Stephan Mathieu
Encyclopedia
Stephan Mathieu is a German musician and sound artist whose work is based on digital
and analog
processing techniques. He lives and works in Saarbrücken
, Germany.
and abstract digitala. His sound is largely based on early instruments, environmental sound and obsolete media, which are recorded and transformed by means of experimental microphony, re-editing techniques and software processes involving spectral analysis and convolution; it has been compared to the landscape paintings of Caspar David Friedrich
, the work of Painters Mark Rothko
, Barnett Newman
and Ellsworth Kelly
.
During the last decade Stephan’s music has been released on 30 CDs and vinyl records, both solo and in collaboration with Akira Rabelais
, Douglas Benford
, Ekkehard Ehlers
, Janek Schaefer
, John Hudak and Taylor Deupree
on electronic music labels worldwide.
Since 1992 he performed his music live in solo shows and on festivals all over Europe, Scandinavia, North- and Southamerica and created various audio installations for galleries and museums, a glass-blowing factory, a 17th century garden, Berlin Mitte, a 19th century steel plant, parks, an arrangement of 30 Peugeots, a late antique throne hall and various other places.
Between 2000 and 2005 Mathieu has taught Digital Arts and Theory at the HBKSaar University of Art and Design in Saarbrücken and as a guest lecturer at the Royal Academy of Arts in Göteborg, the Bauhaus University Weimar and the Merz-Akademie in Stuttgart.
His solo CD Radioland was voted genre-spanning one of the best albums of 2008 by music critics worldwide.
, The Police' Stewart Copeland
and The Skatalites' Lloyd Knibb
as early influences. In 1984 he quit school to study hair design with Vidal Sassoon
, a profession he followed until 1989, when he decided to focus entirely on making music after he became acquainted with the work of experimental percussionists Milford Graves
and Paul Lovens
.
In 1990 Mathieu moved to Berlin, where he joined the blossoming scene of a new generation of improvising musicians and worked regularly in several groups with Axel Dörner, Andrea Neumann, Toshimaru Nakamura
, Rudi Mahall, Matt Wand, Harri Sjöström
, Sakari Luoma, Ignaz Schick and played in Wolfgang Fuchs workshop group and the large conduction ensemble Berlin Skyscraper by New York based composer Butch Morris
. As a percussion soloist Mathieu performed his own pieces as well as compositions by Earle Brown
, Karlheinz Stockhausen
and John Cage
.
One constant factor in Mathieu's work as a drummer during the 1990s was the duo Stol with guitarist Olaf Rupp. Stol moved freely between improvisation, noise and minimal rock, collaborated with various guest musicians and Butoh
dancers and recorded a miniCD (Semi Prima Vista in 1994), and a 12 inch EP (001.010.011.100 in 1995) which was released on Kitty-Yo
, Berlin in 1998. The same year he returned to his hometown Saarbrücken to found a family and made a radical shift towards composing and performing music with computers.
In 1999 Orthlorng Musork, a music label founded in San Francisco by electronic musician and software author Kit Clayton
and video artist Sue Costabile, released his Full Swing EP, a 12 inch record with two pieces made from "homeopathic vibrations", microscopic snippets from recordings of Stephan's drum kit which were processed by DSP
software in realtime. He applied this working method to recordings of his own piano and guitar playing as well as material by other musicians until 2001, when he changed his approach towards sound from micro to macro, from working with tiny sound fragments towards extensive live recordings of acoustic instruments, which were now transformed by means of experimental microphony, re-editing techniques and software processes involving spectral analysis
and convolution
, culminating in his The Sad Mac CD, released on the Tokyo based Headz label in 2004.
From 2005 to 2007 Mathieu worked exclusively with realtime processed shortwave radio signals and performed Radioland, an audio-visual surround sound piece, live.
Mathieu is a collector of 78 rpm records from the golden age of audio recording, his archive mainly embraces raw gospel
, jubilee
groups, hillbilly
, hawaiian steel guitar duets and early recordings of early music
from 1900-1930.
concept which pays tribute to some of the great contemporary composers of minimal, experimental and electroaucoustic music. Interpretations of pieces by Phill Niblock
, Alvin Lucier
, Walter Marchetti, Charlemagne Palestine
and Francisco Lopez
are performed by Mathieu on the Virginals
, a Renaissance
keyboard instrument, mechanical gramophones
, Philicorda organs and other obsolete media.
In 2010 Mathieu started to work with several composers on commissioned pieces for Virginals which will be premiered in 2011.
Between 2009 and 2010 the audiovisual installations Process and Constellations were premiered and performed all over Europe. Both pieces are closely linked to Virginals in their mechanical-acoustic nature.
Process, commissioned by the 25th Music Biennale Zagreb
, is based on Orson Welles
' film adaption of Franz Kafka
's unfinished novel The Trial
. The piece is presented by an ensemble of historical media artefacts comprising four mechanical gramophones
which play back a pre-recorded consort
of viol
s, the Virginals
played with five electromagnets, and two vintage 16mm film projectors connected by a long film loop. Both, the audio and visual parts of Process are based on a text fragment of Kafka's novel, which is translated to a long string of binairy code.
Constellations is a collaborative work with Buenos Aires
based media artist Caro Mikalef and was commissioned by the Sónar
2010 Festival in Barcelona
for three performances in the planetarium
of the CosmoCaixa Barcelona
New Science Museum. Conceived as an audiovisual piece dedicated to the iberian Renaissance composer Antonio de Cabezón
, whos 500th anniversairy was celebrated in 2010, Constellations is performed by Mathieu and Mikalef on the Virginals
and the harpsichordist
Carles Budo Costa from Valencia. For the visual part of the composition a large mobile
sculpture was built from optical lenses by Carl Zeiss
, mirrors and color filters, which is spotlighted by 12 HMI lamps to create spectral light reflections in the planetariums projection dome.
During Stephan Mathieu's aforementioned excursions within the fields of mechanical-acoustics and media composition, the computer made a comeback for some live projects in 2010, namely his Music for Columbia Phonoharp and Computer, a project dedicated to the US American pre-war gospel
preacher Washington Phillips
, which was performed in several concerts in Europe, North- and South America.
In 2011 Mathieu has started live and studio collaborations with David Sylvian
, Sylvain Chauveau
, Taylor Deupree
, Jozef van Wissem
and Donal Lunny
, as well as relaunching Robert Hampson
's classic Main
project.
Officiale, an homage to German-Argentine composer Mauricio Kagel
will be premiered in January 2012 in Buenos Aires
.
Digital
A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...
and analog
Analog signal
An analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are...
processing techniques. He lives and works in Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken is the capital of the state of Saarland in Germany. The city is situated at the heart of a metropolitan area that borders on the west on Dillingen and to the north-east on Neunkirchen, where most of the people of the Saarland live....
, Germany.
About
Stephan Mathieu is a self taught composer and performer of his own music, working in the fields of electroacousticsElectroacoustics
Electroacoustics may refer to:*Electroacoustic music*Electroacoustic phenomena* Acoustical engineering, the interdisciplinary branch of Acoustics, electronics and electrical engineering dealing with electronic devices...
and abstract digitala. His sound is largely based on early instruments, environmental sound and obsolete media, which are recorded and transformed by means of experimental microphony, re-editing techniques and software processes involving spectral analysis and convolution; it has been compared to the landscape paintings of Caspar David Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning...
, the work of Painters Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
, Barnett Newman
Barnett Newman
Barnett Newman was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters.-Early life:...
and Ellsworth Kelly
Ellsworth Kelly
Ellsworth Kelly is an American painter and sculptor associated with Hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and the Minimalist school. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing the simplicity of form found similar to the work of John McLaughlin. Kelly often employs bright colors to...
.
During the last decade Stephan’s music has been released on 30 CDs and vinyl records, both solo and in collaboration with Akira Rabelais
Akira Rabelais
Akira Rabelais, Los Angeles-based composer and author.Akira is the author of ‘Argeïphontes Lyre’, a software filtering application based on recombination and morphologies. He has collaborated with various musicians, including Björk, David Sylvian, Harold Budd, Nobukazu Takemura, Stephan Mathieu and...
, Douglas Benford
Douglas Benford
Douglas Benford is an English musician with ginger hair, curator, producer and co-founder of SPRAWL. He lives and works in London.-About:Benford has had many recorded releases under many guises: mainly as Si-cut.db, but also Radial Blend, Phoenix Jig, Pantunes Music & Media Form , covering...
, Ekkehard Ehlers
Ekkehard Ehlers
Ekkehard Ehlers is an artist working in the field of electronic music. In addition to his solo career, he has recorded under the monikers Auch, Betrieb and Ferdinand Fehlers and as a member of the duo Autopoesies and his band März...
, Janek Schaefer
Janek Schaefer
Janek Schaefer is a London-based sound artist, musician, and composer born in England to Polish and Canadian parents in 1970. He is known for his innovative work with sound and installation art...
, John Hudak and Taylor Deupree
Taylor Deupree
Taylor Deupree , is an American electronic musician, photographer and graphic designer. He is most known for the founding of the 12k record label, along with his work as a member of Prototype 909, and his collaborations with Savvas Ysatis and Christopher Willits...
on electronic music labels worldwide.
Since 1992 he performed his music live in solo shows and on festivals all over Europe, Scandinavia, North- and Southamerica and created various audio installations for galleries and museums, a glass-blowing factory, a 17th century garden, Berlin Mitte, a 19th century steel plant, parks, an arrangement of 30 Peugeots, a late antique throne hall and various other places.
Between 2000 and 2005 Mathieu has taught Digital Arts and Theory at the HBKSaar University of Art and Design in Saarbrücken and as a guest lecturer at the Royal Academy of Arts in Göteborg, the Bauhaus University Weimar and the Merz-Akademie in Stuttgart.
His solo CD Radioland was voted genre-spanning one of the best albums of 2008 by music critics worldwide.
- "Mathieu shows that that most functional and impersonal of musical instruments, the laptop, is capable of producing work not only of great beauty, but of mysterious and powerful emotion.” (1)
History
Stephan Mathieu was born October 1967 in Saarbrücken, Germany. At 10 he started to play drums with Ringo StarrRingo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
, The Police' Stewart Copeland
Stewart Copeland
Stewart Armstrong Copeland is an American musician, best known as the drummer for the band The Police. During the group's extended hiatus from the mid-1980s to 2007, he played in other bands and composed soundtracks...
and The Skatalites' Lloyd Knibb
Lloyd Knibb
Lloyd Knibb OD was a Jamaican drummer who is primarily known for his contribution to the development of the rhythm of the Ska era. He played for The Skatalites , and for Tommy McCook & The Supersonics...
as early influences. In 1984 he quit school to study hair design with Vidal Sassoon
Vidal Sassoon
Vidal Sassoon, CBE is a widely recognised British hairdresser, credited with creating a simple geometric, "Bauhaus-inspired" hair style, also called the bob...
, a profession he followed until 1989, when he decided to focus entirely on making music after he became acquainted with the work of experimental percussionists Milford Graves
Milford Graves
Milford Graves is an American jazz drummer and percussionist, most noteworthy for his early avant-garde contributions in the early 1960s with Paul Bley and the New York Art Quartet...
and Paul Lovens
Paul Lovens
Paul Lovens is a musician. He plays drums, percussion, singing saw and various selected and unselected cymbals. He has also performed with the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra and Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra....
.
In 1990 Mathieu moved to Berlin, where he joined the blossoming scene of a new generation of improvising musicians and worked regularly in several groups with Axel Dörner, Andrea Neumann, Toshimaru Nakamura
Toshimaru Nakamura
Toshimaru Nakamura is a Japanese musician, active in free improvisation and Japanese onkyo.He began his career playing rock and roll guitar, but gradually explored other types of music, even abandoning guitar and started working on circuit bending...
, Rudi Mahall, Matt Wand, Harri Sjöström
Harri Sjöström
Harri Sjöström is a saxophonist who specializes in the soprano saxophone.-Life and career:Harri studied saxophone with Harry Mann with Leo Wright and Steve Lacy. He also studied photography and film at the Lone Mountain College in San Francisco Art Institute from 1974 - 1978. He attended the...
, Sakari Luoma, Ignaz Schick and played in Wolfgang Fuchs workshop group and the large conduction ensemble Berlin Skyscraper by New York based composer Butch Morris
Butch Morris
Lawrence D. "Butch" Morris is an American jazz cornetist, composer and conductor.-Biography:Before his musical career, Morris served in Vietnam during the Vietnam War....
. As a percussion soloist Mathieu performed his own pieces as well as compositions by Earle Brown
Earle Brown
Earle Brown was an American composer who established his own formal and notational systems...
, Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
and John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
.
One constant factor in Mathieu's work as a drummer during the 1990s was the duo Stol with guitarist Olaf Rupp. Stol moved freely between improvisation, noise and minimal rock, collaborated with various guest musicians and Butoh
Butoh
is the collective name for a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement inspired by the movement. It typically involves playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, extreme or absurd environments, and is traditionally performed in white body makeup...
dancers and recorded a miniCD (Semi Prima Vista in 1994), and a 12 inch EP (001.010.011.100 in 1995) which was released on Kitty-Yo
Kitty-Yo
Kitty-Yo is a German record label specializing in quirky pop and electronica. It was founded in 1994 in Berlin following the creation of an independent zine of the same name...
, Berlin in 1998. The same year he returned to his hometown Saarbrücken to found a family and made a radical shift towards composing and performing music with computers.
In 1999 Orthlorng Musork, a music label founded in San Francisco by electronic musician and software author Kit Clayton
Kit Clayton
Joshua Kit Clayton, better know by his stage name Kit Clayton, is a San Francisco-based electronic and digital musician and computer programmer...
and video artist Sue Costabile, released his Full Swing EP, a 12 inch record with two pieces made from "homeopathic vibrations", microscopic snippets from recordings of Stephan's drum kit which were processed by DSP
Digital signal processing
Digital signal processing is concerned with the representation of discrete time signals by a sequence of numbers or symbols and the processing of these signals. Digital signal processing and analog signal processing are subfields of signal processing...
software in realtime. He applied this working method to recordings of his own piano and guitar playing as well as material by other musicians until 2001, when he changed his approach towards sound from micro to macro, from working with tiny sound fragments towards extensive live recordings of acoustic instruments, which were now transformed by means of experimental microphony, re-editing techniques and software processes involving spectral analysis
Spectral analysis
Spectral analysis or Spectrum analysis may refer to:* Spectrum analysis in chemistry and physics, a method of analyzing the chemical properties of matter from bands in their visible spectrum...
and convolution
Convolution
In mathematics and, in particular, functional analysis, convolution is a mathematical operation on two functions f and g, producing a third function that is typically viewed as a modified version of one of the original functions. Convolution is similar to cross-correlation...
, culminating in his The Sad Mac CD, released on the Tokyo based Headz label in 2004.
From 2005 to 2007 Mathieu worked exclusively with realtime processed shortwave radio signals and performed Radioland, an audio-visual surround sound piece, live.
Mathieu is a collector of 78 rpm records from the golden age of audio recording, his archive mainly embraces raw gospel
Gospel
A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
, jubilee
Jubilee
-Anniversaries and celebrations:*Jubilee , Royal Jubilee years are depicted in Egyptian history*Jubilee , the Jubilee year specified in the Torah*Jubilee , a special year for the remission of sins and universal pardon...
groups, hillbilly
Hillbilly
Hillbilly is a term referring to certain people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas of the United States, primarily Appalachia but also the Ozarks. Owing to its strongly stereotypical connotations, the term is frequently considered derogatory, and so is usually offensive to those Americans of...
, hawaiian steel guitar duets and early recordings of early music
Early music
Early music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...
from 1900-1930.
Current work
In 2008 he launched Virginals, a recitalRecital
A recital is a musical performance. It can highlight a single performer, sometimes accompanied by piano, or a performance of the works of a single composer.The invention of the solo piano recital has been attributed to Franz Liszt....
concept which pays tribute to some of the great contemporary composers of minimal, experimental and electroaucoustic music. Interpretations of pieces by Phill Niblock
Phill Niblock
Phill Niblock is a composer, filmmaker, videographer, and director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation for avant-garde music based in New York with a parallel branch in Ghent, Belgium.-Biography:...
, Alvin Lucier
Alvin Lucier
Alvin Lucier is an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. A long-time music professor at Wesleyan University, Lucier was a member of the influential Sonic Arts Union, which included Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and...
, Walter Marchetti, Charlemagne Palestine
Charlemagne Palestine
Charlemagne Palestine is an American minimalist composer, performer, and visual artist...
and Francisco Lopez
Francisco López
Francisco López or Francisco Lopez may refer to:*Francisco López 16th century, Spanish Renaissance painter*Francisco López , Spanish Renaissance painter*Francisco López Contreras , Guatemalan footballer...
are performed by Mathieu on the Virginals
Virginals
The virginals or virginal is a keyboard instrument of the harpsichord family...
, a Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
keyboard instrument, mechanical gramophones
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
, Philicorda organs and other obsolete media.
In 2010 Mathieu started to work with several composers on commissioned pieces for Virginals which will be premiered in 2011.
Between 2009 and 2010 the audiovisual installations Process and Constellations were premiered and performed all over Europe. Both pieces are closely linked to Virginals in their mechanical-acoustic nature.
Process, commissioned by the 25th Music Biennale Zagreb
Music Biennale Zagreb
Music Biennale Zagreb is an international festival of contemporary music in Zagreb, Croatia, organized by the Croatian Composers' Society. The Biennale, founded by Milko Kelemen and held every spring of the odd years since 1961, has become one of the most important festivals of contemporary music...
, is based on Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
' film adaption of Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
's unfinished novel The Trial
The Trial
The Trial is a novel by Franz Kafka, first published in 1925. One of Kafka's best-known works, it tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor the reader.Like Kafka's other novels, The Trial was never...
. The piece is presented by an ensemble of historical media artefacts comprising four mechanical gramophones
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
which play back a pre-recorded consort
Consort of instruments
A consort of instruments was a phrase used in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to indicate an instrumental ensemble. These could be of the same or a variety of instruments. Consort music enjoyed considerable popularity at court and in households of the wealthy in the...
of viol
Viol
The viol is any one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed musical instruments developed in the mid-late 15th century and used primarily in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The family is related to and descends primarily from the Renaissance vihuela, a plucked instrument that preceded the...
s, the Virginals
Virginals
The virginals or virginal is a keyboard instrument of the harpsichord family...
played with five electromagnets, and two vintage 16mm film projectors connected by a long film loop. Both, the audio and visual parts of Process are based on a text fragment of Kafka's novel, which is translated to a long string of binairy code.
Constellations is a collaborative work with Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
based media artist Caro Mikalef and was commissioned by the Sónar
Sónar
Sónar is an annual three-day music festival held in Barcelona, Spain. It is described officially as a festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art. Music is by far the main aspect of the festival....
2010 Festival in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
for three performances in the planetarium
Planetarium
A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation...
of the CosmoCaixa Barcelona
CosmoCaixa Barcelona
CosmoCaixa Barcelona is a science museum located in Barcelona, Spain. Formerly known as the Science Museum of Barcelona, it closed for renovations in 1998 and reopened in 2004 under its current name. The museum features a variety of exhibitions, permanent and temporary, that showcase the...
New Science Museum. Conceived as an audiovisual piece dedicated to the iberian Renaissance composer Antonio de Cabezón
Antonio de Cabezón
Antonio de Cabezón was a Spanish Renaissance composer and organist. Blind from childhood, he quickly rose to prominence as performer and was eventually employed by the royal family...
, whos 500th anniversairy was celebrated in 2010, Constellations is performed by Mathieu and Mikalef on the Virginals
Virginals
The virginals or virginal is a keyboard instrument of the harpsichord family...
and the harpsichordist
Harpsichordist
A harpsichordist is a person who plays the harpsichord.Many baroque composers played the harpsichord, including Johann Sebastian Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, George Frideric Handel, François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau...
Carles Budo Costa from Valencia. For the visual part of the composition a large mobile
Mobile (sculpture)
A mobile is a type of kinetic sculpture constructed to take advantage of the principle of equilibrium. It consists of a number of rods, from which weighted objects or further rods hang. The objects hanging from the rods balance each other, so that the rods remain more or less horizontal...
sculpture was built from optical lenses by Carl Zeiss
Carl Zeiss
Carl Zeiss was a German maker of optical instruments commonly known for the company he founded, Carl Zeiss Jena . Zeiss made contributions to lens manufacturing that have aided the modern production of lenses...
, mirrors and color filters, which is spotlighted by 12 HMI lamps to create spectral light reflections in the planetariums projection dome.
During Stephan Mathieu's aforementioned excursions within the fields of mechanical-acoustics and media composition, the computer made a comeback for some live projects in 2010, namely his Music for Columbia Phonoharp and Computer, a project dedicated to the US American pre-war gospel
Gospel
A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
preacher Washington Phillips
Washington Phillips
Washington Phillips was a Texan gospel singer and musician. Phillips died in 1954 in Teague, Texas.- Biography :Phillips recorded eighteen songs, all between 1927 and 1929, though only sixteen survived...
, which was performed in several concerts in Europe, North- and South America.
In 2011 Mathieu has started live and studio collaborations with David Sylvian
David Sylvian
David Sylvian is an English singer-songwriter and musician who came to prominence in the late 1970s as the lead vocalist and main songwriter in the group Japan...
, Sylvain Chauveau
Sylvain Chauveau
Sylvain Chauveau is a critically acclaimed instrumental music and electronic music artist and composer from Bayonne, France.-Background:Sylvain Chauveau was born in Bayonne, France , and now lives in Brussels, Belgium...
, Taylor Deupree
Taylor Deupree
Taylor Deupree , is an American electronic musician, photographer and graphic designer. He is most known for the founding of the 12k record label, along with his work as a member of Prototype 909, and his collaborations with Savvas Ysatis and Christopher Willits...
, Jozef van Wissem
Jozef van Wissem
Jozef van Wissem is a Dutch minimalist composer and lute player.Composer and lutenist Jozef van Wissem is devoted to what he terms “The Liberation of the Lute”...
and Donal Lunny
Dónal Lunny
Dónal Lunny is an Irish folk musician. Lunny has been at the forefront of the evolution of traditional Irish music for more than thirty-five years and has participated within the renaissance of traditional Irish music in that time period...
, as well as relaunching Robert Hampson
Robert Hampson
Robert Hampson is an English musician and composer, known primarily as a guitarist in the band Loop, which he co-founded in London in 1985 with his then girlfriend Becky Stewart . Loop recorded three albums, the last of which made the U.K...
's classic Main
Main (band)
Main were a British ambient band formed in 1991 by guitarists Robert Hampson and Scott Dowson, the former members of Loop. They combined ambient sound with layers of electric guitars and dark, foreboding emotional overtones. In 2006 Hampson announced that Main had been effectively disbanded in...
project.
Officiale, an homage to German-Argentine composer Mauricio Kagel
Mauricio Kagel
Mauricio Kagel was a German-Argentine composer. He was notable for his interest in developing the theatrical side of musical performance .-Biography:...
will be premiered in January 2012 in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
.
Selected discography
- w/ Caro Mikalef: Radioland (Panorámica) | CD | Line, Washington 2012
- Flags | C-20 Cassette | The Tapeworm, Berlin/London 2011
- To Describe George Washington Bridge | 10 inch record | Dekorder, Hamburg 2011
- A Static Place | CD | 12k, New York 2011
- Remain | CD | Line, Washington 2011
- w/ Taylor DeupreeTaylor DeupreeTaylor Deupree , is an American electronic musician, photographer and graphic designer. He is most known for the founding of the 12k record label, along with his work as a member of Prototype 909, and his collaborations with Savvas Ysatis and Christopher Willits...
: Transcriptions | CD | Spekk, Tokyo 2009 - The Key to the Kingdom (For Washington PhillipsWashington PhillipsWashington Phillips was a Texan gospel singer and musician. Phillips died in 1954 in Teague, Texas.- Biography :Phillips recorded eighteen songs, all between 1927 and 1929, though only sixteen survived...
) | 10 inch record | Dekorder, Hamburg 2009 - Radioland | CD | Die Schachtel, Milano 2008
- w/ Janek SchaeferJanek SchaeferJanek Schaefer is a London-based sound artist, musician, and composer born in England to Polish and Canadian parents in 1970. He is known for his innovative work with sound and installation art...
: Hidden Name | CD | Cronica, Porto 2006 - w/ Akira RabelaisAkira RabelaisAkira Rabelais, Los Angeles-based composer and author.Akira is the author of ‘Argeïphontes Lyre’, a software filtering application based on recombination and morphologies. He has collaborated with various musicians, including Björk, David Sylvian, Harold Budd, Nobukazu Takemura, Stephan Mathieu and...
: “Perineum” | DVD | CONV, Madrid 2006 - The Sad Mac | CD | HEADZ, Tokyo 2004
- On Tape | CD | Häpna, Stockholm 2004
- w/ John Hudak: Pieces of Winter by John Hudak and Stephan Mathieu | CD | Sirr, Lissabon 2004
- w/ Douglas Benford: Reciprocess 02 “und. and“ | CD | Bip-Hop/Fällt, Marseille/Belfast 2003
- Kapotte Muziek by Stephan MathieuKapotte MuziekKapotte Muziek is the musical improvisation project of Frans de Waard, Peter Duimelinks and Roel Meelkop. Active since 1984, it is one of the most internationally visible improvisation and experimental project hailing from the Netherlands. The group began as the solo noise music project of Frans de...
| CD | Korm Plastics, Nijmegen 2003 - w/ Ekkehard Ehlers and Various Artists: Heroin | 2CD/2LP | Orthlorng Musork, San Francisco 2003
- Die Entdeckung des Wetters | CD | Lucky Kitchen, La Rioja 2002
- Full Swing Edits | 5 x 10 inch EP/CD | Orthlorng Musork, San Francisco 2001/2002
- Gigue | CD | FälltFälltFällt is an independent publishing house specialising in experimental music, fine art, design and criticism.Established in the mid 1990s by W. Conrad Röntgen and Christopher Murphy as a publishing vehicle for experimental interdisciplinary works, Fällt is now jointly run by W. Conrad Röntgen and...
Publishing, Belfast 2002 - frequencyLib | CD/LP | Ritornell, Frankfurt aM 2001
- Wurmloch Variationen | CD | Ritornell, Frankfurt aM 2000
- w/ Stol: 001.010.011.100 | 12 inch EP | Kitty-YoKitty-YoKitty-Yo is a German record label specializing in quirky pop and electronica. It was founded in 1994 in Berlin following the creation of an independent zine of the same name...
, Berlin 1998 - w/ Butch MorrisButch MorrisLawrence D. "Butch" Morris is an American jazz cornetist, composer and conductor.-Biography:Before his musical career, Morris served in Vietnam during the Vietnam War....
: Conductions '95 | DCD | Free Music Production (FMP), Berlin 1997 - w/ Stol: Semi Prima Vista | CD | Algen, Berlin 1994
Selected Sound Installations
- Constellations | CosmoCaixa Science Museum Barcelona 2010
- Horatio Oratorio | Fundaçao de Serralves, Porto 2008
- „Die Sonne toent nach alter Weise“ / Play! | Two soundscapes for the MUNLAB Ecomuseo, Gambiano 2006
- Strahlungsdichte | Autogenerative soundscape for the Aula PalatinaAula PalatinaThe Basilica of Constantine , or Aula Palatina, at Trier, Germany is a Roman palace basilica that was built by the emperor Constantine at the beginning of the 4th century....
, Trier 2005 - 8Bit Symphony | UNESCOUNESCOThe United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
Cultural Heritage Völklinger HütteVölklinger HütteThe Völklingen Ironworks is located in the German town of Völklingen, Saarland. In 1994, it was declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.It is an anchor point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage .- History :...
2004 - Heller Raum | Soundscape for the Rosa-Luxemburg-PlatzRosa-Luxemburg-PlatzThe Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz is a square in Berlin-Mitte, Germany.The square is dominated by the Volksbühne and by the Karl-Liebknecht-Haus, the headquarters of the German Left Party...
, Berlin 2003 - Un oceano di milione di partecelle | Soundscape for a major Leonardo da VinciLeonardo da VinciLeonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
Exhibition, - UNESCO Cultural Heritage Völklinger HütteVölklinger HütteThe Völklingen Ironworks is located in the German town of Völklingen, Saarland. In 1994, it was declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.It is an anchor point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage .- History :...
2002 - Vor „Vor der Stille“ | Audiovisual piece for Museutopia, Karl-Ernst Osthaus Museum Hagen 2002
- 1745 | Soundscape for the Impakt Festival, Utrecht 2002
- Die Entdeckung des Wetters | UNESCO Cultural Heritage Völklinger HütteVölklinger HütteThe Völklingen Ironworks is located in the German town of Völklingen, Saarland. In 1994, it was declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.It is an anchor point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage .- History :...
2001 (permanent installation) - Cars | Audiovisual sculpture for 30 Peugeot 206 and sinetones, Saarland Galerie, Saarbrücken, 2001
- Touch | Soundscape for a glass exhibition, Berlin Townhall, 2001
- Betrieb | UNESCO Cultural Heritage Völklinger HütteVölklinger HütteThe Völklingen Ironworks is located in the German town of Völklingen, Saarland. In 1994, it was declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.It is an anchor point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage .- History :...
2000 (permanent installation) - Aussen | Soundscape for the City area of SaarbrückenSaarbrückenSaarbrücken is the capital of the state of Saarland in Germany. The city is situated at the heart of a metropolitan area that borders on the west on Dillingen and to the north-east on Neunkirchen, where most of the people of the Saarland live....
1998
Selected Live Performances
- 2011 - Panoramica, Buenos Aires / College des Bernardins, Paris / MIMI Festival, Marseille
- 2010 - Présence Electronique, Paris / SONAR, Barcelona / SFEMF San Francisco
- 2009 - Music Biennale ZagrebMusic Biennale ZagrebMusic Biennale Zagreb is an international festival of contemporary music in Zagreb, Croatia, organized by the Croatian Composers' Society. The Biennale, founded by Milko Kelemen and held every spring of the odd years since 1961, has become one of the most important festivals of contemporary music...
/ Romaeuropa Festival, Rome - 2008 - Radialsystem V, Berlin / Lovebytes08, Sheffield
- 2007 - La Triennale di Milano / Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
- 2006 - Theatre A L‘Italienne, Saint-Brieux / Atlantic Waves Festival, London
- 2005 - Music Research Center, York / EME Festival, Lisbon / Lampo, Chicago
- 2004 - Experimental Intermedia, New York / I.D.E.A.L. Festival, Nantes
- 2003 - Instal Festival, Glasgow / SONAR, Barcelona / MUTEK, Montreal
- 2002 - Frequenzen Hz, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt aM
- 2001 - Dutch Electronic Arts Festival, Rotterdam
- 1998 - Volksbühne, Berlin
- 1997 - Total Music Meeting, Berlin
- 1996 - Echtzeitmusiktage, Berlin
- 1994 - Roulette, New York
- 1993 - National Gallery, Helsinki
External links
- Bitsteam.de, Stephan Mathieu's homepage
- "On The Concept Of History" 78RPM podcast on Cronica
- An excerpt of the "Virginals" project on Farimani
- A live recording of Radioland on TouchRadio
- [ The Sad Mac CD reviewed at allmusic.com]
- [ Wurmloch Variationen CD reviewed at allmusic.com]
- Stephan Mathieu at Discogs
- Stephan Mathieu's music on lastFM