Gas - Zauberberg

Triple LP, 2024 reissue

A grand undertaking: (almost) all of the GAS, all at once. An entire aesthetic imagined, reinterpreted and then reimagined again across more than two decades of relentless creative pursuit. Kompakt has its own legacy and is its own separate entity in a lot of ways, but Wolfgang Voight captured something in these GAS records that feels substantial enough to carry the weight of an entire sensibility. The shift from the minimal dub-based techno of the self-titled debut in 1996 - now back in print for the first time since its initial release and probably the flagship title here - into the concept-driven, infinite expanse of records like Pop and Rausch should really be considered just as much in the terms of fine art as it is music (and you can tell me where those lines of distinction sit anyway), wordless, sometimes beatless sound design that's as physical and visual as it is musical, like an aural equivalent of Rothko's colour fields. If that sounds pretentious and such understandings deter you (not sorry), then check in under different terms - as individuals or as a whole, these are highly engaging and inhabitable sound worlds that build a universe around their creator (ie a mythologised Cologne!) while remaining openly ambiguous enough to allow the listener to impress their own meanings upon them. A true mastering of the art of show and not tell. Coming up or coming down, staying in or going out, GAS has a feeling for them all. All timer barely covers it, all your time just about.