Stephan Mathieu, musician I was born october 1967 in Saarbrücken ...

Stephan Mathieu, musician
I was born october 1967 in Saarbrücken, Germany and spent a good part of the 90s as a professional drummer
in Berlin. In 1998 I moved back to Saarbrücken where I‘m working today in the field of digital arts.
Since 1999 sixteen albums of my music have been released on labels worldwide. In 2002 british magazine The
Wire voted ”frequencyLib“ among the 10 best electronic music releases of the year .
I‘m creating sound installations, graphic design and teach digital arts and conception at the University of Arts
and Design HBKSaar, Saarbrücken and work as a guest lecturer at the Royal Academy of Arts, Göteborg, the
Bauhaus University, Weimar and the Merz-Akademie in Stuttgart, Germany.
“By the way, Stephan Mathieu is considered as one of the most important laptop musicians nowadays.“
Wired Magazine, San Francisco
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bitsteam. www.bitsteam.de
mathieu@bitsteam.de
Booking - Danilo Pellegrinelli
dpellegrinelli@mac.com
Photo - Göteborg, 12.2004
last update - 09.2005

01 selected releases
The Sad Mac CD | HEADZ, Tokyo 2005
On Tape CD | Häpna, Stockholm 2004
w/ John Hudak: Pieces of Winter by John Hudak and Stephan Mathieu CD | Sirr, Lissabon 2004
w/ Douglas Benford: Reciprocess 02 “und. and“ CD | Bip-Hop/Fällt, Marseille/Belfast 2003
Kapotte Muziek by Stephan Mathieu CD | Korm Plastics, Nijmegen 2003
w/ Radboud Mens, Janek Schaefer, Timeblind: Quality Hotel CD | Mutek, Montreal 2003
w/ Darren Almond: “Once” LP + edition | EN/OF, Kleve 2003
w/ Ekkehard Ehlers + Various Artists: Heroin DCD/DLP | Orthlorng Musork, San Francisco 2003
Die Entdeckung des Wetters CD | Lucky Kitchen, La Rioja 2002
Full Swing Edits 5 x 10inch EP/CD | Orthlorng Musork, San Francisco 2001 /2002
Gigue CD | Fällt Publishing, Belfast 2002
w/ Tobias Rehberger: Sad Mac Studies 12inch EP + Edition | EN/OF, Kleve 2002
frequencyLib CD/LP | Ritornell, Frankfurt aM 2001
invalidObject (in) CD | Fällt Publishing, Belfast 2001
Wurmloch Variationen CD | Ritornell, Frankfurt aM 2000
Full Swing EP | Orthlorng Musork, San Francisco 2000
w/ Stol: 001.010.011.100 12inch EP | Kitty-Yo, Berlin 1998
w/ Butch Morris: Conductions ‘95 DCD | FMP, Berlin 1996
02 selected live appearances (1992- 2005)
Musica Genera Festival, Szczecin Operahouse
Courtisane Festival, Vooruit, Gent
Häpnafestivalen, Fylkingen, Stockholm
PopUp Festival, Musée d‘Art Contemporaine Lyon
Suite in Parochial, Parochialkirche Berlin
EMS Festival Fylkingen, Stockholm
Ultrahang, Budapest
OFFF Festival, Barcelona
Recycle! Festival, Stockholm
I.D.E.A.L. Festival, Nantes
Experimental Intermedia, New York City
Instal Festival, Glasgow
Fundaçao Serralves, Porto
Impakt Festival, Utrecht
Sonar, Barcelona
Mutek Festival, Montreal
Frequenzen [Hz], Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt aM
Earational Festival, s’Hertogenbosch
Dutch Electronic Arts Festival, Rotterdam
Total Music Meeting, Berlin
Roulette, New York City
National Museum, Helsinki
03 installations and exhibitions
Strahlungsdichte | Soundscape for the Aula Palatina (Thronehall of Caesar Constantinus, built in 310), Trier 2005
Tinfoil Star | ECOUTE exhibition, Centre Pompidou, Paris 2004-05
8Bit Symphony | UNESCO Cultural Heritage Völklinger Hütte 2004
Heller Raum | Soundscape for the Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin 2003
Un oceano di milione di partecelle | Soundscape for a major Leonardo da Vinci Exhibition, UNESCO Cultural
Heritage Völklinger Hütte 2002
Vor „Vor der Stille“ | Audiovisual piece, Museutopia, Karl-Ernst Osthaus Museum Hagen 2002
1745 | Impakt Festival, Utrecht 2002
Die Entdeckung des Wetters | UNESCO Cultural Heritage Völklinger Hütte 2001 (permanent installation)
Cars | Audiovisual sculpture for 30 Peugeot 206 and sinetones, Saarland Galerie, Saarbrücken, 2001
Touch | Soundscape for a glass exhibition, Berliner Townhall, 2001
Betrieb | UNESCO Cultural Heritage Völklinger Hütte 2000 (permanent installation)
Aussen | Soundscape for the city area of Saarbrücken 1998

04 works for dance and theater
Kim Itoh, Tokyo
Sal Vanilla, Tokyo
Torsten Konrad, Cologne
05 artists cooperations
w/ Cedrick Eymenier, Tobias Rehberger, Liam Gillick, Darren Almond,
Andreas Brandolini/Daniel Hausig
/and
teaching digital arts and conception at the University for Arts and Design HBKSaar, Saarbrücken, Royal
Academy Göteborg and the Bauhaus University, Weimar
curating/conception for several festivals
several publications of graphic design in magazines and books worldwide
»
pressclips
”Essential listening.“
amperesand etcetera
”Mathieu has succeeded to create a sound of his own, unique from anything else I know.“
Frans de Waard in Vital Weekly, Amsterdam
”The Sad Mac is among the very best computer music of the new millenium.”
Erik Benndorf, de:bug, Berlin
”After all, it’s the little details in life that make all the difference, and that’s especially true of Stephan Mathieu’s
work. Like his close friend Akira Rabelais, whose “wonderful software creatures” he acknowledges using here,
Mathieu shows that that most functional and impersonal of musical instruments, the laptop, is capable of
producing work not only of great beauty, but of mysterious and powerful emotion. Mathieu’s trademark slowly
shifting washes of sound – “drone” is far too banal a word to describe them, and “stasis” won’t do either, as
they’re never static – are simply gorgeous. The predominantly acoustic origins of the source material, however
camouflaged and extruded beyond recognition by the software, imbue Mathieu’s music with a warmth and
richness of timbre often lacking in the overpopulated world of contemporary electronica.”
Dan Warburton, Parisatlantic
”Having established himself as one of premier digital composers, Mathieu makes a profound shift in methology
as he eschews the “DSP-Magic” of his earlier albums in favor of a much simpler arrangement with a few digital
programs applied as pixelated flourishes upon field recordings and minimalist compositions for violin, pump
organ, and harpsicord. Even without all of the pixel pushing of yonder year, Mathieu manages to construct
beautifully sustained drones, seamlessly combining all of the elements as the flicker, echo, dissolve, blur, and
expand with his signature fluidity. The Sad Mac proofs why Mathieu is one of the best sonic architects around.”
Roy Haynes, Aquarius Records Reviews, Los Angeles

”As Mathieu has shown in the past, he’s an artist who is able to bring conceptual ideas into the creation of his
work without letting it dramatically affect what he is doing. With The Sad Mac, he’s created a release that’s
shows off (whether or not he meant to) what one can do by simply thinking of different routes in getting to the
same point. There’s something that lots of artists could learn from that simple thought alone.”
almostcool.org
”What is immediately striking about this album is how strong and how unique Mathieu‘s signature sound is
becoming. While the archetypal application of laptop DSP synthesis ends up tainted by antiseptic, clinical, or
cold tones, Mathieu manages to wrap all of his digital pixelations in a dreamy, warmly crackling, and wholly
inviting atmosphere, not unlike the beloved Aphex Twin album Selected Ambient Works Vol II. ( … ) Mathieu‘s
work ranks way up at the top the increasingly prolific laptop community alongside Fennesz, Carsten Nicolai,
and Stilluppsteypa. ”Edits“ will undoubtedly rank as one of the best electronic records of the year. “
Jim Haynes, Aquarius Records Review, Los Angeles
”I wonder how I got there, how Mathieu could have taken me to this place so unsuspectingly, how he could have
made such an intricate structure out of only a few elements, how I could let myself be so surprised. But herein
lies the beauty of this work, its ability to surprise its listener.“
Vils de Santo, Incursion Music Reviews
”Although the computer plays a large part in all of Mathieu‘s productions, his appeal is in his sense of
acoustics. His reliance on played instruments and analog media as a jumping off point has produced a body of
work that is hardly ever cold and calculated. Instead it glows warm, and always invites us all in.“
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, FakeJazz, San Francisco
”A work of immeasurable beauty. Based around original piano pieces by Akira Rabelais, Mathieu takes the most
evocative of piano sounds and douses them in a kind of unknown ambiguity ... almost like standing at Kenwood
park in London on an August evening and hearing the saturday concert playing somewhere in the distance
echoed by wind and temperature. The sounds reek of solitude and emptiness but in an almost romantic way…
hazy, distant, soothing. Highly recommended!“
Paul Nise, Boomkat, London