★Kompakt
Pop Ambient 2025
In recent years, the introductory texts for the Pop Ambient compilation series, which is released every year on Kompakt as the last release before the Christmas break, often began with the sentence "Every year again...". “Every year again”, a quiet, almost unnoticed maxim of self-evidentness. Because this is already the 25th issue to be published this year. 25 years in increasingly fast-moving times in the even faster-moving music business is an eternity that doesn't just feel like it. It is all…
Rausch
"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 lo…
Agartha
‘Where is Agartha? What is the specific region in which it lies? Along what road, through what civilizations, must one walk in order to reach it?.’ - Saint-Yves d’Alveydre in 1886 Agartha, the debut full-length album by Japanese producer Wata Igarashi, is a mysterious, divine thing. Named for the mythical secret kingdom, understood as a complex maze of underground tunnels, perhaps designed by Martians who colonised the Earth tens of thousands of years ago, it’s a similarly mystical, perhaps even…
Gas
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, V…
Der Lange Marsch
*2024 repress* 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 musi…
Pop
*Back in stock! 2024 repress* "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 warmt…
Königsforst
*Back in stock! 2024 repress* Following the 1997 release of Zauerberg, 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 CD in its original artwork.Königsfo…
Zauberberg
*Back in stock! 2024 repress* 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 CD.
Though this narcotic symphony is not the first release under th…
Narkopop
Back in stock! 2024 repress Triple LP version. Includes CD. Comes with a 24-page booklet in a hardcover book. Nearly two decades after the last official GAS album release, Wolfgang Voigt returns to his iconic Ambient project with a brandnew full-length. Narkopop continues the classic GAS aesthetic of symphonic scope and subtle variation, taking the listener on an otherworldly journey to the depths of rapture and reverie In the body of work of Cologne artist Wolfgang Voigt - who, like few others,…
Oktember
*Back in stock! 2024 repress* Oktember was the second EP release under Wolfgang Voigt’s mythical GAS project. Originally released in 1999 on the iconic Frankfurt imprint Mille Plateaux, and then reissued in 2016 as a part of GAS' Box, Oktember is now released on his own label Kompakt on 180 gram vinyl in its original artwork. This reissue features the single Tal '90 – originally released as a part of the Pop Ambient 2002 collection.This two-track long player starts with A-Side Tal 90. Sampled st…
Oasis
2024 reissue. Dettinger’s Intershop and Oasis have long been held, by many fans of ambient and electronic music, to be some of the finest albums in their field. Produced by the mysterious Olaf Dettinger, about whom not much is publicly known, they were some of the earliest full-lengths released by the then-nascent Kompakt, and in many ways, they both articulated and defined the sound that would come to be known as Pop Ambient, while also existing, somehow, to the leftfield of any clearly recogni…
Intershop
2024 reissue. Dettinger’s Intershop and Oasis have long been held, by many fans of ambient and electronic music, to be some of the finest albums in their field. Produced by the mysterious Olaf Dettinger, about whom not much is publicly known, they were some of the earliest full-lengths released by the then-nascent Kompakt, and in many ways, they both articulated and defined the sound that would come to be known as Pop Ambient, while also existing, somehow, to the leftfield of any clearly recogni…
Böser Herbst
For Böser Herbst, Thomas Fehlmann returns to the sediment of ages, drawing from a similar lexicon of sounds to that used on 2018’s ‘1929 – Das Jahr Babylon’. Like that album, Böser Herbst was produced as the soundtrack to a documentary made by Matthias Luthardt, ‘Herbst 1929, Schatten Über Babylon’, which offers historical insight to the third season of the television series Babylon Berlin. It adds yet another string to the bow of this most forward-thinking and creative artist, whose history tak…
Pop Ambient 2021
It’s 2020, the year Pop Ambient turns twenty-one years old, a spritely young adult waltzing out of its teenage joys and tears. Pop Ambient has always stood for a certain classicism and elegance, a kind of beatless music that’s diaphanous and hazy, gossamer and glittering. It’s a music that’s no less inviting for its slow pace and becalmed nature, with a different kind of tension bubbling under the surface. For twenty-one years, Kompakt co-founder Wolfgang Voigt has curated a series of peerless c…
Videosphere
Videosphere, the debut album by Kompakt’s latest signing, the London-based artist Lake Turner (aka Andrew Halford), swoons into focus with “The Sunbird”, a teasing drift of lilting, ambient tones, riding out a submerged piston-pulse rhythm. Across its brief 109 seconds, it manages to traverse evocative terrain – something mythopoetic, something both humble and grandiose, a glimpse of the other behind the sky’s curtain. “I wanted to conjure up something resembling an ancient ceremony or death pro…
Pop Ambient 2020
"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 cent…
Particle / Matter-Wave / Energy
Kompakt welcomes veteran contemporary experimental producer Marcus Schmickler with the release of his spectacular noise / techno fused medallion entitled Particle / Matter-Wave / Energy.Marcus Schmickler’s fifty plus release discography is one of the most fascinating in his field. From his studies under Cologne based Stockhausen collaborator Johannes Fritsch to his releases through legendary imprints a-Musik, editionsMego and Mille Plateaux, over the years Schmickler has been behind innumerable …
The Fifty Eleven Project
Kompakt presents a new LP and audiovisual venture by Danish producer Kasper Bjørke and close cohorts. Epic and in length but always captivating, The Fifty Eleven Project is an entirely ambient concept album, that interprets and evokes the emotional rollercoaster Kasper experienced, from his cancer diagnosis and throughout the five years of regular check-ups. The week of album release marks his 2nd anniversary of getting the all-clear.“Just two weeks before my 35th birthday, doctors discovered a …
Box
*limited repress* Luxurious, highly collectible 10LP+4CD box set, including an art-print book with previously unreleased GAS artwork. Wolfgang Voigt is a man of many means and monikers, having engendered a unique take on electronic expressionism across multiple media - from riotous early '90s acid to cyber-folkloristic techno or the abstract drama of his current Rückverzauberung project, Voigt is a pioneering vision to be found on vinyl, canvas or flickering screens. Ranking among the most …
Yesterday & Today
Double vinyl LP pressing includes bonus CD pressing of this 2009 release. The Field is Axel Willner, and 2007's Here We Go Sublime was one of the year's most acclaimed releases, receiving a 9.0 from Pitchfork as well as universal praise. It was a soundtrack to the spit-shined airport of your dreams - faceless, futuristic, and fuzzy. Now, Willner expands his palette, continuing the oblique sampling strategy while building up the rhythmic architecture.