German ambient electronic musician Mathias Grassow died on 13 August 2025 in a drowning accident while swimming in the Rhine River. He was 62.
Grassow was born on 9 May 1963 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, West Germany, and became a prolific figure in ambient music, including dark ambient and drone. Over a decades-long career, he released an extensive catalog and collaborated with Klaus Wiese, Oöphoi, Alio Die, and Tomas Weiss. His music often embraced meditative and spiritual themes that encourage introspection.
He first played drums and guitar in the 1970s and turned to keyboards and synthesizers in the early 1980s. His reading of Alan Watts and engagement with spirituality broadened from Buddhism to Sufism and Christian mysticism. He also explored overtone and subharmonic chanting, sustained synthesizer drones, and elements of Indian classical music; later, the singing-bowl recordings of Klaus Wiese left a lasting mark.
His discography remains available on Bandcamp.