Viz Michael Kremietz on Shakuhachi, Zen Practice, and Recording at Aleister Crowley’s Abbey

Transmission 273: Interview with Viz Michael Kremietz

Viz Michael Kremietz is a German sound artist and Shakuhachi player who has spent 25 years practicing Zen Buddhism and 30 years making experimental music. He studied Honkyoku, the ancient meditation music of Zen Buddhism, with Shakuhachi Master James Franklin for eight years, learning techniques that make breath patterns audible. His 16 studio albums address silence, respiratory control, and what he calls “pre-verbal and pre-symbolic” sonic dimensions.

Title: Ambient Koan
Artist: Viz Michael Kremietz
Release Date: 2025-09-08
Genres: Ambient, Experimental Music
Label: Sleepers Records
Description: Viz Michael Kremietz discusses his Ambient Koan album, Zen practice, Shakuhachi study, and collaborations with FAUST and Limpe Fuchs.

Based in Wangen near Lake Constance, Kremietz emerged from the punk and goth underground of the mid-1980s. His first band, HAFREB, played bass guitars with screwdrivers and connected drum machines to distortion pedals. That anarchic spirit persists in his current work, which places traditional Japanese flute against industrial electronics and field recordings. He has performed in the burial chamber of the Great Pyramid and Aleister Crowley’s former abbey in Cefalù, Sicily.

His collaborators include Hans Joachim Irmler of FAUST, drone duo TROUM, and Limpe Fuchs of Anima. His latest album Ambient Koan, released by Sleepers Records, combines his Shakuhachi practice with electronics and industrial elements that depart from traditional Buddhist music forms. Kremietz also creates soundscapes for theater and light installations, incorporating Waterphone, Didgeridoo, Gongs, and field recordings collected in natural and urban environments.

If you look back on the experimental scene in southern Germany in the early 1990s, what was the atmosphere like? Was it a collaborative effort or more of a solitary exploration of sound?

In the mid-1980s, the punk/goth scene spilled over into my small hometown of Wangen, on the edge of the Alps near Lake Constance. For me and some of my friends, migrating to the underground was a form of liberation. Conservative society and mainstream music were boring and dull to us. I worked at the TONNE youth center from 1987 to 1992. It was an anarchic space for us. We organized concerts (with Neurosis, Pitch Shifter, No Means No, NOFX, Sonic Violence, Headbud, Rasende Leichenbeschauer, among others), celebrated wild parties, and brawled with skinheads. The southern Germany scene was open and diverse. A great mix of freedom, music, art, and fun. In 1991, I founded my first band, HAFREB, with T. Raedy Bek. We played our bass guitars with screwdrivers and wire brushes, played comic strips on cassette tapes, and connected our drum machine to a distortion pedal. Pure noise… wonderful. Even back then, I was already doing field recordings with a cassette recorder and mixing the material into experimental sound collages.

How did your training as a special education teacher and the associated profound experience of human vulnerability influence your music? How did this early physical and mental discipline lay the foundation for your first forays into ambient music?

Working with people with disabilities and training as an educator was a lot of fun and gave my life additional meaning. People with disabilities accepted me as I am, without prejudice. As a goth, I already looked strange, dressed in black, with makeup, and wearing Doc Martens. It sensitized me and strengthened my empathy and self-confidence. People with disabilities, socially disadvantaged people, and immigrants have a hard time in Germany. We punks and goths were also rather outsiders in Germany. This sensitivity, fine hearing, and sensing were already present in me as a child. Whether it was sounds in the forest, in the city, or other unusual sounds, I have always been fascinated. I love everything from spacey ambient music to brutal drones. My musical tastes were already broad back then, from Dead Can Dance to Einstürzende Neubauten.

After eight years of formal study of the shakuhachi, was there a particular moment when it transformed from an instrument into a true extension of your own breath?

When I started practicing Japanese martial arts at the age of 12, breath was already an important topic. Later I studied and taught Kundalini Yoga for seven years, which also delivered good exercises for expanding your breath. In 2001, I began practicing Zen meditation. From 2003 to 2011, I studied the ancient music of Zen Buddhism with Shakuhachi Master James Franklin. The Shakuhachi flute is a separate Zen path in Zen Buddhism and combines meditation, breathing, and music. Zen Monks played the shakuhachi to make their breath “audible.” Focusing on your breath is very important when playing the Shakuhachi. With your breathing, you can change and vary the “timbre” of the Shakuhachi. You have to learn to vary your blow from very softly to very powerfully. Sassa Buki, for example, is an invitation to imitate the rustling of a bamboo forest through the breath.

When you work with legends like Hans Joachim Irmler or Limpe Fuchs, do you approach them with a finished concept, or is the process a true improvisation where anything can happen?

Hans Joachim Irmler, co-founder of the legendary Krautrock Band FAUST, moved into a former paper factory in Scheer an der Donau in 2003. There he founded the FAUST STUDIO and the Klangbad Festival. Hans Joachim Irmler worked with many great musicians there. With Jaki Liebezeit from CAN, FM Einheit, Dälek, Gudrun Gut, and many more. His studio isn’t far away from me. I often visit him, we make music, or cook together (Kässpätzle with mushrooms). For our joint album Endorphonic, we spent four days jamming, researching and experimenting in his studio. It was an exciting process. Listening to each other was important, and that’s how we got into a good flow. Our album was created from some of these recordings and later released on Joachim’s KLANGBAD Label. Whether with FAUST or with other musicians, Joachim always follows his instinct for the moment. This way, wonderful, bizarre soundscapes emerged from Joachim’s organs and synthesizers and my sounds from Shakuhachi, Didgeridoo, Gongs, Metal, and other sound objects.

I met Limpe Fuchs at the Klangbad Festival in 2009. I was thrilled by her performance and gave her some of my CDs. Shortly thereafter, we gave our first concert together. Limpe Fuchs has always been very unique and radical in her music. Our concerts are always a great enrichment for me. I’ve learned so much from her. It’s always an exciting challenge for me to play with her. There’s never a concept or plan for our concerts; we just briefly consider which instruments could fit together. There are no song structures either, and when they emerge, Limpe always immediately breaks out and swings in a completely different direction. It’s fascinating to follow her sense of sound, noise, and music. Our joint CD, Kugelhausmusik, is available for purchase on her or my website. Limpe is 84 years young and still on the road. I hope we will play many more concerts together.

How did you combine the reverence for a traditional Zen melody with the deconstructive spirit of Hans Joachim Irmler’s electronic music in a track like “Yamagoe”?

As Timothy Leary so beautifully puts it: “Creativity is the union of unusual things.” It’s always a joy and a profound experience for me to give concerts where I play only the traditional music of Zen Buddhism. But I’m also a sound artist and sound researcher, and I find it exciting to create new sonic spaces. To transform the “old” into the modern age and to break down familiar listening habits. It was also interesting to see what Zen music does to Hans Joachim Irmler and what sounds he coaxes from an instrument. My Zen teacher, Detlef Witt, always told me that it’s about tending the fire, not the ashes.

Can you describe how the atmosphere of Aleister Crowley’s Abbey directly influenced the recording of your COIL tribute, “Fire of the Mind”?

Aleister Crowley lived in Cefalu, Sicily, from 1920 to 1923. His abbey, Thelemea, was a kind of farm with a large garden above Cefalu. The house is now very dilapidated, and the garden has become overgrown. I felt Crowley’s energy and the things that happened there very strongly. At first, it was an almost mystical energy, but it transformed into a tightness, almost oppressive. However, when I played the COIL piece, I felt connected to the spirit of Balance, Christopherson, and Crowley. It was a mystical moment of merging sound, silence, and wholeness. It’s hard to put into words. Nicole Dinand, my friend, was making the video. She felt this tightness of the energy earlier, just like I did, and had to leave the place. I stayed for a while longer, took some more photos, and walked through the garden. Then I had to leave; I felt very clearly that enough was enough. Everything within me became more intense. I left the place with respect and gratitude. A truly very special place.

You also took your flute into the burial chamber of the Great Pyramid. What do you look for in these ancient, acoustically charged spaces that a modern studio can never offer?

Playing in the burial chamber of the Great Pyramid of Giza was, of course, a very special moment in my life. Here, too, I felt a very special energy. Churches, chapels, temples, caves, or other spaces with good acoustics are wonderful for my sound performances or Shakuhachi concerts. Of course, you can add reverb or other effects to the instruments in the studio, but nothing sounds as beautiful and natural as a church. Leading my music, my sound into silence and out of it again is an essential aspect of my music. In Zen, it is called “making the silence audible.”

After 16 studio albums, what piece of equipment, be it a specific flute, a microphone, or an effects pedal, do you consider essential for your sound?

For 23 years, I’ve exclusively played the shakuhachi. My sound performances also include Waterphone, Didgeridoo, Gongs, Singing Bowls, Stones, Sand, Water, etc. Depending on the theme or venue, I also build sound installations. I sometimes create soundscapes for theater, film, or performances using analog devices or create sounds on the computer with my musician friend Jörg Holik in his studio. Walking out into nature or cities, I’m doing field recordings and mixing the sounds together. Making music for over 30 years, things are always evolving and changing. And I’m always looking for new sounds and instruments.

Are you working on new material?

I’m not working on a new album right now. In times of all this streaming madness, it’s getting harder and harder to sell CDs. That’s why I’m so grateful that Sacha from Sleepers Records released my album Ambient Koan. Currently I’m working on a sound collage for the light artist Reinhard Böhme. I always create the music for his light and bamboo installations. Recently we participated in the Copenhagen Light Festival with an illuminated installation of 500 bamboo poles and my sound played along with it. If it works out, I’d like to go to Japan next year for a few concerts. Right now Sacha is situated in Tokyo with his label. Perhaps that would be a good opportunity to record a new Shakuhachi album.

Photos courtesy of Viz Michael Kremietz

Matteo Damiani

Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others