Gas was one of numerous projects undertaken by electronic music innovator and Kompakt co-founder Wolfgang Voigt. The venture was extant during a bountiful period for progressive techno, specifically 1995 to 2000, and the half decade provided him ample opportunity to put the full into four full-lengths. Kompakt’s recently released Box collects the second through the fourth of those groundbreaking releases and pairs them with a 1999 12-inch, the contents spread across ten LPs and sequenced onto four compact discs. It can be accurately labeled as a doozy, mainly because the sounds it collects remain so worthwhile.
Studio 1, Grungerman, Love Inc., Dextro NRG, Mike Ink, and M:I:5; that’s just a fraction of the monikers employed by musician-producer Wolfgang Voigt. Residing near the top of that heap of handles is Gas, which likely serves as the apex of his substantial profile. Emerging as a significant portion of the techno field moved increasingly away from the oft-rigid structure of club sounds toward ambient, abstract, and experimental territories, Voight didn’t necessarily reject trad techno ideas in Gas, at first mingling the body-moving impetus with a more forthrightly artistic approach.
Gas debuted in 1995 with the “Modern” 12-inch on Voigt’s own Profan label, a small early ’90s precursor to Kompakt that’s been tagged as pursuing the “meandering side-paths of Techno.” That’s an apt way of describing “Modern,” its four varied tracks bending, stressing, stretching, and unsurprisingly, engaging in repetition.
The following year a self-titled full-length debut arrived not on Profan but Mille Plateaux, the important experimental electronic label responsible for initially releasing the remainder of Gas’ output. Interestingly, when Kompakt issued the first expanded collection of Gas material in 2008, Nah Und Fern included Gas alongside its three full-length counterparts.
While some will gaze upon Box as a sprawling thing, others will simply observe three albums and a 12-inch given the dual format audiophile treatment in an exquisitely designed package. Beginning with Zauberberg proves a very smart choice, for the album, which hit stores late in 1997 as a CD or 2LP, marks a wholehearted engagement with the precepts of ambient, a maneuver made abundantly clear in the opening track.
This is not to suggest that Voigt wasn’t already applying ambient methods to his work or that he completely abandoned traits that harken back to the dancefloor; much of Zauberberg, which shares its title with the celebrated novel by Voigt’s countryman Thomas Mann (translated to English as The Magic Mountain), utilizes techno’s forward motion, but the rhythms are often submerged in keeping with the music’s ambient nature.
This is also a distinct version of Zauberberg, running roughly 11 minutes longer as the seven cuts now span across three LPs (this same circumstance applies to the ensuing albums Köenigsforst and Pop); those not seduced by Voigt’s creation will probably shrug, for like most ambient music listeners will likely be divided into pro and neg camps with a very small percentage inhabiting the middle ground. But attentive listening reveals thoughtful construction, with the rhythm dissipating from the final selection to provide a circular possibility (particularly with the CD on repeat).
Beat patterns emerge more explicitly throughout Gas’ ’98 effort Köenigsforst, though the third entry is a notable exception as it explores the tense drift of early ’80s industrial-tinged soundscapes; track six is a complex weave of repetitive patterns. But the prior antipathy toward variety is only intensified, as is the warm sound of vinyl crackle; the melodies for Zauberberg were grabbed from old classical LPs, reportedly with a preference for Wagner (but without any recognizable tidbits), and a similar tactic has been employed for its follow-up.
It’s easy to get lost in Voigt’s creations; focusing on the crackle carries over into a repetitive fragment of what sounds like guitar which leads into the rising and falling sonic waves and how they contrast with a rhythm that eludes a similarity to techno and instead sounds like a racing heartbeat; this is a rough synopsis of track four, which is amongst the shorter of eight pieces.
Köenigsforst’s main weakness is that it registers more as an assemblage of likeminded selections rather than offering the thematic architectural flow of its predecessor. Overall this is far from a major fault; Zauberberg was Gas’ second release, but it also stood as a breakthrough for an artist who’d been shaping his work since early in the decade. Consciously trying to top a significant achievement is almost always a mistake; Voigt avoids the trap with Köenigsforst and the record stands on its own merits very nicely.
This brings us to Pop and Voigt’s decision to largely disengage from bass and drum patterns, although his looping tactics, especially in the fourth track’s mingling of industrialism and nature sounds, should be enough to scratch most listener’s rhythmic itch. However, the unique feel of the whole leads this writer to make a distinction between the prior Gas efforts, which can be correctly assessed as ambient techno, and Pop, which mostly connects as unhyphenated ambient.
In whatever description one chooses, Voight’s third extended release under the name is highly impressive and helps to solidify the Gas discography as a cornerstone of progressive electronica. While its title is in no way emblematic of a marketplace strategy, it’s also not ironic, Pop connecting as the most accessible Gas release; in contrast to the varying sense of tension articulated previously, much its running time is relaxing (up to the return of the 4/4 beat in the finale, anyway).
While it comprises Box’s final LP, the “Oktember” 12-inch predates Pop by a little over a year, though side one’s “Tal 90” appears to be a slightly longer edit of a track first issued on a 2008 Voigt release (trickily titled Gas) on the Raster-Noton label. “Tal 90” stands out; the repeating classical-derived strains are more detectable than usual, and the mood it shapes is a bit like continually waking up from a nap on an alpine mountain in a film by Peter Tscherkassky.
It’s late sequencing on Box underscores the enduring brilliance of Wolfgang Voigt’s work and reinforces Gas as consistently ranking near the top of his discography. In terms of expansive box sets, this one succeeds mightily.
Zauberberg
A+
Köenigsforst
A-
Pop
A
“Oktember”
A-
Box
A
