Mathias Grassow is a German ambient musician whose recordings can also be classified in the genres of dark ambient and drone ambient. His music often has a meditative and emotional and spiritual context, which induces deep feelings of

introspection Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings. In psychology, the process of introspection relies on the observation of one's mental state, while in a spiritual context it may refer to the examination of one's sou ...

in listeners. Over his long career, he has collaborated extensively with other notable ambient composers such as

Klaus Wiese 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 huma ...

Oöphoi Gianluigi Gasparetti (26 March 1958 – 12 April 2013), known by the pseudonym Oöphoi, was an Italian ambient musician. He is perhaps best known for his role as the editor of ''Deep Listenings'', an Italian magazine dedicated to ambient a ...

Alio Die Alio Die, the stage name of Stefano Musso, is an Italian ambient-music composer and producer. Stefano Musso studied art and electronics in Milan, Italy, and began performing music in 1989. Overview His music is a fusion of acoustical elements ...

, and Tomas Weiss.

Origins

Mathias Grassow played drums and

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

in the 1970s and moved on to keyboards in the early 1980s. Later, he became interested in keyboards and electronic

synth A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

s. He had an interest in

Alan Watts Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English writer, speaker and self-styled "philosophical entertainer", known for interpreting and popularising Japanese, Chinese and Indian traditions of Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu ...

books and spirituality. His interests progressed over from

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religions, Indian religion or Indian philosophy#Buddhist philosophy, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha. ...

to Sufism and to the mystical side of Christianity. He became interested in overtone and subharmonic chants, long deep synthesizer drones, and in

Indian classical Indian classical music is the classical music of the Indian subcontinent. It has two major traditions: the North Indian classical music known as '' Hindustani'' and the South Indian expression known as '' Carnatic''. These traditions were no ...

music. Later he was influenced by the

singing bowl A standing bell or resting bell is an inverted bell (instrument), bell, supported from below with the rim uppermost. Such bells are normally bowl-shaped, and exist in a wide range of sizes, from a few centimetres to a metre in diameter. They are ...

sound recordings of

Discography

Notable albums include the following:Mathias Grassow discography
/ref> * 1991, Prophecy * 1993, In Search Of Sanity * 1997, Namakar * 1998, Elixir * 1998, Himavat * 1999, Dissolution * 1999, Himalaya * 2000, Cosmic Chasm * 2000, The Fragrance Of Eternal Roses * 2006, Dronament * 2006, Opus Posthumum * 2007, Deeper Purity * 2009, Calibration

Notes

External links

Mathias Grassow official Web site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grassow, Mathias Living people Ambient musicians Dark ambient musicians German male musicians Year of birth missing (living people)