Search - Mathias Grassow, Klaus Wiese :: Mercurius

Making Your Hobby Easier

Gordon Danis | Eastchester, New York United States | 11/08/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The reviewer before me noted that "collecting Mathias Grassow is a hobby in itself." As Mathias' longtime U.S. Manager, let me make that "hobby" far easier for you: just go to his his Website, and you will find many sound samples, his CDs and CDRs all neatly listed, and his "side projects," (which may add to the "dizzying range of labels"; I guarantee you won't really get vertigo:)which are clearly delineated from his "main projects." Mathias is a master musician with a cult following in the U.S. but a much larger presence in Europe. Hopefully when he tours the US, that imbalance can be rectified.



Now..Mercurius...Mathias "treats" samples of Klaus' harmonically rich Tibetan singing bowl works collected from 1990-2000, and covers the bowls, so to speak, with a thin, electronic sheen which makes them sound almost translucent. This is one of my favorite CD from Mathias' vast catalog, but if you can find "Ambience," "Himavat," or "Lanzarote Spirits," you have tracked down his materpieces.. all easily available from his Website.



Mathias also handles Klaus Wiese's Website (...) since Klaus has long been a member of the reclusive Sufi sect, and is in fact a "Qualandar" (leader and faith healer.) That knowledge may inform the titles of his work, but the utter beauty of the Tibetan bowls that Klause uses to make his music, along with zithers and some sparse electronics, is truly of another world.



I highly recommend "Dunya," "Vision," "Neptune," "Uranus," and many others on the Klaus' Website, in addition to "Mercurius," which rings with over seventy minutes of subtle beauty.



If you are not familiar with the works of Mathias Grassow or Klaus Wiese (I would not call either a "protege" of the other;

they are colleagues who often include the Italian ambient master Oophoi in their Small Circle Of Friends,) you are in for a treat, as there is nothing else quite their respective and sometimes overlapping catalogs. Whether you are intently listening over headphones, or using the music as background, or for yoga, meditation or Reiki-you have come to a very special place. Take your time, look and listen, and enjoy."