Jazz Articles about Stephan Micus

Stephan Micus: On the Wing

by Erik R. Quick
July 24, 2007

Stephan Micus is a German-born multi-instrumentalist and inveterate ethnic musicologist. He currently resides in Majorca where, aside from the splendid climate, the airport is well-equipped and prepared to take the adventuresome traveler almost anywhere at any time. Micus utilizes the latter frequently in planning his musical landscapes.

Micus has traveled extensively throughout Asia and Europe and, in doing so, has accumulated an arsenal of exotic instruments. He does not, however, seek to replicate the literal music tradition of a particular ...

Stephan Micus: On the Wing

by John Kelman
April 22, 2007

Stephan Micus' last album, Life (ECM, 2004), represented the multi-instrumentalist's most ambitious vocal album to date, layering as many as 14 voices at once. On the Wing represents a complete departure, his first entirely instrumental album in 17 years.

The painstaking piecing together of many layers of multiple instruments (with Micus performing every part, creating solo recordings in the truest sense of the word) might seem the antithesis of improvisation, but a 2004 interview reveals otherwise.

“I compose through many ...

Stephan Micus: On the Wing

by AAJ Italy Staff
April 10, 2007

Il vagabondaggio musicale del polistrumentista tedesco Stephan Micus ha prodotto un altro dei suoi diari di viaggio. Cultore della world music totale, Micus sintetizza le tradizioni musicali di tutto il mondo utilizzandone gli strumenti tipici in un mix inedito, ottenuto creando una sorta di orchestra panetnica virtuale attraverso l'impiego di numerose sovraincisioni. Nonostante la formula si presti a poche possibilità di variazione, l'effetto ripetizione è mitigato, oltre che dalla ispirazione sempre viva dell'artista, dalla continua introduzione di nuovi strumenti. Questa ...

Stephan Micus: Solitary Pursuits

by John Kelman
January 13, 2005

Multi-instrumentalist Stephan Micus has been working outside the musical mainstream for over 30 years. With more than 15 albums for the German ECM label and, in the early days, its sister label JAPO, Micus has created a body of work that is the result of years of extensive traveling around the world to both acquire and learn musical instruments ranging from the Armenian double-reed duduk to the Ethiopian 10-string bagana. Micus finds music in the most curious and unexpected of ...

Stephan Micus: Life

by AAJ Staff
November 29, 2004

German composer Stephan Micus has spent decades traveling the world in search of new music, as much figuratively as literally, and the results of his very serious globe-trotting experiences have been documented on sixteen ECM albums, the latest being Life. He brings together a large collection of instruments from Africa, Asia, and Europe for this particular journey, but he makes use of them in very idiosyncratic ways, preferring to explore sonorities in a purist fashion rather than replicate the traditional ...

Stephan Micus: Life

by John Kelman
November 17, 2004

Over a thirty-year career, multi-instrumentalist Stephan Micus has created his own world, one based on a life of constant study of diverse culture, religion, musical instruments and form. Each of the sixteen albums he has recorded to date has incorporated newly acquired instruments from places as far abroad as Armenia, Bali and Tibet. Micus records his albums alone, painstakingly building layer upon layer of instrument and voice, ultimately creating a music that is as spiritual as his sources. But with ...