Stephan Mathieu

After relocating to Berlin in 1990, German-born producer and composer Stephan Mathieu launched his work with early instruments, found sounds, and analog together with digital processing methods. Drums and percussion anchored his presence in the city’s improvisatory circles across the 1990s, during which he sustained an ongoing partnership with guitarist Olaf Rupp under the name Stol. Electronic explorations began as the decade wound down. Among the earliest artists signed to Kit Clayton’s Orthlorng Musork label, he placed a 1999 Full Swing album on the roster that consisted of edits drawn from material by Clayton, Yo La Tengo, Ekkehard Ehlers, Monolake, and others, while also delivering two records on the Mille Plateaux sublabel Ritornell. The Halloween 2000 release Wurmloch Variation took an eleven-minute piano recording titled “Wormloch” as its source and presented five variations modeled directly on that original theme.

Mathieu has remained prolific in collaborative settings, issuing albums alongside Janek Schaefer, Si-{cut}.db, Taylor Deupree (who also issues Mathieu’s solo material on the 12k label), David Sylvian, Sylvain Chauveau, and many further partners. Processed shortwave radio signals formed the basis of the 2008 album Radioland. Beginning that same year, his palette expanded to include non-electronic instruments such as the virginals—a Renaissance instrument similar to a harpsichord—zither, violin, sruti box, and others, while gramophones have been employed to play selections from his extensive collection of 78-rpm recordings. In 2013 he contributed to Ablation, the first Main album since Robert Hampson rebooted the project. He composed the soundtrack for Tim Grünewald and Ludwig Schmidtpeter’s film Sacred Ground in 2014.