"Nachtstücke owed its publication to former Tangerine Dream member Peter Baumann, who was asked by the French label Barclay/EGG to produce three albums focusing specifically on German electronic music. He was working with Hans-Joachim Roedelius at the time, who had been given a few Tietchens tracks on cassette. When Baumann heard Roedelius play them in the studio during a break in proceedings, they sparked his interest and he met up with Tietchens some time later; they agreed that he would go over the material again and edit or abridge it in places. A release date was penciled in for the latter part of 1978. The commissioning label, however, doubting the commercial potential of the project (Tietchens: "How right they would turn out to be"), postponed the release and had to be reminded of contractual commitments on more than one occasion. When the Nachtstücke LP finally appeared, almost two years later, it bore the unauthorized subheading "Expressions et Perspectives Sonores Intemporelles," and featured a completely different cover. Originally, the album was to depict a leathery embryo with a laser beam shooting through its eye (Tietchens: "I liked the idea of starting with something so gruesome"), but now three blurred figures danced on the sleeve: "I was pretty disgusted when I opened the package containing my copies," Tietchens reports, taking the re-release as his cue to create completely new artwork. Nachtstücke has surprisingly little in common with the pseudo-pop of the ensuing Sky Phase, but shines a light further ahead to the gloomy, spectral aspects of Tietchens' later works. Created between 1975 and 1978, the Nachtstücke pieces reveal a deliberate approach, avoiding dissonance and discord wherever possible. Still, the release saw the album "fall right out of time" as Tietchens frankly admits: "Gentle rhythm and harmonic beatitude did not suit the concert of advanced pop music as it was then being played." Nevertheless, the Nachtstücke tracks remain important to the artist, as they document his early encounters with the Moog Sonic Six and Minimoog. With this in mind, the material is presented here in its original, unadulterated form." - Bureau B .
After nearly a decade of false starts, multiple game plans veering off the rails, and a handful of shattered hopes and/or dreams, the odyssey is finally complete—the new Fusetron site is here.
This is the first phase of a multipart rollout that will span the next few months: the currently browsable stock includes miscellaneous new releases from the past 8+ months (we have a lot of catching up to do), plus approximately a third of our backstock. Note that we’ve reduced/slashed prices on many titles and will continue to do so in order to make room for new stock. We’ll also be expanding / tweaking / improving / debugging the site itself (for example, we still have work to do on the automated international postage system, not to mention the inevitable inventory discrepancies that come with transferring an ancient and massive database to a new system).
Over the next few months, as we take inventory, clean house, and delve into our storage, we will be uploading thousands of additional items, gradually, on a near-daily basis. This will include the majority of the LPs, as well as many titles, in all formats, once thought long-gone. Many currently “sold out” items are likely to resurface.
Finally, once our general backstock is up (probably in the next two or three months) we’ll begin making our extensive stockpile of rarities available online for the first time: tons of random out-of-print titles, "deadstock," warehouse finds, secondhand collectibles, etc., accumulated over the past few decades.
Frequent/returning customers will be getting early access to these items. Details to follow on how this will work (a priority mailing list? a 'frequent flyer'-like program?), but it will not be based on dollars spent. We want to reward those who consistently support us, especially in the discogs marketplace era (to those who show up trying to poach five copies of a one-off rarity, and nothing else, ever… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).
So—we suggest you take some time to dig through the site—even we’ve been surprised by what’s been turning up, and there’s much more to come.
