Asmus Tietchens - FT+
(Crouton)
Though, in their initial form, remixes were once usually simply dance-friendly versions of singles, the art of the remix has exploded in the past decade, with artists completely warping or demolishing the source material in question in order to create music that isn't simply a rehashed version of the original, but a completely new music entirely. Thurston Moore's Root project comes to mind as one example of this advancement in remixing, and Asmus Tietchens' FT+ is surely another.
On FT+, tracks from Crouton's Folk Tales series of 3" CDs are remixed by German sound artist Asmus Tietchens. Though Tietchens has been recording and performing since the 1960s, this disc will most likely be an introduction to many to his work. The disc finds Tietchens' using the source material of the solo performances of Folk Tales to create skeletal shadows of what once existed, subtle whispers of the music's previous forms. Chopped into almost incidental bits, blurred into ambient hum, or augmented by new ingredients, the nine selections that made up the Folk Tales series lose most of any organic feel they once had, coming out of Tietchens hand in a much more sterile form. Musicians like Bhob Rainey, Hal Rammel, and Dan Warburton have their music dissected and reassembled in new forms, with varied results. Tietchens has a penchant for negative space and silence that often seems overused and ineffective; many of his more sparse reworkings seem almost to be simply exercises in the diluting of the music's makeup. The more ambient of the disc's tracks find more success, perhaps only because they provide a more focused path for Tietchens to tread, giving his work a cohesiveness that can be lacking elsewhere. The flittering of Kevin Shea's "Among the Ash-Heaps and Millionaires" is one of the disc's best, as well as the insectoid buzz of the remix of John Kannenburg's "Lave," and the ethereal glimmer of Tietchens' treatment of Adam Sonderberg's "I just want to make sure."
Asmus Tietchens' FT+ is definitely an interesting companion to the Folk Tales series, but as a standalone recording, the album doesn't steadily impress. If a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, could it be said that an album is only as strong as its weakest material? If this is the case FT+'s best material is spoiled by the rest, making this almost scientific vivisection of Folk Tales too inconsistent to reach its potential.
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