POP – the album that has become widely recognized as the defining moment in which Wolfgang Voigt brought us into a clearing of his deep, psychedelic forest. A landmark release in the GAS odyssey that drew international attention, POP was originally released in 2000 on the iconic Frankfurt imprint MILLE PLATEAUX. POP was heralded by Pitchfork at the time of release as being “an exercise in sonic texture… pure sonic velvet, the layered drone radiating a palpable warmth.”

POP has since been reissued in 2016 as a part of GAS “BOX” (now out of print) and finally now, POP is released on KOMPAKT – for the first time in its original artwork.

At the latest with the release of the albums "Zauberberg" and "Königsforst", in the mid-1990s, one associates GAS, Wolfgang Voigt's very own artistic cross-linking of the spirit of Romanticism and the forest as an artistic fantasy projection surface, with intoxicatingly blurred boundaries of post-ambient infatuation and the impenetrable thicket of abstract atonality. The distant, iconic straight bass drum marching through highly condensed, abstract sounds taken from classical music by the sampler or modulated accordingly, and the enraptured gaze through pop art glasses into the hypnotic thicket of an imaginary forest, manifested over the years this unique connection of audio and visual, which to understand fully, then as now, would be neither possible nor desirable.

Quite the opposite. The album GAS - DER LANGE MARSCH once again invites us to follow the deep sounding bass drum, to give in to its irresistible pull into a psychedelic world of 1000 promises. In the process, the journey leads us past stations of memories sounding from afar, from "Zauberberg" to "Königsforst" and "Pop", from "Oktember" to "Narkopop" and "Rausch", back and forth, now and forever.

Way. Destination. Loop. Forest loop.

No beginning. No end.

Kompakt is proud to announce, finally, a reissue of the first, self-titled GAS album. Originally released on electronica imprint Mille Plateaux back in 1996, it’s been unavailable in its original form ever since – the version of GAS included in 2008’s Nah Und Fern box featured several different tracks. Here, however, GAS is restored in all its glory, the debut full-length from Wolfgang Voigt’s most enigmatic, quixotic project.

There had, of course, been signs of what was to come. Back in 1995, Voigt essayed the first GAS release, a slender, yet remarkable four-track EP, Modern. Its centre label featured a reduced symbol – an overhead or lamp light, switched on, its glow radiating outwards in four bold black lines – a perfect representation of the tight, stylised ambient electronic pop contained on that 12”. A few curious compilation tracks were floating around, too, for Mille Plateaux’s Modulation & Transformation and Electric Ladyland series. If you were attentive enough, you could tell something was up.

But nothing quite prepared us for the languorous, effervescing loops and regular-like-clockwork beats that Voigt folded together on GAS. Its six long tracks, all untitled, neither begin nor end but hazily fade into earshot, vibrate majestically in your cochlea for fifteen-or-so minutes – some a bit shorter, some longer – and then meander away, reading the mise-en-scène for the next example of Voigt’s drift and dream logic to unfold. The material is referential in the most distant way, and you can sense only the most evanescent of ghostly presences, haunting these six compositions.

GAS feels, also, like a more pliable hint at what’s to come, as the GAS concept really solidified on its successor, 1997’s Zauberberg, and reach its apotheosis on Königsforst and Pop. Those three albums share a very similar palette – blurred, hazy samples, often of classical music, stacked and cross-thatched across a muted 4/4 thud. GAS, then, is an outlier of sorts: it’s more expansive in its remit, lighter in its mood, perhaps more fleet of foot. This, of course, is part of its charm.

In clearing space for Voigt, by preparing the terrain, GAS sits both at the edge of the forest, and at the verge of an expansive, wide-eyed future; one where GAS would become truly eternal.

ZAUBERBERG – Wolfgang Voigt’s most fundamental (and foreboding) release under his alias GAS and perhaps of all in his untold discography – finally stands alone once again and is released in the way its original splendour.

Originally released in 1997 on the iconic Frankfurt imprint Mille Plateaux, and then reissued in 2016 as a part of GAS “BOX”, ZAUBERBERG is now released on his own label KOMPAKT on 180 gram vinyl in its original.

Though this narcotic symphony is not the first release under the GAS moniker, ZAUBERBERG is the first to disclose the true nature of Wolfgang Voigt’s unified sound and ideology as GAS. Layers of ominous intensity supported by muffled kick drums as classical music loops incessantly swirl with no direction, ZAUBERBERG is the definitive GAS album and a perfect starting point for those not familiar with his music.

KÖNIGSFORST – following the 1997 release of ZAUBERBERG (KOMPAKT 370.1), Wolfgang Voigt’s GAS project returned with KÖNIGSFORST, a full length that has stood the test of time as a template for introducing fundamentals of 90’s techno into the principles of contemporary electronic music.

Originally released in 1998 on the iconic Frankfurt imprint Mille Plateaux, and then reissued in 2016 as a part of GAS “BOX”, KÖNIGSFORST is now released on his own label KOMPAKT on 180 gram 3LP vinyl in its original artwork.

KÖNIGSFORST brings glimmers of light into Voigt’s dark, magnificent forest. Melodic strings and brass are added to his signature layers of ominous intensity. The forest path is laid out by muffled kick drums as classical music loops incessantly swirl with no direction.

OKTEMBER is the second EP release under Wolfgang Voigt’s mythical GAS project (it follows "Modern“ on Profan, 1995). The 2 compositions were originally released in 1999 on Mille Plateaux, and then reissued partially in 2016 on GAS “BOX”. OKTEMBER is finally released on Voigt's own label KOMPAKT, pressed on 180 gram vinyl in its original artwork.

This reissue features “Tal ‘90“ (instead of the original A side) – a predecessor to the GAS project originally recorded in 1990 under the alias TAL, it was released as a part of the Pop Ambient 2002 collection. With its sampled strings, horns and guitars, "Tal 90” soundtracks a more uplifting side to what is typically accustomed to being the sound of GAS. The title track “Oktember” is a dense, hypnotic affair that conjures a unique vision of dub techno that few have been able to replicate.

A monumental soundtrack to uncertain times.

Rausch with no name / My beautiful shine / You are the sun / This is where I want to be / Rausch with no morning / This is where we burn / The Stars sparkle / In a sea of flames / Horns and fanfares / Fanfares of joy / Fanfares of fear / The wine we drink through the eyes / The moon pours down at night in waves / Careful with that axe Eugene / Personal Jesus / No beginning no end / Eighteenth of Oktember / The night falls / The king comes / The hunt starts / Freude schöner Götterfunken / The long march through the underwood / Trust me there’s nothing / Once upon a time there was a bandit / Who loved a prince / That was long ago / Spring Summer Fall and Gas / There is a train heading to Nowhere / Drums and Trumpets / Future without mankind / Warm snow / Alles ist gut / The bells toll / You are not alone / The murmur in the forest / The murmur in the head / Light as mist / Heavy as lead / Music happens / To flow like gas / A clearing / Heavy baggage / Debut in the afterlife / Death has seven cats / World heritage Rausch / Finally infinite

Wolfgang Voigt 2018

Kompakt unveils the third volume of Jörg Burger’s “Velvet Desert Music” compilation series, dedicated to music that hits the sweet spot between the cinematic, the (pop) ambient, and the psychedelic. With “Velvet Desert Music Vol. 3”, Burger and his friends wander afar, taking trips away from, or adjacent to, the dancefloor that’s acted so long as the crucible for the Kompakt aesthetic. Like its predecessors, it’s a gorgeous, lambent collection of late-night mood music.

Because it’s such a broad church, “Velvet Desert Music” admits all kinds of new experiences, as well, with Burger looking for music that “goes beyond the desert to explore different corners of the velvet universe”. Indeed, of all the volumes in the series, this third installment feels closest to an album made by a true collective. The roster has changed, with new contributors Flug 8 and Seb Martel, both with his trio Las Ondas Marteles and with Chocolate Genius and Zsela as La Finca, joining regulars The Novotones, Mount Obsidian, The Golden Bug, Paulor and Sascha Funke.

Burger himself shows up alongside Fritz Ackermann of The Novotones and Max Würden and Thore Pfeiffer, in The Velvet Circle. Their contributions are pure lush life electronica: “Our Tribe” hitches a ride with a low-slung groove, flickering psychedelic reels of acoustic guitar traipsing across moody bass and taffeta layers of drone; their opening remix of Flug 8’s “Puerto Rico” gently introduces the album with softly tangling electronic tones, while guitars, drenched in reverb, pirouette in the background. Mount Obsidian’s remix of Burger´s The Black Frame “Sacrosanct” spins around the listeners ears like a kaleidoscope catching the reflections the sun makes in San Luis Potosí’s ornately decorated churches.

La Finca’s electronics and voice miniature, “What Clouds Say”, is a masterclass in poetic restraint; Martel’s “Dark Mambo”, remixed by Burger, is one of the collection’s big surprises, for it indeed does what the title says, a drifting, surrealist take on the mambo form, full of pensive chords, rich with unrequited longing, a breathy saxophone whispering under the song’s sly rhythmic carriage.

Old friends reappear, too: Paulor is back with the clicking grind of “The Last Coke in the Desert”, while Golden Bug’s “Es Cucuruc” is a muted slow burner. The Novotones chime in with a slyly propulsive, Krautrock-esque charmer, “Liberty Bell”, and the guitar-led tone-drift of “Valley of Oblivion”; Paulor’s “The Last Coke in the Desert” is a chiming, lilting dreamscape; Mount Obsidian are joined again by vocalist Charlotte Jestaedt for two modern takes on early-hours art song, „Fade“ and „Marole“, the closing track of the compilation, which is a spooked requiem for times passed. Sascha Funke’s “Mathias Rust” is a lavish dancefloor dream, vocal samples drifting through the song as it slowly envelops the listener in its opulent radiance.

What’s most compelling about “Velvet Desert Music Vol. 3”, perhaps, is the way everything sits together so tightly, so neatly – it’s the album in the series so far that feels the most like it’s been made by collaborators in one long, playful session of experiment and exploration; everyone’s on the same page, exploring the fractured wastelands, dust squalls, sunburnt scapes and psychedelic cacti of the psyche; burnt sienna, desert lilies and willows, fairy dusters, yucca and greasewood… an extravagance of blooming, riotous colour, erupting from the sun-cracked landscapes within each of us.

This is just a taste of the rich pleasures of Velvet Desert Music Vol. 3, a triumph of a compilation that takes the psychedelic visions of its predecessors and looks for the desert within, a dusty kiss, a road-movie hallucination flickering on the listener’s eyelids, a cinematic projection from deep inside the mind.

Again, the current edition of the tradition-steeped compilation series curated by Wolfgang Voigt is about the persistent and ever-necessary definition of beauty, of reduction, of electronic music of heavy lightness and light heaviness, of ambient's eternal promise of a state of physical and acoustic weightlessness and Pop's of redemption. And about the question why a never arbitrary combination of soundscape, drones, samples and loops, put together in a certain way, can create this feeling of warmth, depth and space, - something three-dimensional, where the imagination feels at home as a fish in the water or a bird in the sky. A key aesthetic stimulus that sends all the senses into a slow glide and drift, after which your synapses feel like they've been bathed in essential oil. Next to Soul, Ambient is probably the most effective musical healing plant of mankind.

Behind the aural test tubes, the who's who of Pop Ambient is once again at work, led for the first time by the highly trafficked Californian duo Blank Gloss, whose debut album "Melt" this year was certified by The Guardian as nothing less than "heartaching beauty". Yui Onodera's "Chrome" as well as "Kari", a cooperation of Markus Guentner and Joachim Spieth, could also be imagined in the score of Denis Villeneuve's new film version of DUNE - however, colleague Hans Zimmer managed that quite well without the three. After such wonderful and stylish contributions by Reich & Würden, Triola and Thomas Fehlmann, the ear then lingers a bit longer on the ghostly "Weiht" by Morgen Wurde feat. Maria Estrella, a track like a temple of sound, a deep electronic immersion in a Japanese onsen.

In this sea of unnameable time you could sink forever, but with the tracks of Andrew Thomas, Thore Pfeiffer and Max Würden & Pepo Galán the journey slowly comes to an end. 

TRACK LISTING

1.Blank Gloss - Coiling
2.Yui Onodera - Cromo 6
3.Markus Guentner / Joachim Spieth - Kari
4.Reich & Würden - Grainscan 06:25
5.Triola - Mutterkorn
6.Thomas Fehlmann - Rosen Fliegen
7.Morgen Wurde Feat. Maria Estrella - Weiht
8.Max Würden - Elan
9.Thore Pfeiffer - Taunus
10.Andrew Thomas - Kiss The Horizon
11.Max Würden / Pepo Galán - Seis Minutos Mas
12.Joachim Spieth / Pepo Galán - Luna
13.Max Würden - Retrospektive
14.Blank Gloss - Anticlimbers
15.Thore Pfeiffer - Isola
16.Pop Ambient 2022 (Continuous Mix)

20 years of Pop Ambient. Already? One didn’t notice. It’s an anniversary which comes quietly. An anniversary with quiet tones.In the spirit of the special restraint of pop-elegance, it has no reason to drawn attention to itself with a big „Tam-Tam“. Or better: „Bum-Bum“. The bass drum stays outside. Nevertheless, in fast-paced, overstimulated times of moving forward, it’s a joyful occasion to look back.What strikes most by putting or listening to 20 years of pop ambient in a row is the central theme that holds together the dense aesthetic concept like the pearls of a necklace.Floral beauty for digital naturalists. Music like flowers, that don’t wilt. Timeless. Ageless.

But with all of the conceptual unity and resolution, Pop Ambient would not be Kompakt without the break, the friction, the expansion of musical boundaries in between tradition and innovation, in between conspiracy and the openness of the discourse.Aestheticism, escapism, acting in the spirit of „nevertheless“. Swans drifting by, clouds pass over, everything is floating and: „Boredom is a stylistic device“ (Andy Warhol).

Pop Ambient Music is medicine against illnesses, that you don’t even suffer from. It’s giving everything, demanding nothing.Musical lotus leafs, off which the virtual wastewater of our time is rolling like the reality is dripping off the matrix.

In this sense, we’re happy about the pop-ambient anniversary greetings from new and old companions like Thore Pfeiffer, Max Würden, Yui Onodera, Jörg Burger, Thomas Fehlmann, Morgen Wurde, Leandro Fresco aswell as contributions from T.Raumschmiere, Andrew Thomas and, after a long break, from friends from early days like Joachim Spieth, Markus Guentner und Klimek. Breath in. Breath out. Thank you.

TRACK LISTING

01 Thore Pfeiffer – Urquell
02 Max Würden – Diminish
03 Yui Onodera – Cromo 4
04 Joachim Spieth – Meteor
05 T.Raumschmiere – Notre-Dame
06 Klimek – All The Little Horses
07 Morgen Wurde Feat. Maria Estrella – Lässt Los
08 Markus Guentner – Clade
09 Thomas Fehlmann – Liebesperlen
10 Gen Pop – Iron Woman
11 Klimek – Requiem For A Butterfly
12 Leandro Fresco – Brenda
13 Max Würden/Pepo Galan – Stay
14 Leandro Fresco/Thore Pfeiffer – Neo
15 Andrew Thomas – Song 9
16 Andrew Thomas – Sleep Fall

Two years on since his last outing on the label, 'The Follower', Axel Willner puts on his Field suit again to present his sixth full-length effort for Kompakt, 'Infinite Moment' - which sees him striding further across the deeper, richer rims of the hue cycle.

Substituting the uptempo vim of his previous pieces for a sense of mind-expanding horizontality, 'Infinite Moment' is an album filled with hope and draped in a diffuse, appeasing light; easing the pain and troubles of the human soul through a lushly forested recital of shoegazing modular, complex textural interplays and solar, atmospheric fractals. The matrix cut 'Made of steel, made of stone' gets the ball rolling on a thumping downtempo note, wrapping the listener up in hazy drones, fractured vocoder and rumbling bass tones. "Divide Now" is a proper sonic mitosis, engaging the metamorphosis to come; like a larvae pupating and reemerging weeks later from under rough bark in the form of a vividly coloured butterfly - fluttering breaks eventually shedding their skin then making way for a crucially more intimate and hypnotic second chapter. "Hear Your Voice" propels the lavish, pad-upholstered glamour of its melodic lines in the mixer for a bolder syncopated revisitation of '80s indebted pop harmonics, while 'Something left, something right, something wrong' returns to a flaring post-euphoric daze. Legs numb, mind confused and eyes lost into the greater whole, where nascent stars dance their way across the milky way to the rhythm of samba, and universal loving is no utopia.

A more arrhythmic affair, 'Who Goes There' spins out into orbit wildly, fusing stealth acid bass moves with a haunting off-kilter motorik that bears The Field's seal of exclusivity, playing with the listener's mind intensely before the ten-minute-long epic 'Infinite Moment' ushers its listener in a highly immersive final ballet of buzzing chords, trampling drums and all-consuming drones. Syncing the self with its environment in ways never explored before, this album is a direct soul-to-soul transmission, aiming no further than at finding the right balance between contained emotion and an expressive eloquence. No fluff, no bluff - with 'Infinite Moment', The Field goes straight for the heart, stripping bare of all vain and futile attributes to focus on the very essential - He is hopeful, and so are we.

STAFF COMMENTS

Sil says: It is The Field again! You know the drill; the formula has not changed: thumping beat, ethereal melodies, trance-like loops and a sense of possibility always present. This one is as good as all the others. In my books, that is a very good thing.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Made Of Steel. Made Of Stone
A2. Divide Now
B1. Hear Your Voice
C1. Something Left, Something Right, Something Wrong
D1. Who Goes There
D2. Infinite Moment

A new force on the modern Balearic scene made of up Thomas Gandey aka Cagedbaby (member of Matom alongside Matt Edwards) and Daniel McLewin, half of UK-based production duo Psychemagik. Together they drop their first single on Germany's long running leftfield label Kompakt.

"Saturnus" is an upright mano a mano between two musicians and their gear, unchained from all preconceptions and biases; real (machine) talk as the hip-hop heads would say.

On "Zuul Passage" we get a twangy and Tron-esque futurescape generated by a good old Moog Voyager, '70s string machines', Oberheim OBXA, 303, Space Echo and the too little-known and equally little-used Korg Lambda. The track traverses remote kosmische-indebted expanses but hits close to the core with its deft mix of slow-burning spectral funk, textured outerspace pads and further stirring heart-searching harmonics. Subtly arranged yet leaving maximum room to the lively force of its original layout, it is a lovingly crafted piece of emotive and psychedelic magnitude that's seamlessly and almost effortlessly produced; allowing the listener to relish undistrubed in its sensuous offerings. 

TRACK LISTING

Saturnus (Ghost Vision Theme) 00:13:05
Zuul Passage 00:11:33

Danish native, Rune Reilly aka Kölsch drops the final chapter in his triptych release for Kompakt. Followers of the series will note a chronological concept, an ascension if you will, soundtracking his life from birth up until now. As usual, you'l find bursts of epic melodies coursing through propulsive techno beats, a musical ident that's particularly arresting on album hit, "Push". "1989" marks also Kölsch’s intensified deployment of real-life orchestral sounds and the continuation of his extremely fruitful collab with Gregor Schwellenbach: after contributing to predecessor album “1983”, the Kompakt affiliate, composer and multi-instrumentalist now conducts the Heritage Orchestra for tracks "Khaio", "Liath" (featuring a violin solo by Kate Robinson) and "Serji", the latter of which Schwellenbach co-wrote and co-produced.

The 24-person Heritage Orchstra consists of violins, violas, cellos and double basses, adding the sweeping drama and organic, richly layered textures that only real strings can produce - a deeply humane tone that is set with the album’s opening recording of the orchestra tuning its instruments (which incidentally also incorporates a voice recording from 1989 of Rune Reilly’s grandfather Ludwig). Seeing Kölsch’s propensity for vocalist cameos on his albums (Trœls Abrahamsen on “1977”, Tomas Høffding and Waa Industry on “1983”), one shouldn’t be surprised to find beautiful cut "In Bottles", which features vocals written and performed by Aurora Aksnes.

1989 certainly delivers on all fronts, engulfing the listener from the outset with its sonic coupling of classical composition and contemporary production -without sacrificing the impact on the dancefloor.

TRACK LISTING

01. A1. 1989
02. A2. Serij
03. A3. Grå
04. A4. In Bottles
05. B1. Grey
06. B2. Grau
07. B3. PUSH
08. C1. Gris
09. C2. 14
10. C3. Khairo
11. D1. YKPI
12. D2. Liath
13. D3. Goodbye

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2014 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

- THE FIELD's legendary debut album FROM HERE WE GO SUBLIME finally finds its way onto vinyl

- Special edition for RECORD STORE DAY 2014, only available in participating stores

- Pressed on 180g audiophile grade vinyl, including a CD version of the album

-Originally rolled out in 2007, this much-acclaimed full-length debut of what was to
become one of the most celebrated projects in Kompakt's artist fold saw a regular CD edition and an accompanying 12" sampler - but never a full vinyl release.

-Enter RECORD STORE DAY 2014 and the perfect opportunity to finally present this stunning masterpiece the way it deserves.

Axel Willner aka THE FIELD joined the Kompakt family in 2005, bringing forward a new fusion of ambient and techno that fed on his adoration for Wolfgang Voigt's classic 90's projects Gas and M:I:5 as well as the shoegazer rock of Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine.

Called a "techno pop landmark" by Pitchfork, FROM HERE WE GO SUBLIME almost immediately became a cult favourite, starting a trend that continues to this day - as can be seen with THE FIELD's most recent full-length offering CUPID'S HEAD that has been lauded by critics and crowds alike.

The most striking feat of FROM HERE WE GO SUBLIME must be its sonic cohesiveness, debuting a fully-formed artistic vision that - seven years and three albums later - hasn't lost any of its luster. As a fixture in THE FIELD's discography, it remains as important as ever, with Axel Willner installing a blueprint that inspired many but sounds like no one else... except himself. Giving you a feeling of warmth and familiarity on first listen that you can't quite grasp, it's like this sound has always existed, when in fact it was the unique creation from one highly gifted producer. And it
all starts here.

It's when VOIGT & VOIGT gather in the same studio that the sparks start to fly dangerously low within this unique machinery humbly named Kompakt, resulting more often than not in a rather unlikely combination of separate elements suddenly kickstarting into communication. For their debut full-length DIE ZAUBERHAFTE WELT DER ANDEREN, the Voigt brothers draw from a plethora of influences to build an incomparable sound world, for the first time fully realizing what previous, now classic tracks on SPEICHER have been hinting at. Produced side by side with the essential Techno of ERDINGERTRAX, this album opts for a strong psychedelic narrative, brilliantly showcasing Voigt & Voigt’s experimental inclinations while knowing a thing or two about the perfect groove.

Marrying the more cerebral aspects of Techno science with the sheer will to party, the Voigtian output is an unpredictable, but constant fixture in KOMPAKT's back catalogue that brings together the distinctive talents of brothers WOLFGANG and REINHARD VOIGT. With each one being a highly prolific artist in its own right, the joint work on their album debut never ceased to surprise even its originators, who used the twilight of their nightly studio sessions to process a shared stream of auditive consciousness feeding on influences as diverse as Techno and New German cinema.

Full of nods to specific movie and TV esthetics, Voigt & Voigt’s DIE ZAUBERHAFTE WELT DER ANDEREN references the higher and lower brows of auteur film culture already in its name, where widely known French alternative comedy DIE ZAUBERHAFTE WELT DER AMELIE and Oscar-winning German drama DIE WELT DER ANDEREN find themselves forming a truly odd couple. It’s an unusual combination, but it works, as first track INTRO KÖNIG confidently proves, indulging in some sort of abstract theme motive until a poker-faced beat creeps in, priming the sound canvas for things to come. DER ERSTE ZUG takes on the challenge and establishes a monochrome rhythm pattern springing to live when chatting percussion introduces it to the thrust of Hitchcockian railroad travel.

In the meantime, DER KEIL NRW delves deep into Fassbinder territory and fuses the matter-of-fact news style of Germany’s late Seventies TV with a throbbing rhythm straight out of Thrillerville, making this a perfect candidate for car chasing scenes in Cold-War-era Berlin. TJA MAMA, SANDRA MAISCHBERGER (citing a popular German talk show) and SOZIAL consecutively calm things down for a little mid-movie catharsis, but the tension rises back up soon enough with whodunit-styled spine-chiller DIE GLOCKE (ENDSTATION WIENER PLATZ) and retro-romantic audio drama HOTEL NOKI, followed by the hauntingly detached mantra of AKIRA.

Multi-angled police procedural TRYPTICHON NUMMER 7 sees Voigt & Voigt dissecting their own trademark sounds as the end credits slowly start to roll, leading to an excitingly minimalist Synth Pop work-out eventually washed away by final orchester hits full of foreboding. It’s as if the album wants to show you one final, very important picture, and indeed it does with DER LETZTE ZUG, a short ride to the other side of reality, clocking in at just over two minutes, but carrying all the weight of an epic cliffhanger. To be continued, hopefully.

TRACK LISTING

01. Intro König
02. Der Erste Zug
03. Der Keil NRW
04. Tja Mama, Sandra Maischberger
05. Sozial
06. Die Glocke (Endstation Wiener Platz)
07. Hotel Noki
08. Akira
09. Triptychon Nummer 7
10. Der Letzte Zug

Following the 7” release of Panda Bear’s final single in the series that lead up to the release of his new album "Tomboy", Kompakt now present the Actress remix from the 45's flipside the way it was intended - as a 12 minute epic for the dancefloor.

If you found Actress's "Splazsh" album a little too opaque, or perhaps a bit dense and mind-consuming in its leftfield electronica production, then you having nothing to fear from this rework as, for this remix, Cunningham ties his obvious talent to an accessible 4/4 house framework. Similar to the work on recent albums by Four Tet or Caribou, this rework of "Surfer's Hymn" features percussive, poly-rhythms opening out into a dry, post-dubstep / house riddim, plus the organ drones and sun-dappled chillwave shards of sound from Panda Bear's original. A house-meets-electronica essential!

Though it’s been six years since his debut full length “Here Comes Love”, it’s clear that Superpitcher has remained fully in the picture not only as a producer but thanks to a diet of consistent, rigorous DJing. Now he returns with “Kilimanjaro” - a full length that emanates his rich knowledge in music and as a producer. “Kilimanjaro” is a story that only few electronic musicians still share. From the moment that Cologne church bells ease us into Schaufler’s bewitching twist on dub with “Voodoo”, he sets the tone for themes that echoes throughout; enchantment, pain and magic. The first single “Rabbits In A Hurry” has caused a rapturous chime of support from the club elite and proves to be more than that within “Kilimanjaro” - unfounded disco dements itself with the sounds of the absurd in Superpitcher’s sexiest signature flow. Diehard fans will rejoice with “Friday Night” which is a return to the classic Kompakt sound that Schaufler helped build and when he teams up with Comeme starlet Rebolledo it’s a cosmic, hallucinogenic trip. Koelsch Tequila in your glass, the 70s, disco, sex and the finest of drugs.

However which way you look at it, Superpitcher has set up an accomplished sophomore release that maintains his roots in dance music while managing to have a complete disregard for genre and adding the involvement of acoustic instrumentation and vocals - a tough integration that works over and over again with “Kilimanjaro”.

Kompakt continue to embrace fusion of the rock / dance divide paved on the label by the likes of The Field with one of the most exciting new bands to emerge in the past year; Walls (Sam Willis from Allez Allez and Alessio Natalizia of Banjo Or Freakout). Originally from Manchester, but based in London since 1996, Willis has long been an admirer of the Cologne sound, instilling his productions with the euphoric, pop sensibilities and deep grooves that are a Kompakt hallmark. Natalizia hails from Vasto, Italy but relocated to London in 2008 to pursue his musical dreams - driven by the wild guitar of This Heat and propulsive rhythms of Can as well as Burial's inner city atmospherics and soul. After hooking up in the studio, the pair quickly realized that the natural combination of Alessio’s and guitar play and haunting vocals together with Willis’ emotive synth lines and sample manipulation magic was a match made in heaven. Already friends of the Kompakt label, the duo created this debut album for them in double quick time. Take “Hang Four” where the slo-mo techno rhythm finds an easy bond with Allessio’s lush guitar picking. “Cylopean Remains” immediately conjure the potentials of a jam between Animal Collective and Boards Of Canada – rolling beauty combined with epic strangeness to the most cerebral degree. Destined to be one of Kompakt’s most unparalleled releases in the label's history, Walls have a lack of concern for the boundaries of genre distinction, but easily fit uniquely between the classic 'sound of Kompakt' and the bliss of "Pop Ambient".

Chilean born, German raised Matias Aguayo is Kompakt's most blogged about musician today thanks to a string of successful 12" releases on Soul Jazz, Kompakt and his own imprint Comeme. "Ay Ay Ay" was recorded in Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile and Paris together with Vicente Sanfuentes (Original Hamster) and was mixed down in Berlin together with long time collaborator Marcus Rossknecht (of Broke fame). Matias has conjured an impossibly unclassifiable full length set that is certain to surprise and uplift. Take opener "Menta Latte", countless layers of his voice revel in a psychedelic dream park together with a simple xylophone chord. First single "Rollerskate"'s chorus is sure to stay on auto repeat in your head for days after first listen. Aguayo's leanings to traditional African music resonate on the beautiful crooner "Koro Koro". Fans of his recent singles will rejoice to the rhythm of songs "Me Vuelvo Loca" and "Juanita"'s Latin harmonies embraced with Matias coaxing you to get up and dance.