Summer sees Kompakt release the lavish "Nah Und Fern" collection of Wolfgang Voigt's now classic and
'pop-ambient' genre creating techno-obfuscations of German brass music, schlager and early 20th
Century Composers as a four disc GAS box-set. Followed in June by the release of the accompanying
Book of related photography and a disc of unreleased material on the Raster-Noton imprint.
Voigt, in the past known under a great many pseudonyms such as Mike Ink, Studio 1 and his collaborative
project with Jorg Burger as Burger/Ink - is the driving force behind the rise of Cologne minimal techno and
also the Kompakt label's co-founder and co-owner. Running simultaneously with his various techno and
dancefloor-oriented projects of the mid 90's he began to experiment with timbrel structures of free-floating
string loops sourced from classical records as a new ambient project. These disembodied tracks, their lack of
beginning and end, their intoxicating, smooth and partly amorphous structure sounded to him like gaseous
miasmic clouds and thus - GAS was born. GAS is his vision of a sonic journey through the German countryside
accompanied by the sound of Schoenberg and Kraftwerk - a merging of string symphony, french horn,
synthesizer and kick-drum.
Surprisingly, in listening to these now ten years later, the process used in composing the GAS material from the
original sources of Berg/Mahler/Schoenber/Webern/Wagner alongside subtle Angelo Badalamenti/Twin Peaks
-style synth washes into G-ermany A-ustria S-witzerland themed Alpen techno-ambiance is still mysteriously
opaque. Much was said in the way of inspiration and conceptual intent, but very little was revealed as far as
demystifying the opaqueness of said process in a recent cover story article and interview with Voigt in the May
issue of The Wire. Obviously the Modus Operandi here is repetition with the objective being a trance-like hazy
blur of patterned sonic tapestry evocative of refracted light through the forest canopy/jamming down the autobahn
through the German countryside. I can think of little music from this past decade (electronic or otherwise) that
so effectively conjures such a explicit state in the mind of the listener. Hearing these albums now, GAS remains
as abstract, freefloating and otherworldly as the day it was emitted into the global musical atmosphere. This
box-set is testament to the lasting power of its entrancing disembodied spell... all four and a half hours of it.
Link to the Kompakt label site
Link to Wolfgang Voigt interview in May issue of The Wire
Link to Raster-Noton GAS Book Release
