Viz Michael Kremietz Channels 25 Years of Zen Practice into Ambient Koan Album
Viz Michael Kremietz releases his 16th studio album through a network of German experimental music veterans and Eastern meditation practice. The record positions Shakuhachi flute work against contributions from FAUST co-founder Hans Joachim Irmler, drone duo TROUM, and Limpe Fuchs from the fusion group Anima.
Artist: Viz Michael Kremietz
Release Date: 2025-09-08
Genres: Ambient, Drone, Experimental Music, Krautrock
Label: Sleepers Records
Description: Viz Michael Kremietz releases Ambient Koan yesterday, teaming with FAUST, TROUM, and Limpe Fuchs to merge Zen practice with experimental music.
The album draws from Kremietz‘s 25-year Zen practice and eight years studying Hongyoku, the traditional meditation music of Zen Buddhism. His Shakuhachi technique makes breath patterns audible within structured compositions, connecting respiratory function to tonal production. Several tracks originated as theater and performance pieces before studio adaptation.
TROUM, the Northern German duo of Martin Gitschel and Stefan Knappe, appears on “Zodiak” and “Kagami.” Their drone work has operated under the principle of “atmospheric transcension sounds for the deeper mind and the Unconscious” since the mid-1990s. The collaboration places Kremietz‘s wind instrument against TROUM‘s layered electronic textures.
Munich-born Limpe Fuchs, now 83, contributes voice, violin, and installation sounds to “Weg in Haus” and “Farbige Luft.” Fuchs formed Anima with Friedrich Gulda in the 1960s, mixing free jazz improvisation with folk elements. Her material with Kremietz derives from their live album Kugelhausmusik.
Hans Joachim Irmler from FAUST appears on “Fuck Wellness” and “Yamagoe.” Irmler co-founded FAUST in Hamburg in 1971, participating in the group’s foundational albums for Polydor and Virgin Records. On “Yamagoe,” his electronics intersect with a traditional Zen melody that Kremietz learned during his Buddhist studies.
Other contributors include Lucia Dinand providing vocals on “Broken Gods,” and Reiko Ozaki performing a Japanese lullaby on “Sleep.” The track “Fire of the Mind” was recorded at Aleister Crowley’s former abbey in Cefalù, Sicily, and functions as a Shakuhachi tribute to COIL members Jhonn Balance and Peter Christopherson.
Kremietz has taken his flute into the Great Pyramid’s burial chamber and similar acoustically charged spaces. Working from Wangen in southern Germany’s Allgäu region, he merges breath control with experimental composition methods.
The pieces occupy what Kremietz calls “unknown dimensions with pre-verbal and pre-symbolic origins.” While each track operates as meditation, the industrial and electronic contributions push the material well past conventional Buddhist music boundaries.
Kremietz‘s 30-year experimental music practice intersects with his quarter-century of Zen Buddhism study. The Shakuhachi serves as both wind instrument and meditation tool within his compositional method. Previous albums have explored similar territory, though “Ambient Koan” represents his most extensive collaborative effort with established German experimental musicians.
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