Stephan Micus (Germany, 1953) debuted with Arhaic Concerts (Caroline C1517, 1976), released long after the great season of electronic rock in Germany had already faded. He had belonged to the “hippie” generation, the one that had traveled to Morocco (in 1969) and India (in 1971). He emerged among the German avant-garde rock musicians at a time when cosmic music had already run its course and audiences were displaying a more refined sensibility. Instead of merely speculating on the exotic charm of Eastern music, Micus studied its instruments, appropriated their timbres, and experimented with combinations that lay outside their traditions.

His masterpiece perhaps remains the suite As I Crossed A Bridge Of Dreams, on Implosions (March 1977 - Japo, 1977), a gentle psalm for sitar, electric guitar and voice that recalls Hosianna Mantra by Popol Vuh, though through a more erudite excursion across cultures. Micus displays his absorbed and dreamlike picking technique and his Persian-derived singing style, but above all a sense of improvisation that is more Western than Eastern, more rational than mystical, more narrative than contemplative.

Equally radical and mystical is Till The End Of Time (June 1978 - ECM 1993), featuring the trembling lament of the “kortholt” bagpipe over a triumph of resonances from three stringed instruments: zither, guitar and harp. More ordinary is the Indian psalm The Song Of Danijar, still marked by his cerebral sitar style (on Behind Eleven Deserts).

The melodic Sambodhi Music, recorded in partnership with Deuter, and the Spanish-flavored Salinas Dance, on Behind Eleven Deserts (Wind, 1979 - Verabra 1990), are his most accessible works in this direction of meditative music.

The music of the subsequent albums, increasingly elegant and eccentric, would make the works of his early period seem naive and picturesque.

Koan (ECM, 1981), a ballet premiered in 1977, especially the exhausting languor of the second section (for zither and shakuhachi flute), the driving and syncopated third section (for sarangi, rabab lute, shakuhachi, bodhran, anklung), and the fifth section (for zither, guitar and shakuhachi), with once again Spanish accents, though far darker, inaugurated the “chamber” period, culminating in Wings Over Water (October 1981 - Japo, 1982), a six-part suite chiseled out by guitars, sarangi, nay (Egyptian flute), zither and dozens of flower pots. The compositions were now not only more extended but also more organic, less episodic. At the same time the orchestration was calculated with extreme care to exploit fully the timbres of the instruments, the pauses in the score, and the solemn spirit animating Micus's art.

Listen To The Rain (July 1983 - Japo, 1983 - ECM 1993), featuring the long For Abai And Togshan, opened a more radical period centered on stringed instruments. If here Micus employed three dilrubas and four Spanish guitars, in East Of The Night and For Nobuko, both from East Of The Night (January 1985), he instead delighted in 10- and 14-string guitars that he built himself.

With Ocean (January 1986) Micus perhaps achieved his most perfect fusion of timbres, among zither, dulcimer, nay, shakuhachi and sho (a mouth organ): the first part is a Middle Eastern lament accompanied by a lively saraband of six dulcimers and a nay; the second begins with a hypnotic shakuhachi solo over the subsonic whistle of four sho and then ventures into an improvised jam for the entire ensemble; the third part is the most experimental, built entirely on pauses and cascading dulcimer chimes; the fourth part is a solo for sho.

In Twilight Fields (November 1987) he even plays tuned flower pots, while on Music Of Stones (recorded in 1988 - ECM, 1989) the principal instruments are large granite rocks. The goal is always to generate meditative and ceremonial music of great evocative power.

Twilight Fields (November 1987 - ECM, 1987) is typical of both the virtues and the defects of his art: much of the suite is pure background music, offering little when listened to for its intrinsic value, but the fourth movement, propelled by a dulcimer, is a relentless dance of great emotional impact, and the fifth movement (for shakuhachi and zither alone) is one of the most intense zen trances of his career.

The six improvisations for “resonant stones” are no less pretentious and no less fascinating. In the first (for stones and shakuhachi), the rumbling background plays little role in the flute's evolutions, but in the fourth the stones are alone, giving rise to one of the most unusual concerts for percussion instruments ever conceived.

The long suite on Darkness And Light (February 1990 - ECM, 1991) and To The Evening Child (February 1992 - ECM, 1992), which experiments with steel drums, continued without great emotional peaks Micus's ascetic chamber music for exotic instruments, zen philosophy and hypnotic scores.

Micus possesses the gift of inventing the most imaginative forms of music while relying on the bare minimum of means, and of exploiting that minimum with the cunning of a veteran meditator.

Historically, Micus was important for the courage with which he employed the most varied combinations of instruments, freely mixing Western and Eastern instruments. Not only did this help rediscover acoustic music and popularize the timbres of Eastern instruments, but it also encouraged the birth of modern chamber world music, as austere and “serious” as classical music, differing from it only in that it places no limits on the instruments that may participate.

After Athos (february 1994 - ECM, 1994), that employed the voice as well as the usual ethnic instruments (notably the shakuhachi flute), Micus relocated to Italy and relaxed his musical career. He resumed it in grand style with The Garden Of Mirrors (ECM, 2000), that contains the dreamy psalm of Night Circle, and Desert Poems (ECM, 2001), a collection of humble vignettes that are drenched in a different, intimate, very earthly kind of spirituality. All of them exhibit his trademark pan-ethnic style and his obsession with the timbres of exotic instruments.

Towards the Wind (ECM, 2002) offers melodic and droning chamber music for duduk, kalimba, shakuhachi and guitars (Birds of Dawn, Flying Horses, Before Sunrise).

Life (ECM, 2005) is a carefully-crafted 50-minute suite that represents everything that is charming and everything that is indulgent in Micus' art. On one hand, he develops melodic motifs that have universal appeal precisely because they are so unlike anything else in any culture. On the other hand, he toys with timbres and juxapositions mainly for sake of finding out how it feels. The music lacks an organic structure, and eventually sounds as profound as the window of an exotic shop.

Micus continued his calm journey through the collective ancestral psyche (and other dimensions) via his symphonies for multi-tracked vocals and world instruments: On The Wing (ECM, 2006), alas one of the worst, Snow (ECM, 2008), a much better album with the lengthy For Ceren and Halil, and Bold As Light (ECM, 2010), another uninspired collection.

Panagia (ECM, 2012), recorded between 2009 and 2012, collects six Byzantine Greek prayers performed with world instruments.

Micus played balanzikom, nyckelharpa (a keyed fiddle from Sweden), chord and bass zithers, shakuhachi, steel string guitar and genbri on Inland Sea (ECM, 2017).

Micus played kalimba, fourteen-string guitar, steel string guitar, duduk, bass duduk, Tibetan cymbals, sinding, dondon, nay, Indian cane whistles, and sang on White Night (ECM, 2019).

Micus played the hikulo from Mozambique, the a Central African-style tongue drum, kalimba (thumb piano), sinding (Gambian harp), Egyptian nay flute, Japanese nohkan flute, Balinese suling flute, bowed sattar from Xinjiang, Tibetan cymbals, Peruvian charango and a 12-string guitar on Winter's End (ECM, 2021).

Micus employed the usual arsenal of exotic instruments (a Tibetan trumpet called "dung chen", Burmese temple bells, Himalayan horse bells, bass zither, bowed dinding, kyeezee, shakuhachi, sarangi, nyckelharpa, kaukas, sapeh, nokhan, etc) on Thunder (ECM, 2023).

Micus played instruments from Colombia, India, China, Bavaria, Cambodia, Egypt and Borneo on To The Rising Sun (2024), recorded between 2021 and 2023.