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GAS (=WOLFGANG VOIGT) - BOX

Format: 10 x LP / 4 x CD BOX
Label & Cat.Number: Kompakt KOMPAKT 370.5
Release Year: 2016
Note: luxurious box with all main GAS-albums from the 90's, feat. unrelased extended versions: ZAUBERBERG (1997), KÖNIGSFORST(1998) , POP (2000) and the rare 12" OKTEMBER; comes with big art print book in lovely box + CD versions; SOLD OUT at the label immediately, we could grab some very last copies!!!
Price (incl. 19% VAT): €170.00
Warning: Currently we do not have this album in stock!


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"Wolfgang Voigt is a man of many means and monickers, 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, a pioneering vision to be found on vinyl, canvas or flickering screens. Ranking among of the most dense, hypnotic, atmospheric recordings in his oeuvre, the GAS releases have since become internationally recognized classics with a cult following, hailed as "a wonderous high point in the history of electronic music" (Pitchfork) and "some of the most influential albums of the 90s" (The Guardian).

From foggy dub techno to anthemic electronica and loop-based ambient techno, the list of acts, tracks and even genres influenced by the full-lengths and EPs crafted under the GAS umbrella between 1995 and 2000 seems endless, giving these long sold-out original releases even more of a near-mythical quality. Following the much-acclaimed (and out-of-print) retrospective NAH UND FERN from 2008, Kompakt has decided that it's high time for a reissue that features the core GAS albums originally released by the legendary Mille Plateaux imprint in the 90s – the records that introduced the project’s trademark sound between Schönberg and Kraftwerk, Wagner and the bassdrum, “an endless march through the underwoods of an imaginary, misty forest and into the disco.”

Inside this comprehensive anthology, listeners will experience ZAUBERBERG (celebrating the 20th anniversary of this essential album), KÖNIGSFORST, POP and the sought-after OKTEMBER 12", all together available as luxurious 10LP+4CD edition. GAS BOX is the most comprehensive version of these releases ever: the vinyl features edits that were previously unavailable on wax - with each album being presented as 3LP pressing (instead of the original 2LP pressings), for extended playtime and superior sound quality, finally released the way this music was intended to to be heard. This highly collectible box set comes with an art-print book featuring newly processed and previously unreleased photography from the Königsforst woods around Cologne, in the style of the legendary, trail-blazing GAS artwork.

GAS BOX is to be considered as the definitive take on a unique sound cosmos and an extraordinary period of music. An essential outing for every serious fan of electronic music.
(de) Wolfgang Voigt ist ein Mann vieler Mittel und Wege, mit einem einzigartigen Fokus auf elektronischen Expressionismus in verschiedensten Medien – vom krawallgebürsteten Frühneunziger-Acid zu cyber-folkloristischem Techno oder dem abstrakten Drama seines aktuellen Rückverzauberungsprojekts durchdringt die Vision eines Pioniers Vinyl, Leinwand und flackernde Bildschirme. Zu seinen dichtesten, hypnotischsten und atmosphärischsten Arbeiten dürfen die Veröffentlichungen als GAS gezählt werden, längst als Klassiker mit Kultstatus im Kanon etabliert: The Guardian spricht von “einigen der einflussreichsten Alben der Neunziger”- als einen “Höhepunkt in der Geschichte der elektronischen Musik” beschrieb das einflussreiche Online-Magazin Pitchfork die Reihe.
Vom vernebelten Dubtechno, der hymnischen Electronika und dem loopbasiertem Ambienttechno von GAS wurde eine endlose Liste an Künstlern, Tracks und sogar Genres inspiriert, welche sich auf die Langspieler und EPs beziehen, die zwischen 1995 und 2000 entstanden. All dies nährte einen Mythos, der die seit langem nicht mehr im Handel erhältlichen Originalveröffentlichungen umgibt. Nach der sehr erfolgreichen (und ausverkauften) Retrospektive NAH UND FERN (2008) nimmt sich Kompakt nun einer weiteren Edition an, die all jene GAS-Kernalben umfasst, die ursprünglich in den Neunzigern auf dem legendären Experimental-Label Mille Plateaux erschienen sind – Schallplatten, die den typischen Klang des Projekts zwischen Schönberg und Kraftwerk, Wagner und Bassdrum am stärksten geprägt haben: “ein endloser Marsch durchs Unterholz, in die imaginäre Disko eines nebligen Fantasierwaldes”.
Diese umfassende Materialsammlung enthält Wiederauflagen der Alben ZAUBERBERG (pünktlich zum 20. Jubiläum eines der Meilensteine der Reihe), KÖNIGSFORST und POP, sowie die heißbegehrte 12” OKTEMBER, zusammengestellt in einer luxuriösen 10LP+4CD-Edition. GAS BOX ist die vollständigste Auflage dieser Platten, die jemals gepresst wurde – inclusive extreme rarer Versionen, die es so noch nie zuvor auf Vinyl gab. Anstelle der originalen 2LP-Fassung wird jedes Album außerdem als 3LP-Ausgabe präsentiert, zugunsten einer längeren Spieldauer und besserer Klangqualität – endlich so, wie diese Musik schon immer hätte gehört werden sollen. Dieses exklusive Sammler-Boxset enthält desweiteren ein Kunstdruckbuch mit neu bearbeiteten und bislang unveröffentlichten Fotografien des Königsforst im legendären und stilprägenden Artwork von GAS.
GAS BOX ist die definitive Sammlung eines einzigartigen Klangkosmos und zeitloses Dokument der Musikgeschichte. Für jeden Fan elektronischer Musik eine wahre Schatztruhe.


www.kompakt-net.de





"Almost everyone we know loves Gas – the blissed-out, minimal techno project of Wolfgang Voigt. But don't let the word "techno" scare you off, as the music of Gas can easily win over the most ardent technophobes. The techno element in the sound of Gas is only one facet to Voigt's magical sound world, often just a shadow, a distant heartbeat like pulse, sometimes more pronounced, but usually just a murky throb or a rhythmic murmur. The music of Gas is gauzy and shimmery, blurred and softly buzzy. It's like an even more dreamlike Oval, or perhaps Porter Ricks crossed with Labradford, or Tim Hecker recording for Chain Reaction. When we talk about Kompakt's Pop Ambient sound, Gas is the template, that which we measure all other "pop ambience" by. The sound is at once ethereal and intimate, haunting and mysterious, lush and expansive, the beatless tracks drift endlessly, each a divine blur of soft chordal whir and looped effervescence. The more beat heavy tracks retain that same washed out otherworldliness, but manage to infuse them with a subtle, barely-there groove, sometimes adding gritty crackle, or subtle dubbed out delay, but always sounding light and airy, weightless and darkly blissful. We once described Gas as sounding like being adrift in a sea of electronics, in a fog so deep, the pulsating beats that would guide you back to shore are murky at best, muffled by distance and the unending push of the droning wind.

Box collects three of the Gas albums, all of which have been out of print for ages: Zauberberg (1997), Konigforst (1998), Pop (2000) and the highly collectible Oktember EP (1999). What is notably missing from the collection is the debut eponymous record, which did get reissued on the 2008 4CD box set Nah Und Fern (whose vinyl counterpart was a pitiful 2LP truncating an entire album onto a single side of an album). Each of these full albums for the Box are pressed as triple LPs, plus the lengthy Oktember EP. All of the material is reprised on the 4CD set that accompanies the vinyl.

As much as we love all these Gas albums, Zauberberg and Konigforst make up the heart of this Gas box. Both luminous and exuberant, yet subdued and melancholic. Sedate technotic pulses beneath wind-swept drones. Expansive orchestral sprawls burnished to an exquisite golden luster. Voigt's subtle dub techniques on these two discs coax the polytonal swells of deep sustained horns into lush rhythmic repetitions. These are heroic if gloomy electronica epics, realizing a fantasy fusion of Wagner's teutonic vigor and a disembodied dancefloor drone. Oktember distills all of the ideas from these two album onto two extended monophunk transmissions that are as good as anything on either of those two albums.

Where the earlier works were dark haunts of deep fluid ambience topping the nonstop pulsating rhythms, Pop is a shimmering sun-filled excursion that is mostly beatless. Its structures emerge from repetitive sequences of trilling ambience swelling in and out of each other within Voigt's surreal sound world of hypnodub washes. The lost beat resurfaces finally on the last track which is a beautiful looped repetition of the previous ambient modulations, but subtly and gracefully merged with a muted, insistent underwater dancefloor throb. Breathtaking.

Once again, we are reminded of this work as a modern minimalist electronic masterpiece. Utterly timeless." [Stranded Rec.]