited edition.* The new album Octagon Sphere by Duesseldorf duo Strafe F.R. comprises of four pieces recorded in 2020 and 2021 at the group's own studio. The work features heavily treated female vocals and includes rhythmic patterns and electronic sounds contributed by Detlef Klepsch (of the group keit). The overall atmosphere is tense and moody, both dark and uplifting at the same time. Octagon Sphere was mastered by Kai Blankenberg at Skyline Tonfabrik. Octagon Sphere is the sist…
Red Circle
*200 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* On “Red Circle”: Though severely cut, Red Circle doesn't exactly sweep along. It has a deliberate pace as Kallabris sets up the score of thirteen chance acquaintances who plan and carry out the sacking of our acoustic consciousness... Understatement is the method of these compositions for a small modular synthesizer. If there ever was something like heist music, this here surely is. (Vincent Canby, with a few minor changes and adaptions).
ΕΛΥΤΡΑ
*2022 stock. 150 copies limited edition* Everyone has heard the marvelous sound of crickets in the summer especially in the countryside. The sound is produced by raising and scraping against each of their protective fore-wings the elytra. Their burrow act as a resonator bringing at times a transcendent quality to the place. The music in this album with myriads of sounds, regular and irregular pulses, unfolds a similar transforming quality.
Fire Music Reloaded
Fire Music was composed by Reynols in 2002 with fire recordings made at Tigre (Río Capitán) and different locations in Buenos Aires city and around. With some of this material, a CD EP appeared in Japan in 2002 through the Digital Narcis label, however the complete version of this piece remained unreleased for decades. In a recent research the masters of the whole work were found and rescued from the group's archives. So twenty years later, finally the full version of this piece is now ready to …
Labyrinth Of The Inner Ear
Tip! ** Full colour 6 page dvd-type embossed digipak. 300 copies. In Terry Fox's own words: "For the exhibition "Sonambiente", I will produce a new audio work for compact disc. The title of this work will be "Labyrinth of the inner ear" and it will be recorded in Berlin on the 14th and 15th of April 2006. The compact disc will be produced directly after the recording process and presented, during sonambiente, in a room of the former polish embassy. This will be a kind of "drone" work consisting …
Die Höfner Akten
Tip! New collaborative work by two veterans of the European experimental scene, Dirk Serries + Asmus Tietchens. Dirk Serries and I have long been colleagues and friends. Since the 1990ies we have exchanged sound materials to be reworked and published on an on and off basis. "Die Höfner Akten" are something new and special to in so far as the source material with its basic structure has been improvised exclusively on an acoustic guitar (of the 'Höfner' brand). Dirk and I had agreed upon the follo…
I II III IIII
*In process of stocking. 200 copies limiteed edition* The four pieces on this CD were written during travels, moving between places or being on the move. The first rough sketches have been developed further in different situations until they reached the final shape that can be heard on the album. These formations came about after many mood swings and rethinkings. Sometimes, the way to the final results was long, depending o the mood in the very moment, while working on the music. The manifestati…
Seuchengebiete 4
* In process of stocking * Part 4 in the series of hydrophonic pieces, Seuchengebiete, by Asmus Tietchens  Seuchengebiete 4, the continuation of Asmus Tietchens’ almost legendary series of treated water sounds, consists of six Hydrophonies. The sonic palette ranges from deep gurgling bass pulses to fragile movements of showering bright particles. The overall mood is earnest, contemplative and dark. Seuchengebiete 4 is perhaps the ultimate soundtrack for our crises-ridden times.   Asmus Tietchens…
Sleepwalker
UK ambient pioneers O Yuki Conjugate release their first new album for over a decade. Sleepwalker documents the group's recent live shows, doubling as a soundtrack to a film of the same name by founder member Andrew Hulme. Comprising 10 new tracks taken from 24 live shows in nine countries across Europe, Sleepwalker captures OYC's current musical direction, a blend of plangent keyboards, abstract guitars and electronic rhythms, presented in OYC's inimical style.
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Oordeel
This collaboration was bound to happen someday! Out of mutual respect and admiration for each other’s work Asmus Tietchens and Frans de Waard decided to work on some music together. The result is “Oordeel" (dutch for "judgement") – eleven tracks of diverse character and subtle beauty. From distorted groans and gritty pulses to delicate and abstract sound layers Tietchens and de Waard have created a fascinating sound world of bizarre beauty.
Deflections
Fabio Perletta and Asmus Tietchens’ hermetic micro-cosmos of Deflections unfolds by exploring instability and physical decay of sound. Built upon liminal forms and atonal passages, the six near-silent pieces of the work traverse empty space by means of elementary sonic emissions and drifting nano-structures. Among sound collisions and evanescent masses, the almost immaterial yet corporeal nature of Deflections, embodies sound in its most subliminal and contradictory form. Fabio Perletta cr…
Soirée Fantastique
5” CD in full colour digipak carton sleeve and printed inner sleeve. CD is off-set printed in half-metallized format, all designed by Asmus Tietchens. Production: Okko Bekker. On “Soirée fantastique”, two pieces – unfocussed in every aspect – featuring blurring conmtours, spooled out harmonies and barely recognizable melodies frame an extreme minimal, almost static piece in the centre. A piece of harsh, sharp-edges transparency. If this were not the music of a phantastic nightlyx gathering…
Quadrat
On “Quadrat” : Quadrat is the title of Konrad Kraft’s (aka Detlef Funder) newest album, this time released on 12” vinyl. In some ways this album constitutes a kind of continuation of his previous work, which started with Temporary Audiosculptures. A sound manifestation of imaginary, sculptural and graphic structures. Like before, the production concentrates, in a more diffused way than in his previous album, on adding compositorial characteristics to graphic-geometric structures. The result is a…
aufabwegen50. ausgewählte geräusche
The 50th release by the aufabwegen label is also part of the edition elektronik of the Deutscher Musikrat. The extensive double CD compilation comes with a detailed booklet. The release links up the history of the aufabwegen label with a personal take on the evolution of noise music in Germany. It traces the developments from the early cathartic powers of pure noise via bruitistic sound researches up to the formation of an aesthetic of noises themselves; a self conscious sound culture. This move…
Harvestehude
After more than 10 years of enthusiastic experiences and encounters with so-called „Difficult Music“ throughout the 1980ies Martin Peinemann and Asmus Tietchens deemed their somewhat differing approaches to making music compatible and agreed upon a loose collaboration in the year 1992. For various reasons (organizational and others) the work was not to take place at Audiplex studios but at Peinemann’s home studio. This modest lab featured all the necessary technical equipment needed to realize n…
Squared
Squared Squared consists of two longer pieces. a) is a recording of a live performance executed at ZKM in Karlsruhe. It is an abstract piece of music that has evolved during the time the composer has performed live – since 1980. For the composer, generally, a live performance is always the “same thing”, but listening to the early recordings it occurs that the music has changed drastically – only the format is still there. This is analogue to life in general – Earth looks the same like alwa…
Schon geht anders
29 tracks of sheer joie de vivre form this manifesto of musical positivism. Reductionist on their acoustic surface, constructivist in their compositional core, the tracks themselves and in their sequence point to a sociological base: a sociology of sound or a sound sociology driven by the rough necessities of political acoustics. Advanced 4-track tape recording techniques struggle with primitive digital technology, thus forming a class of sound which contains itself as an element and attribute. …
Humoresken und Vektoren
Humoresken und Vekotren takes up a work that was started upon the invitation of Francisco Lopez for the spanish Störung label. The task was to deliver thirteen 2-minute original compositions for a compilation release. "Humoresken und Vektoren" recycles these miniatures from 2010 and undfolds it into eight new works having no resemblance with the original sourcings whatsoever. These eight tracks are bound together by eight short pieces entitled "Tristia" that function as bridges between the longe…
Bounds
Edition of 300 copies which include: colour printed, double-sided, semi-gloss insert; die-cut, poly-lined, black inner sleeve, and; stickered, resealable, poly outer sleeve. “Bounds” consists of 11 electro-acoustic compositions, whose first versions were constructed by Seth Nehil for the “Concerts in the Dark” series at Moers Festival 2012 curated by aufabwegen. In 2013 Seth did the final versions and added some new pieces. “Bounds” is an exciting trip through sound manipulation, treated drums a…
Xylowave 2010 / Amplifaction II
The Haters are a noise and conceptual art troupe from the US, headed by GX Jupitter-Larsen. Founded in 1979, they are one of the earliest and best-known acts in the modern noise scene. Hal Hutchinson (Pollutive Static) has previously released several of his scrap metal sound recordings on labels such as Freak Animal Records, Unrest Productions, and in the last couple of years, he has moved to incorporate analogue synthesizers, field recordings and other elements into his work. Here, Hal presents…
Tidal
Full colour digipak designed by Slavek Kwi. Limited to 300 copies. On 'Tidal' : Tidal zone is a fluid line between land and sea, a site of perpetual motion and metamorphoses. During 2008 - 2010 I collected a variety of sounds in coastal areas of Western and Southern Ireland and on the other side of Atlantic Ocean in Newfoundland, Canada: the remote fishing village of Conche, the ghost settlement of Crouse, and the St.Georges peninsula. I recorded underwater : crackles of decapods, dolphins, mink…