Kompakt's newest
Pop Ambient installment arrives right in time for the Deep Freeze of 2013, this edition of the much-loved annual series featuring 10 tracks of beguiling, pastoral soundscapes perfect for accompanying these frigid days and nights. The Cologne imprint has always used
PA and the more 4/4-friendly editions of their yearly
Total comps to showcase both staple names and friends of the label, and this one nicely follows in that tradition. We find regulars like Marsen Jules, Mikkel Metal, Triola (a/k/a Jorg Burger), Jens-Uwe Beyer (a/k/a Popnoname), Wolfgang Voigt, and Leandro Fresco (who hasn't contributed to
Pop Ambient in 11 years and returns with not one but two tracks) sitting alongside some newcomers to
PA, including Anton Kubikov (better known as SCSI-9) and Kompakt honcho Michael Mayer, who's actually making his series debut. (Here, "Sully," off Mayer's recent
Mantasy full-length, is reworked by label founder Wolfgang Voigt, who reshapes the original with the amorphous textures of his Gas project.) Most surprising, however, is the album closer from Terrapin, a new collaboration between Jorg Burger and Matias Aguayo, with the duo offering a faithful cover of the Pink Floyd obscurity "Cirrus Minor," adding a warm bed of effervescent synths which hum beneath a descending guitar passage, bird noises, and Aguayo singing David Gilmour's haunting melody -- a vocal appearance on
PA is almost unheard of. One of the most consistent
Pop Ambient volumes in recent years, the series indeed remains a relevant source for some of the best new works of the genre, produced by many of electronic music's most creative and enduring talents.
-Gerald Hammill
"Jean Vigo" - Triola
"Ambianopolis" - Wolfgang Voigt
Press Notes:
Kompakt returns with its annual compilation and, as in the years before, Pop Ambient 2013
collects an illustrious cast of producers uniting genre pioneers
alongside old friends and some surprising new arrivals. A long-standing
contributor to the series, Leandro Fresco kicks things off in wonderfully lyrical fashion with "Cuando el Sol Grita la Manana." Michael Mayer makes his Pop Ambient debut with a remix of "Sully," the opener on his highly-praised full-length Mantasy (KOMP 100CD/KOM 250LP). Wolfgang Voigt brings a Gas-eous vibe to the track. A Pop Ambient staple under his Popnoname moniker, Jens-Uwe Beyer contributes a concrete hymn with "Deutz Air 2," while Jörg Burger aka Triola pays tribute to French director Jean Vigo, exploring the limits between synthetic and "natural" sounds. Marsen Jules
returns with "Point of No Return," an impressive track seemingly
illustrating glaciers trembling under the weight of a giant's foot,
whereas Mikkel Metal puts the music under a burning glass in his
intensely focused "Recombination," not without spotting a hint of a beat
in its steady pulse. Anton Kubikov, also known as SCSI-9,
follows up with "Ambianopolis," where he has a wailing piano telling
the story of legendary cities engulfed by the sea. Wolfgang Voigt's
iterative project Rückverzauberung sees its seventh embodiment on Pop Ambient 2013
with a massively sensual abstraction between harmony and dissonance. A
penultimate offering comes with another contribution from Leandro
Fresco, the masterful "El Cruce Imposible," where a haunting drone
resolves in painfully beautiful chords. The last track introduces a
project from Jörg Burger and Matias Aguayo ; Terrapin's Pink Floyd cover, "Circus Minor," offers perfect closure on a fascinating trip.
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