Klaus Wiese (January 18, 1942 – January 27, 2009 in Ulm) was a veteran e-musician, minimalist, and multi-instrumentalist. A master of the Tibetan singing bowl, he created an extensive series of album releases using them. Wiese also used the human voice, the zither, Persian stringed instruments, chimes, and other exotic instruments in his music.
Wiese is considered by some as one of the great ambient or space music artists alongside Robert Rich, Steve Roach, Michael Stearns, Constance Demby, and Jonn Serrie. His musical style is much more appropriately compared to the organic soundscapes of drone and dark ambient music, such as Oöphoi, Alio Die, Mathias Grassow, and Tau Ceti.
He was briefly a member of the krautrock band Popol Vuh in the early 1970s where he played tamboura on the albums Hosianna Mantra and Seligpreisung. Eventually Wiese would move away from krautrock to his own version of long tone ambient music by the 1980s. In the 1990s he founded the Nono Orchestra to play the giant sheetmetal instruments of Robert Rutman.
His music has regularly been featured on nationally syndicated radio programs such as Hearts of Space and Star’s End.
Wiese is known also for his collaborations with Al Gromer Khan, Mathias Grassow, Oöphoi, Tau Ceti, Saam Schlamminger, and Ted de Jong. He collaborated with Deuter on his Silence is the Answer album in 1980 and East of the Full Moon in 2005. Twenty-four albums of material were released in 2004 alone.
He traveled the East for many years studying Sufism and Mysticism which clearly influenced his spiritual, ambient music.
Klaus Wiese died on 27 January 2009 at the age of 67. “It wasn’t obvious he was sick and he was not suffering from any known illness. He died unexpectedly during the night.” (wikipedia)
The second Arc release “Maquam” is a magnum opus in the world of deep Ambient Music. The album includes 3 very long tracks, offering hypnotic expanding soundscapes and subtle rhythms leading to a mental Trance state. “Maquam” works perfectly in repeat mode for slow movement, meditation and sleep purposes. With the new re-mastered version, it´s now 
possible to run the album at very low volumes with the music still filling the room. Because of some special spatial treatments used in the mastering, it´s even possible to capture the content by listening from other rooms, without the necessity of raising the volume heavily (for example, for more indirect listening experiences while concentrating, working or falling asleep).
Maquam, translating to “stations” in Arabic, is a term that references the various stages a Sufi’s soul must attain in its search for God. The stations are derived from the most routine considerations a Sufi must deal with on a day-to-day basis and is essentially an embodiment of mystical knowledge. (Press release)
Alternate frontcover:
“Maquam” is an absolute masterwork of singing bowl drone, drone music, and simply music and sound in general. With seventy-seven singing bowls all tuned slightly differently, Klaus Wiese crafts a monolithic, eternal, sepulchral drone that persists throughout the entire album. At first it appears static, yet upon closer listening one can hear what seems like an almost infinite amount of harmonics emerging from the tonal haze.
“Maquam I” sees the drone accompanied by distant chanting and an otherworldy siren-like sound, as well as a steady, low-end drum keeping a kind of natural breathing rhythm. Exceptional.
On “Maquam II”, the drone is slightly raised in pitch, but sounds essentially the same. This is the most rhythmic of the pieces, with Ted de Jong’s tabla drumming featured prominently. There are also some gorgeous, incredibly subdued synth lines that complement the background drone perfectly.
Finally, “Maquam III” disavows all supporting players, and simply features the unadulterated drone for twenty minutes. Here its truly staggering depth and harmonic complexity is revealed.
Like most of Klaus Wiese’s vast output, this a sacred, transcendental selection of music from a certified master. Well worth looking out for. (by ZonesQuest)
Personnel:
Ted de Jong (percussion)
Klaus Wiese (synthesizer, singing bowls, voice)
Tracklist:
01. Maquam 1 / 24.06
02. Maquam 2 / 28.14
03. Maquam 3 / 19.59
Music: Klaus Wiese
The official website:
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