KLAUS WIESE

Klaus Wiese biography
Klaus Wiese (1942-2009) was a prolific German multi-instrumentalist and electronic musician. A pioneer of drone ambient and practicing Sufi, Wiese released dozens and dozens of albums of meditative, sprawling instrumentals of sustained overtones primarily using Tibetan singing bowls as well as tamboura, cymbals, zither, harmonium and voice. Wiese also released several collaborations with like-minded ambient and new age artists such as his protégé Mathias Grassow, Oöphoi, Saam Schlamminger, Tomas Weiss, Jim Cole and Al Gromer Khan.

In 1972, Wiese joined Popol Vuh as roadie and assistant for Florian Fricke who, in return for Wiese's help, credited him for playing tamboura on the albums Hosianna Mantra and Seligpreisung, when in reality he didn't participate at all. After his tenure with Fricke, Wiese travelled through Iran, Afghanistan and India for the remainder of the 70s studying Sufism. He began his long musical run with the self-released cassette Baraka in 1981, with most of his works conceptual pieces referencing Eastern spiritualism and Islamic mysticism, distributed across labels like Aquamarin Verlag, Edition Akasha and Umbra. Wiese met fellow musician Mathias Grassow in Munich in 1987, beginning a decades-long friendship over shared interests in spirituality and sound. In the 1990s, Wiese organized the Nono Orchestra with Mark Leistikow, Mani Reisser and Rick Rummler, crafting electroacoustic abstractions using the unique steel-made instruments of US sculptor Robert Rutman. In 2002, Wiese joined the ambient sextet Nebula, formed by Gianluigi Gasparetti of Oöphoi.

Wiese belongs in the archives due to his influence on the space- and tribal ambient subgenres, setting the stage for the North American West Coast scene represented by Steve Roach and Robert Rich. His work is warmly recommended to listeners of Mountain Ocean Sun, Alio Die, Tau Ceti, Oöphoi and Andrew Chalk.