Wolfgang Voigt's GAS Project: the Poll

voigt's best work, in my opinion, still some of the most striking ambient music i've ever heard. i'm not sure which one i'll pick - when i listen to gas i find myself needing to pull out all of these.

not sure why the image isn't showing, but whatever.

pop i guess

I think pull out Konigsforest a little more, but it's all good.

Aren't these hard to come by/horrifically expensive? I found a copy of Pop in HMV about 2 years ago and it looked like it had been there a while. Fantastic stuff but I don't feel qualified to vote as I haven't heard the others.

I've been on a major Wolfgang Voigt kick lately. The GAS stuff in particular is perfect for this time of the year. As of right now I think I have to go with Zauberberg. Wish they would reissue all of these, although I did manage to get Pop and Zauberberg on CD a few years ago.

yea they SERIOUSLY need to reissue these. i'm surprised that voigt hasn't.

i actually downloaded all of them from kompakt's mp3 website. you can get each of them for about the price of a new cd.

actually i'm not sure if oktember's on there.

I picked up his brother's Sturmgesten recently hoping some of the magic would be there... I didn't find it

I'm also just re-visiting Pop Ambient 2007 and getting way more into it than I ever did originally--the first half in particular.

königsforst for me

Zauberberg, and not just for the title alone.

Yeah, I bought these when they came out and was surprised to discover recently how expensive/rare these are now. I'm glad to hear that they are now available via the Kompakt site because they are timeless records.

timeless, yes. i love these.

Konigsforst, definitely. I love how parts of it are so lo-fi that they sound almost mono.

absolutely timeless. quite addicting, too.

re: pop ambient 2007 - that gas track is one of his best, too, i think. ("nach 1912" or something like that?) it's incredible.

i might go with zauberberg, i'm not sure. it's possibly the most consistent of them.

but i think i might vote pop, it's such a weird, weird record. it's got this uneasiness to it, even in what most people think are the calming tracks. the way it shifts moods from soothing to disturbing, contemplative to restless, etc., makes it such an interesting listening experience.

königsforst for me

-- omar little, Thursday, 10 January 2008 22:13 (1 hour ago)

pop just over königsforst 4 me

i'd be interested in hearing why voigt decided to discontinue the gas project

Königsforst

if anyone goes out and buys all of these i'd hate to see their GAS BILL!!!! HAHAHAHAHHA

oh man

i still laughed though

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

these are so good.

Konigsforst for me, altho "Oktober" is pretty amazing. By the way, I don't think it was a 12" - it was released as part of the Raster-Noton 20 to 2000" series as a 3" CD in 5" plastic.

my mistake - discogs had it listed as a 12", but i've never actually seen the physical release so i wouldn't know. it is pretty amazing!

i've only heard three of these, but based on that, Pop wins.

probably my favorite music ever, i have to go with the s/t lp but really all of these are like 11/10

i'm pretty sure "moderne" is still in print; i see it often enough anyway.. the other stuff is mille plateaux and i don't think they've gotten around to reissuing anything since restarting last year or whatever

must mention the tal track that opens pop ambient 2002 and closes that harvest cologne comp.. beyond gorgeous...

All the mint stuff is absolutely essential too (there needs to be a comp of it)

oktember 12" = track one of the koningsforst cd issue + 20 to 2000 on the flip (i've never heard the 20 to 2000 cd -- so i'm assuming here)

here's the discogs' link, fwiw.

ha, selling for $80. i can't believe how much gas stuff sells for.

well, prices LISTED on discogs are often a bit higher than the real value... oktember is one of the more expensive ones. if you look at the market price history for the 2xlps, there are a bunch offered at ridiculous prices but the ones that actually sell are priced much lower (altho still quite expensive)

yea i think i saw one of the albums (in cd version) sell for $30 or $40 on amazon once, which is very expensive but not horribly so.

Voigt's 20 to 2000 contribution, "20 Minuten Gas im November," was released under his own name, not as Gas, and was exclusive to the series. it was not the b-side of the "Oktember" 12"

I voted Pop; probably my favorite ambient album by any artist.

Zauberberg for $270

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0000064R7/ref=dp_olp_2/105-0171235-9350048?ie=UTF8&qid=1200427715&sr=1-1

lol

wow

you'd think they would do the the favor of shipping it.

i'd be interested in hearing why voigt decided to discontinue the gas project

That said, check out the MassStab and Studio 1 series because those are pretty great as well. Similarly minimal, but with dense patterns of samples instead of washes of sound.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

wow my gas bill joke just gets more and more prescient in hindsight. WOW

i'm surprised there weren't more votes for zauberberg

The first two tracks of Zauberberg back-to-back kill me. Highs not quite as high as Königsforst though. Pop is amazing but definitely its own thing. Also search All singles.

So is there anywhere one can buy Oktember at a reasonable price? It's not on the Kompakt site. And is Modern 12" only?

Mark- It's the third track on Zauberberg that really gets me. This album somehow manages to both creep me out and pacify me at the same time.

Also, the only way to suitably describe the last track is heavenly.

yea zauberberg is really bizarre, isn't it? you have the first and last tracks which are completely gorgeous - yea, heavenly, the third track (which is one of my favorite Gas tracks) which kind of envelopes you in this really calm way, but all the other tracks are downright creepy.

the last track on konigsforst always makes me think of a sunrise because it sounds like a warped/looped "william tell overture", that waking-up music they use in cartoons

i wonder if any classical heads can trainspot what pieces he samples

I actually thought about e-mailing Alex Ross about Gas. He's probably pretty busy though.

you should do it!

Pop was the only one I could ever find on CD. it was the first one I heard, and though I liked the earlier albums after going back and hunting them down on p2p, I did find them to be a bit darker and more eerie than Pop. I don't think I ever really digested the earlier albums like I did Pop for that reason, so Pop got my vote. If they ever did re-release these, I'd swoop them up in a heartbeat.

toby: arent you in america now? honestly your best bet for getting gas stuff cheap is just to scour used bins whenever you get the chance. there's a lot of mille plateaux stuff lying around. these things were pressed in massive quantities. however, ebay/discogs/amazon holds no hope of reasonable prices...

i actually sold all of my gas CDs and am replacing them slowly w the vinyl because i'm a nerd

i look everywhere for gas everytime i enter a used record store to no avail. all i have is the koenigforst lp (which i got for a steal at $15 sealed a couple of years ago) and moderne.

mille plateaux comps are super plentiful but most single artist albums are about as hard to find as stuff on rather interesting these days.

am0n: that track always makes me think of the wizard of oz.. the twister... dorothy falling asleep etc..

both of those last two tracks make me think of tornadoes and hurricanes for some reason... i think the second to last is my favorite... those horns breaking through the clouds of strings....

resolved where do you live?

if anyone goes out and buys all of these i'd hate to see their GAS BILL!!!! HAHAHAHAHHA

some dude listed the 4 full lengths on eBay for $300 a few weeks ago. dunno if they sold or not.

p.s. how did i miss this thread? i would've voted for POP.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/48155-kompakt-reissues-gas-catalog-in-box-set

oooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh

[nerd alert] i've fantasized about something like this for some time.. i wanted to design a multiple lp box set w/all the albums, lps, comp tracks, + remixes...

but how the hell do you fit those albums on 2 lps????

ps get me to write the liner notes, wolfie

so so so so happy

reissuing these is really the best thing to happen to music since... i dunno "ignition (remix)" or something. fucking rejoice!!

WOW! This is a wish come true and then some. What perfect timing...

YES!!!!!!! this is so perfect. i timed this thread pretty well, huh?

but how the hell do you fit those albums on 2 lps????

yes i'm wondering that now, too. hmmm, something different has to be going on with the 2 lps. maybe you get the regular 4 albums plus the various non-album tracks?

in any case, this is very, very exciting. i was wondering if voigt was ever going to do this.

maybe you get the regular 4 albums plus the various non-album tracks?

meaning the 4 albums are the 4 cds (obv.) and the non-album stuff goes on the lps? i don't know.

awesome. will the cds be available separate from the box as well?

it's probably the first box set i've ever been excited about.

http://www.thewire.co.uk/images/artists/voigt_wolfgang/originals/291cover.jpg

"ranger"!

the box is gonna be beautiful

still don't get the hype for this stuff

where can i preorder

yea i'm seriously gonna jump on this box set

Never heard but I could maybe buy

What the hell is going on with The Wire? I suppose at least Rob Young penned this piece, so Philip Sherburne doesn't have the monopoly on minimalicious cover stories....

Philip got to do The Jukebox with Carl Craig :)

i can't find anything anywhere about the box or the raster-norton book thing. what is going on

isn't hype only applicable to new stuff?

yeah, had i done the voigt piece i probably would have lost all credibility. too many people think i'm a shameless minimal booster as it is!

anybody found a place to pre-order this yet?

i did it via email w/ a trusted local record store

Here's some more info about the box set:

GAS: Nah Und Fern 2LP (KOM 175LP). Double LP version.
GAS: Nah Und Fern 4CD (KOMP 066CD). RELEASE DATE: 06/10/2008
"The Kompakt label presents the work of Wolfgang Voigt's Gas - a remastered deluxe package that includes all four of his Mille Plateaux albums: Gas (1996), Zauberberg (1997), Königsforst (1998) and Pop (2000). Wolfgang Voigt, in the past known under a great many pseudonyms such as Mike Ink, Studio 1 or Grungerman, is the driving force behind the rise of Cologne minimal techno and also Kompakt's co-founder and co-owner. In the 1980s, Voigt began working under a concept he named BLEI - extracting elements from classical, polka, brass music, electronic pop and German schlager sounds to form a distinguished and unique pop music style that would fit in with the subculture at that time. In the early 1990s, influenced by techno, Voigt began to experiment with a timbal marching through strongly alienated, free-floating string loops. These elegiac tracks, their lack of beginning and end, their intoxicating, smooth and partly amorphous structure sounded to him like evaporating gas and thus - Gas was born. Gas is the vision of a sonic body between Schönberg and Kraftwerk, between French horn and bass drum. Gas is Wagner goes glam rock, and Hansel and Gretel on acid. Gas takes you on a seemingly endless march through the woods into the discotheque. Reducing the material to its basic aesthetic structure by using different zoom, loop and alienation techniques, he releases it from its original meaning and context, creating a kind of aesthetic essence, a cave to get lost inside. There are one or two new tracks and versions, but both Voigt and Jörg Burger decided to keep remastering light, maintaining Gas' purity and authenticity. This 4CD box comes in a special and stylish collector's format, including 4 small artwork prints. The double vinyl comes in a fold cover with a bonus artwork print and is strictly limited. The vinyl features one extended-edit track from each of the albums per side."

how much will this be? i wonder if the cds will be made available individually from the box

ah, thanks for the info. now I understand what the 2LP is, I think I'll probably pass on that.

I have all the albums and I like the idea of extended cuts, so I'm definitely going to get the vinyl.

Any news on the book that Raster-Noton announced? That seems most interesting to me.

W I R E
  ~~~

  o_O

     |

     |

WAY TO GO

ebay fuckers will probably beat me on this one. can't find pre-order anywhere

this is all torture. i want BOTH cds and vinyl, AND the Raster-Noton book.

and i already have all the lps.

i want BOTH cds and vinyl, AND the Raster-Noton book.
^^^^^^

For anyone in the DC area, we'll be sure to carry this as soon as it's available at the store where I work (CD Warehouse). It's not out until June 10th. I'm not exactly sure what the prices will be yet, but I know the vinyl will be considerably cheaper than the 4xCD box set.

Simon Reynolds on Nah und Fern

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61bC6MKU9%2BL._SS500_.jpg

O

M

G

SO

EXCITED

we'll have this in at Amoeba SF with plenty to go around on CD, but the vinyl seems to be limited. i ordered a few but if there's high enough demand, i'll get more.

Apparently at least one person isn’t at all excited by the GAS reissues. Bewilderingly, Mr. Burns writes in the Voice that the reissuing “will mummify Gas and make Voigt’s work a museum piece”. Why, exactly, should that be again?

he's full of mummified gas.

The 2x12" is terrific, artwork & music-wise. I was only familiar with the Pop album until now. I think I'll shell out for the 4xCD, too...

Also, let's not forget this.

Getting the vinyl and the box set tomorrow!

np: 2x12"

ordered the box set at my local record shop. should be in this weekend.

i am holding this in my hot hot hands right now, listening to GAS as we speak

and when i went in the store to pick it up, they were playing it

immediate reaction: very unhappy w/ the packaging. the box itself is pretty nice, better than some boxes and worse than others. nicer than, say, the masters at work box sets, or the jazzactuel box set, because it's got a really fancy texture that you can feel under your fingers that complements the totally beautiful art.

but then there's no booklet, and there's no info on any of the inserts. there's sleeves for the discs but they're more or less identical. no reproductions of the original art. and there's four paper inserts which seem to be solarized versions of the "POP" album cover. and nothing written on the back.

i dunno, i know minimal rangers are laconic and all but this is sorta OTT.

no info doesn't suprise me but the cover art isn't there? are the discs not in their own sleeves or what?

do they sound any different? i'm wondering whether the remastering is noticeable at all? and i've forgotten - is there unreleased stuff in the CD box set?

I am buying this tomorrow. I am really excited.

i agree w/ m.j. to baja above. packaging disappointing. kinda like they spent all the money on the box, and had to cheap-out on the individual discs. and, really--the reproductions of WVoigt's photographs are blown-out, and on thin coated paper... nowhere near the quality of the original releases.

B U T ,,,, i'm glad it's out; anxious to play the whole thing!

and, predictably, i wish i bought the lp version too...

did they up with the remastering of konigsforst? the final track is now swathed in what sounds like shitty digital reverb, wtf! the difference is really noticeable when i a/b it with an older rip

oops, did they fuck up...

compare the old one with the new version

its like the bass got sucked out of it

fucking christ, how did this happen

rest of the album sounds fine if not better than before. how could he ruin such a good track like that

so supposedly some of this has guitar samples? i can't hear it anywhere, it all sounds like horns and strings to me...

i think the supposed "backwards disc guitar" samples or whatever are on (what was) track 1 of the first album and its basskick-equipped companion (track 2 disc 1 in the box)

i'm not too happy that he left out that first track. maybe my favorite gas track? i like it better without the kick, personally. it's like stepping into a sauna

duh that's supposed to be "backwards disco guitar"

missing?

quoi?

vinyl is gone, gone, gone. "wolfgang refuses to repress" is what i was told. if you see it, grab it!

did anybody pre-order the vinyl on amazon (and if so did you receive it)?

i noticed the track timings on discogs are different between the original CD and disc 1 of the box set. what gives?

Looks like the track lengths (as listed on Discogs at least) don't exactly match up for each of the 4 albums, but the self-titled album is especially different.

oh thats right. track 1 of the s/t is a new track i think. its nice but i agree with winston that it should have been kept. i guess he felt it was superfluous? seriously still pissed at what he did to that last track on konigforst so i'm glad i didn't buy this set. i'd rather just pay out the nose for original discs at this point

track 3 is new too i think

and the running order is shuffled a bit (on the s/t)

wow, glad I kept my original of Konigsforst.

I bought both of these (CD and LP) cuz they were cheap. I'm glad I didn't shell out bigtime because this seems like it has a lot of typical reissue fuckups. Deleting a track and drastically altering another, wtf!

http://www.kompakt-net.com/images/utils/gas_werbeflyer_400x550.gif

"please click"

dunno if it's been mentioned elsewhere, but the raster-norton thing is out. the book is more of the photos like the little card things that came in the nah und ferd box. no text whatsoever

cd is probably the least of the full-lengths but quite nice nonetheless; a great version of "tal 90", one of my favorite wv tracks

http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/video-archive/lectures/wolfgang_voigt_gas_amp_killer

I never heard anything about how the live debut worked out... anyone?

here's my review from the show at park güell, in barcelona:

http://www.residentadvisor.net/review-view.aspx?id=5587

Nice review, Philip. It sounds like a great show... if exactly what I'd expect, of course.

Before today, I had only heard Pop. I liked it, but I mentally filed it away as music to do homework to. Today I listened to Konigsforst over and over again, and I realized I'm going to have to look into everything Voigt has done. Track 5 is AMAZING.

Was at the show in Chicago tonight. Wow. The ending was one of the most intense things I've ever seen, but the whole thing was incredible - was really surprised at how good the visuals were, and how much they added.

anyone else catch chicago/mutek/nyc?

Saw him at Mutek, was very good (I was in a very inopportune state to fully enjoy it, though, and others told me it was their festival highlight). Very glad to have seen it, certainly.

i sent a friend to the NY show, his report was that WVoigt was too loud and relentless, and the visuals were boring—but that the crowd adored it.
perhaps i sent the wrong friend?

wanted to go to the ny show but it just wasn't in the cards. bummer.

Blogstitude on the Chicago show. I guess he didn't make it in time to see it in the "main room" and wound up in a "side room." Sounds like it would have been incredible in the room it was intended for.

Yeah, I was in the main room (arrived two hours early) and it was indeed amazing. I thought the visuals were fantastic, way more interesting than I'd ever have expected.

reinhardt: is that all the record do?
wolfgang: yeah bitch, that's all the record do

Gas
19:00, 21:00 / Wolfgang Voigt - one of the most influential figures in contemporary electronic music - brings a stunning audio-visual creation to the Barbican
16 October 2009
Cinema 1

^ Did you lot know about this already? Apologies if old news.

I keep this 4cd box close to William Basinski's Disintegration Loops because either one makes me want to listen to the other. Some day, Basinski should do disintegrating Gas loops.

the very high pitched sounds on pop bother me

2nd half of pop >>>>>>> 1st half

Yea. It's a lot more varied on the latter half and it has Untitled 4, which is by far my favorite Gas track.

2nd half of pop >>>>>>> 1st half

― blank, Sunday, May 29, 2011 1:31 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark

OTM, in fact I figured this was so obvious that it barely needed to be said.

Why haven't I ever listened to this before???

Just listened to the first one straight though and damn, so good. Only scored lower here b/c it's less heard I think.

Pop is the first one I heard, and I still love it, but Königsforst will probably always be my fav

someone gave me a cd of wolfgang voigt and it's all piano and kick drum and i really don't know what to make of it, except i recognise one of the tracks from something, it's just weird, like it makes me want to clean the house a lot

Gas is the only thing of his I've heard, afaic. Love it, but never felt compelled to start searching everything else yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfvtBNtT6F0

Does anyone know why Voigt decided to change tracks number 1 and 3 on the first Gas album when it was released on Nah und Fern? And where do the new tracks 1 and 3 come from? Are they unreleased tracks from the same era, or stuff that was on the vinyls, or what? I just acquired the original CD of Gas, and track 3 especially is gorgeous, an epic cosmic groove that's crisper than anything on the latter Gas releases. It's a pity Nah und Fern got rid of those tracks; the replacements aren't bad, but the original CD might be the best Gas release of them all.

Also, am I the only one who feels many Gas tunes, especially those on Zauberberg and Königsforst, are reminiscent of Arvo Pärt's compositions? There's kind of a similar sense of non-motion and solemn spirituality to them.

I read an interview where he discussed samples, he was a little coy but did mention Schubert IIRC.

Yeah, I think the classical stuff he samples is way older than Pärt, but what he does with it feels similar to Pärt, at least to me. Pärt has several "cyclical" (don't know what the correct music theory term is here) compositions that remind of Gas's loops.

reinhardt: is that all the record do?
wolfgang: yeah bitch, that's all the record do

2 1/2 years late, but LOLOLOL

Reinhardt has better beats, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNrhbWq2D9o

Should I buy Nah und Fern if the only thing I've heard is Pop?

yes

Without reservation.

You should, but be warned that the versions of Gas and Königsforst on Nah und Fern are slightly different/inferior to the original CDs, as discussed above. Track 5 of the Nah und Fern version of Königsforst has been inexplicably compressed, and sounds a lot less "deep" than the original version. Since the remastering was done by Jörg Burger (a long-time collaborator of Wolfgang Voigt), I can't imagine it's a mistake, but I have no idea why the change was done. And with Gas, the Nah und Fern version replaces tracks 1 and 3 of the original CD with totally different tracks... They're not bad, but IMO they're not as good as the originals either; the original track 3 is especially beautiful, a cosmic groover that's more reminiscent of old school ambient than of the slowed-down droney stuff on later albums.

Thankfully, after Nah und Fern came out, you don't have to pay crazy prices for the original CDs, so you can easily acquire the original Gas and Königsforst, if you want to hear those versions. And the Nah und Fern versions of Zauberberg and Pop are probably even better than the originals. They don't mess with the sound or the tracklist, but they extend a few of the originals; most obvious of these is track 6 of Zauberberg, which is over 3 minutes longer on Nah und Fern.

That is the kind of comprehensive breakdown I have waited a couple years for...

Even though it's nice that Nah und Fern provided those who didn't buy these albums in the 90s with a cheap way of acquiring them, I think it's kinda shitty that (as far as I know) Voigt/Kompakt never released any proper info on what tracks were changed, or why they were changed. (For a compilation like this, some liner noter by Voigt or Burger would've been more than welcome.) If you read the vague blurb on the Kompakt website, it kinda gives you the impression that they've added some extra tracks to the albums, there's no mention of the missing two tracks from the original Gas CD. And it also has this bit:

At the beginning of the re-release project, Wolfang Voigt thought about re-mastering all of the 4 GAS albums and make them more contemporary. JÖRG BURGER and WOLFGANG VOIGT started their adventurous mastering trip through the world of today's magic tools and plug-ins. Yet with growing amazement, BURGER/VOIGT diagnosed GAS' persistent, almost stubborn resistance against any "refreshing" attempts. For authenticity reasons, they then decided to preserve most of the original GAS sounds and versions.

...except that track 5 of Königsforst has gone through exactly the sort of digital "refreshing" they mention there; I guess that's why they say they decided preserve "most" of the original tracks.

the packaging is cheesy, too.

The Nah und Fern packaging is as deliberately obfuscatory as they come. Personally, I'd rather have two versions out there than one... makes life interesting. Plus you get to geek out on compression comparisons etc.

I don't what's cheesy about the Nah und Fern packaging, I think it looks nice, and it's very much in line with packaging of last three Gas albums (the first one has 90s style abstract cover art instead of the nature photos). As for "geeking out" on comparing the different versions of the albums, I don't think that's the reason most people bought the comp. I'm pretty sure most people just wanted to have a reasonably priced compilation of albums that were out of print and ridiculously pricey on the second hand market, so it's a bit disappointing Voigt didn't give them that. I mean, I would kinda understand it if the remastering made everything sound different, then it would be a legitimate "reinterpretation" of the original material. But it isn't: that one track on Königsforst is the only one that has a notable sonic difference to the original material. So it feels kinda pointless to release a comp that's almost the same as the original albums, but not quite.

We can only assume that he had personal issues with those tracks that vary.

...except that track 5 of Königsforst has gone through exactly the sort of digital "refreshing" they mention there; I guess that's why they say they decided preserve "most" of the original tracks.

― Tuomas, Monday, June 4, 2012 7:29 AM

track 6 also sounds different

We can only assume that he had personal issues with those tracks that vary.
― Lil' Kim Philby (Call the Cops), Monday, June 4, 2012 9:33 AM

george lucas syndrome

track 6 also sounds different

Hmm, I haven't noticed much of a difference there... Maybe the low-pitched drone is a bit more in the forefront in the Nah und Fern version? The difference certainly isn't as noticeable as with track 5, though.

the packaging is cheesy because it's cheap and flimsy, rather uninspired and one-dimensional (enlargements of outtake forest photos?), not nice to the CDs inside, and contains no liner notes or track info.

Hmm, I haven't noticed much of a difference there... Maybe the low-pitched drone is a bit more in the forefront in the Nah und Fern version? The difference certainly isn't as noticeable as with track 5, though.

― Tuomas, Monday, June 4, 2012 3:37 PM

to me it is. on headphones i can hear what i can only describe as 'shitty digital reverb' added to the new version

but you prob have to be listening for it or doing back to back comparison. like i didn't notice track 5 was different until you mentioned it and sure enough i hear it now

i think the difference in sound is most notable in comparing the original s/t cd on mille plateaux to the nah and fern version

if anybody wants i'll trade an unplayed nah und fern boxset for a s/t mille plateaux CD

the packaging is cheesy because it's cheap and flimsy, rather uninspired and one-dimensional (enlargements of outtake forest photos?), not nice to the CDs inside, and contains no liner notes or track info.

Well yeah, but other than the CD-unfriendliness (and the only other way to squeeze 4 CDs into one package is the thick "wallet" case, which has its own problems), those things apply to the original albums as well. I agree that liner notes would've been nice, but maybe Voigt thought that would take away from the mysticism of the whole project? I mean, the original albums don't even say "written and produced by Wolfgang Voigt" or stuff like that, they just read "Musik - Gas", or "Musikkonzept: Wolfgang Voigt", as if Voigt merely came up with the concept, but the actual music is coming from somewhere else.

if that's voigt's thinking then that's a weak excuse ... if he cared about mysticism he wouldn't release like 150 identical sounding 7"s

the original CD releases are not any cheaper or flimsier than any other jewel-cased CDs, but i'll tell you what, the nah und fern box is just about the flimsiest dance music reissue box i own ... i mean the pole reissue set were also more or less a no-brainer and that turned out 10x better

i just remember getting the box and feeling very very ripped-off

I'm not sure what you mean by "flimsy"? I bought the box soon after it came out, and it's still in almost pristine condition, even though I'm not known to be extra careful with records, and I've changed apartments in between. I didn't feel like I was being ripped off, since I got 4 hard to find records for the price of little over one regular CD.

Are you guys really complaining about the little box these came in? Did you expect some giant "Goodbye, Babylon" wooden crate or something?

I got the s/t on German Amazon for €6 the other day.

If you check around, there are a lot of copies floating out there for less than 20 dollars...

Is the book/CD thing on RN worth having?

Yay got my <i>Nah und Fern</i>. ^_^

After listening to the original Gas for a week solid, I am of the opinion that Voigt fucked with the legacy almost purely because track 3, good as it is, sounds so heavily influenced by Basic Channel.

btw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fuvRcjRLog

What album by another artist would you suggest if I'm looking for something similar to this?

KOMPAKT Pop Ambient poll

a couple of the kompakt pop ambient collections, maybe? especially 2007. not all of them are good but 2007 is really beautiful, one of the best imo, and there is even a GAS track on there -- "nach 1912", and it's one of my favorite voigt pieces.

other stuff that also has that ominous, menacing, and really unnerving feeling, imo, is some philip jeck. i was just listening yesterday to the the first tune off jeck's album 7 called "wholesome" and its just spectacular and really minded me of GAS. "wholesome" is not particularly ominous in any way, its gorgeous, but a lot of other philip jeck stuff is certainly pretty foreboding and has a similar feel to some of the darker GAS tunes. i had some other jeck stuff on shuffle yesterday (sands and some others) and i'm thinking that if you like voigt you might like jeck.

also, maybe this one vladislav delay album, "multila"? (i'm not hugely familiar with the other delay albums)

if you're looking stuff in a similar world to the 4/4 beat GAS songs, i'd also recommend maybe some basic channel. when i first got into GAS i felt like i could listen to spacey ambience w/ a minimal 4/4/ beat for hours and hours and hours, and i did!

try some yagya (aka Aðalsteinn Guðmundsson)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYB0gCOjzgc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ogGBfGvzQ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH_9qXmVf4k

when the field debuted 'from here we go sublime' he mentioned in a lot of interviews how heavily influenced he was by voigt/GAS, but tbh i never really felt there were huge sonic similarities, and i definitely never felt like the field was ever in the same ballpark as GAS as far as quality goes

i forgot about yagya! wow, beautiful, especially that snowflake 7 tune. totally in this vein.

if you guys are familiar with paxahau, the internet radio station based in detroit, they used to play a TON of this kind of stuff, and i just had that station playing all the time. i haven't listened in years so i don't know what kind of stuff they're still playing.

you might like the album shenzhou by biosphere.

really surprised that no one in the world of music criticism has connected the dots between the gas LPs and the music of german electronic pioneer roland kayn. especially his late 70s works like "infra", which have the same submerged, womb like ambience as the darker gas tracks. i mean, throw a high-pass kick drum under this kayn piece and you have it:

http://rootstrata.com/rootblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Nastie-excerpt.mp3

also for more modern stuff that's similar, check the first porter ricks CD on chain reaction...

or fluxion.

imho pop has too much light but 6 and 7 is what I expect to listen once I get admitted to heaven.

OK this Yagya stuff is like woah.

this whole global systems silently moving (rod modell?) album is a decent enough GAS ripoff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjsopzdExzE

After listening to the original Gas for a week solid, I am of the opinion that Voigt fucked with the legacy almost purely because track 3, good as it is, sounds so heavily influenced by Basic Channel.

― Lil' Kim Philby (Call the Cops), Tuesday, June 12, 2012 12:40 PM

i tend not to think this for some reason when i'm not actually listening but zauberberg is super basic channelly on any track w/ a beat

to me, basic channel is all about the electronic pulse and the squiggle, whereas gas is super earthy magic mushroom music.

^might finally tip me over into giving gas another go

generally sure maybe but i think the first b.c. comp and zauberberg are not far from each other in terms of that distant yet somehow space-filling wooz of sound

i would say that "port gentil" by porter ricks is the exact midpoint between gas and basic channel

...or perhaps it just illuminates your point that bc and gas aren't far apart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWlGppXEc2I

track 3 on zauberberg is astonishing, i used to listen to that on loop for hours

the rest of zauberbeg (apart from the opening and closing tracks) is a little too dark for me. certainly has a lot of power but i don't find myself going to those tracks a lot. they are amazing though.

i would say that "port gentil" by porter ricks is the exact midpoint between gas and basic channel

Based on the records I've heard, the American producer Deepchord seems to have built his career on inhabiting the midpoint between Gas and BC.

http://youtu.be/pqNJd6c1_Hg

(bleep 10 track)

I like some of the Deepchord stuff, but a lot of it is sort of unintentionally humorous to me. Like, when they try to approximate BC's atmospheric hiss and it comes out sounding like lawn sprinklers.

trying to buy pop for somebody as a gift but it's OOP & $1ZIL on a bunch of websites. does anybody know where would have it at normal sums?

The cheapest used copy on Amazon.de is 22 Euros, and the seloer ships overseas. Or do you need a new copy?

second-hand is okay, was hoping it would just be like ... the price of cds ... ten years ago ... minus eight dollars.
sorry to bump this thread with such a boring question. had a really nice time listening to gas, recently, teasing apart pop & finding pianos.

dude just spring a little more and get them nah und fern! that way if they want to hear all of GAS (which they will if you think they'd like pop)then they'll already have it.

it's a good price here: http://www.discogs.com/Gas-Nah-Und-Fern/master/14298
and here: http://www.amazon.com/Nah-Und-Fern-Gas/dp/B0018LMKGW

ooo, hey that's a great idea. i'm broke as hell at the moment but if it doesn't exist otherwise maybe i can talk myself into it. thanks, to both of you, help much appreciated, bringing gases to the masses.

weird okay nevermind. it says "used & new starting from $35" but when you click on the options they are all outrageously priced

i ran into this same problem years ago when i couldn't find out where to buy the albums and i ended up buying mp3s from kompakt's site. :( still ended up buying nah und fern to get physical copies

Yeah, I would suggest Nah und Fern too. The versions of Gas (the debut album) and Königsforst on that comp are slightly inferior to the original albums (Gas has two of its original tracks replaced by new tracks, and Königsforst has some weird sound compression issues in its best track), but the version of Pop on it is pretty much the same as the original album, the only diffrence is that a couple of the tracks are slightly longer on the comp.

between French horn and bass drum

pop V has a dope summer heat vibe.. like overheated, cooling out in the afternoon. AC on, shades drawn, etc

"NationalPark" is very nice. (Perhaps we've had this conversation elsewhere).

yeah it is, more pellucid and simple than gas with a cleaner sound

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KeQtXgDnRs

the fuck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNX3z-a5SXo

http://experimedia.net/gasbox

So this version will include the original albums instead of the altered Nah und Fern versions? With the original tracks 1 and 3 on the eponymous first album?

No wait, the description says this:

Inside this comprehensive anthology, listeners will experience Zauberberg (1997), Königsforst (1998), Pop (2000) and the sought-after Oktember 12 inch (1999), all together available as luxurious ten LP and four CD edition.

So the first 1996 album isn't included at all?!

Man, fans of the first album really haven't been treated well, have they? First the Nah und Fern comp replaced tracks 1 and 3 with inferior new tracks, and now it's totally excluded from this one. It seems as if Voigt is embarrassed of it.

I mean, I get it that it's a bit different from the material that followed, because it doesn't have the classical music samples. But it's still an awesome record in its own right!

The first one is probably my least-favourite of the four but yeah, it's still good. I've only ever heard the Nah und Fern versions of any of these though, wasn't aware of all the track changes.

The Nah und Fern version is hurt by the track changes, IMO. The original track 3 in particular is totally cosmic and sublime, whereas the replacement tracks are pretty standard Gas stuff.

i love the first album

I do too. I'm still hoping to get a lot of gas for Christmas in the form of this box set, but it's kind of o_O that they had a second chance to do it right - defined by me as simply releasing all of the music, on vinyl, at full length - and still managed to leave everyone with the feeling that they're not really getting all of the primary gas albums. Sigh

i was pretty satisfied by the nah und fern tbh, that's a lot of GAS in one box and it was very cheap iirc

i mean the packaging and everything was not great but it was cool to have them in one place especially after being out of print for so long. i remember looking for GAS albums in 2006 or something before the rerelease and they were listed at like $200 each on amazon/ebay. i think i ended up buying mp3s from kompakt's site but had to decipher the german

Grrrrr I had no idea the Fern version of the first LP was different. I have no idea why he's screwing with this stuff so much, I wonder if there's an interview about it somewhere.

The logic of including Oktember is a little weird too as isn't half of that a track that was also on Königsforst?

that's true, i'm wondering if the inclusion of oktember points towards konigsforst having its original tracklisting - missing a1 (which was a-side of oktember) and including two other tracks (a1 and d1 on the original 2lp configuration).

the 3lp for all of them also makes me wonder if they're going to have longer edits (like some of the original lps vs cds)

The selling point for this box is that they're the longer edits, I believe.

jfc what a mess

i am not rly someone who can jedi mind trick myself into feeling justified in buying Expensive Vinyl Objects but i listen to gas every day & srch ebay for gas vinyl every sometimes & so want this. it seems closer to $130 thru kompakt. what is w 'KÖNIGSFORST 2016' #???

I am with you! I haven't gotten a box set in forever but this immediately jumped out as something that I need.

so are these albums impossible to find individually, in a cd format?

nevermind. stupid question

I am running out of room for records in general and box sets in particular, but I could never have forgiven myself if I missed out on this set. it took a couple of tries for Gas to click with me, but once Pop got its hooks into me it never let go. I love the comment upthread comparing it to Basinski's Disintegration Loops - IMO that is a very accurate comparison, and there aren't many musical projects that don't get completely dominated by The Disintegration Loops by comparison.

long story short: on October 28th, I will be blasting a bunch of Gas as loudly as my neighbors will allow.

The Nah und Fern CDs also included longer edits of some tracks than the original CDs, I wonder if it's the same ones used here? And if Königsforst still has the same weird remastering that marred the last couple of tracks, or will it use the original, superior master?

regarding the first album, are there tracks on the LP that aren't on the CD?

i have the kompakt cd boxset from a few years back.
no idea what that means re the versions,
but it matters not, as its all rather gorgeous.
i had no idea there was so much variation dependent on the version you have.

it "matters" because the missing first track from the self-titled album is amazing
and the (presumably) missing first track from the konigforst vinyl is amazing

the disappearance of the moderne ep in GAS lore is rather sad as well

just for posterity here's the differences between the albums. the nah und fern versions all have some different mastering/mixes/edits/mucking around with the sound (some kind of shoddy sounding remastering on the nah und fern box). but in terms of actual tracks, there's only 2 that are missing from the original version (gas 1 and 3)

Gas

1996 - CD
1996 - 3LP - Longer edits (each track close to 20 minutes long rather than ˜12)
2008 - Nah Und Fern - Replaces track 1 and 3 with new tracks (track 3 weirdly being a different version of track 2 and 4 from Konigsforst)

Zauberberg

1997 - CD
1997 - 2LP - Same as CD
2008 - Same tracks as original CD but track 7 is quite a bit longer - 11 minutes instead of 7

Konigsforst

1998 - CD
1998 - LP - Missing track 1 (as it is the also the a-side to the Oktember 12"). Adds two otherwise-unreleased tracks (a1 and d1)
2008 - Nah Und Fern - Same tracks as original CD

Pop

2000 - CD
2000 - LP - Slightly longer edits of CD tracks
2008 - Nah Und Fern Same Tracks as original CD

THANK YOU for taking the time to do that. Very helpful

Voigt is weird. Why would you save the longer edits for the LP? It doesn't make sense.

But it also helps to make sense of the decision to leave the first album off of the new box set that apparently, otherwise, gets everything right. Like, of course it doesn't make sense. Otherwise it would make sense and therefore be incompatible with a gas release

tracklisting up at forced exposure - http://www.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/gas-box-10lp-box-4cd/KOM.370LP.html

it seems that the boxset are all generally (but not always!) longer edits than nah und fern and the original CDs. konigsforst includes the two vinyl-only tracks.

oktember is the original b-side (a-side is already on konigsforst) and tal '90 from pop ambient 2002.

cds are just the same tracks (yep, only 2 on oktember)

schlump, "kongisforst 2016" is just the name of the artbook i think

will be good to nab decent digital copies of oktember and the two vinyl-only konigsforst tracks though. would've been nice to have some of the compilation tracks with oktember and tal '90 - what's the difference between a 10 LP and a 12?. nah und fern, oktav and nach 1912 are all great and even fit in with the post-zauberbeg-sound-only policy (ie. no gas, modern and the four compilation tracks from that period).

xpost: karl malone, it's mainly just the self-titled gas 3lp which has the substantially longer edits. reason being, i guess, is it being a 3lp and too long to fit on one cd.

so that could give some credence to the "as they were meant to be heard" thing. maybe they were all pegged to be 3lps like the first one. tbh a few extra minutes of loop-based 10-minute-plus tracks isn't really going to make a big difference to the listening experience though.

thanks, linee!

longer edits on the LPs is maybe a carry-over from techno (long tracks for singles, not-quite-as-long tracks for albums).. plus spreading across multiple discs (with 1 or 2 tracks per side) sort of invites extending them out. but yeah that doesn't really track with ambient music so much..

xxp he probably just doesn't think it's as good + didn't want to make/find new cover art that would fit with the other three

(wrote that last post b4 linee's last two posts)

Oh I want that new boxset will it be insanely expensive though?

I'm not sure if I really want them in vinyl as I mostly play them to fall asleep on long bus trips or aeroplanes... they're brilliant zoning out albums - in the good way.

Gas

1996 - CD
1996 - 3LP - Longer edits (each track close to 20 minutes long rather than ˜12)
2008 - Nah Und Fern - Replaces track 1 and 3 with new tracks (track 3 weirdly being a different version of track 2 and 4 from Konigsforst)

Zauberberg

1997 - CD
1997 - 2LP - Same as CD
2008 - Same tracks as original CD but track 7 is quite a bit longer - 11 minutes instead of 7

Konigsforst

1998 - CD
1998 - LP - Missing track 1 (as it is the also the a-side to the Oktember 12"). Adds two otherwise-unreleased tracks (a1 and d1)
2008 - Nah Und Fern - Same tracks as original CD

Pop

2000 - CD
2000 - LP - Slightly longer edits of CD tracks
2008 - Nah Und Fern Same Tracks as original CD

There are a few of other tracks on Nah und Fern that are a bit longer than on the original tracks, the last two tracks of Gas and last track of Pop, at least. But in those cases they are only 30 seconds or so longer, so it's really just cosmetic.

I still feel the weirdest and most pointless change Nah und Fern did was the thing that was discussed in length upthread, the sound compression of Zauberberg caused by the remastering. So if this new box is done from the Jörg Burger remasters rather than the original masters (which I assume is the case), I strongly urge everyone to get the original Zauberberg too. The difference between the two is noticable even to people like me, who don't possess "golden ears" or anything like that.

Just when I'd decided I could maybe justify the £70 for the complete Disintegration Loops boxset, this comes along...

Though, to be honest, I can't actually remember which Gas I've got. Certainly Zaub and Konig on CD, Pop somewhere perhaps. Definitely originals. Not the debut, and not the Modern EP from '95 (have we mentioned that?). So this is mostly redundant, I think.

"Have we mentioned that?" Duh, this was a poll.

Just dug out Zaub... and it skips on the last track. It's been looping a tiny fragment of the fade-out for the last five minutes. So that's nice :/

this all made me listen to s/t which is great which sucks

Königsforst is pure magic, I completely forget myself when it is on at loud volume.

After careful consideration I've decided to treat myself... to the WAV downloads of Nah Und Fern from Bleep for £12. I just can't justify that box.

(I've still got my skippy Zaub CD if I want the original sound balance, can't find Konig anywhere and figure I never actually owned Pop).

if you get a cd polished in a game store, does that cure skips or will that fuck it up further?

It should help - but it is literally just the fade out on the last track. I almost kinda like it.

i've had bad luck with those things, been burned the only couple of times i've used them (and it was in a work context w/ a dvd, have never used them on my own stuff) and would avoid them personally

I may even be able to rip it and burn it anew to CD-R. In which case, I can make my own little 5-CD boxset: Nah Und Fern plus Zaub (orig). In real paper sleeves, dead classy.

I can forget the box set when there's the Robyn remix. Just wish it would get a physical release.

I don't know what's going on exactly, but these are the track lengths of the original, 2008 and 2016 cds:

title - orig. - 2008 - 2016
gas 1 - 10:20 - 06:27 - n/a
gas 2 - 13:47 - 14:08 - n/a
gas 3 - 14:33 - 08:20 - n/a
gas 4 - 11:15 - 11:50 - n/a
gas 5 - 13:38 - 13:56 - n/a
gas 6 - 13:31 - 13:51 - n/a
zau 1 - 07:50 - 07:46 - 11:44
zau 2 - 14:13 - 14:09 - 14:14
zau 3 - 12:50 - 12:47 - 14:31
zau 4 - 06:01 - 05:59 - 05:55
zau 5 - 08:05 - 08:01 - 07:59
zau 6 - 07:23 - 11:04 - 11:02
zau 7 - 09:32 - 09:11 - 11:58
kon 1 - 09:39 - 09:49 - 09:40
kon 2 - 13:57 - 13:56 - 13:58
kon 3 - 08:58 - 09:01 - 08:59
kon 4 - 06:31 - 06:32 - 06:32
kon 5 - 15:13 - 15:19 - 15:14
kon 6 - 10:22 - 10:20 - 10:20
kon 7 - n/a - n/a - 06:20
kon 8 - n/a - n/a - 07:11
okt 1 - 09:38 - n/a - 11:47
okt 2 - 15:10 - n/a - 15:13
pop 1 - 05:13 - 05:30 - 05:13
pop 2 - 08:38 - 08:36 - 08:35
pop 3 - 07:27 - 07:26 - 11:03
pop 4 - 09:31 - 09:28 - 09:53
pop 5 - 10:52 - 10:51 - 10:49
pop 6 - 09:24 - 09:18 - 09:20
pop 7 - 14:37 - 15:02 - 14:36

god dammit, the box is sold out everywhere; my Amazon order got delayed until mid-December (despite being placed like two months ago), which I assume means it's probably not going to get filled.

my good friends at m-theory music in san diego have one, if you don't mind paying shipping

lol i remember pre-ordering the nah und fern vinyl from amazon thinking "there's no way this is actually going to ship". sure enough, come release day it was placed on back-order with no foreseeable ship date. bastards.

god dammit, the box is sold out everywhere

was just coming here to whine about this

be quick:
Kompakt Records at Kompakt Records.
3 hrs ·
A few limited copies of the GAS Box just arrived and are available in our Cologne shop and online mailorder: http://www.kompakt.fm/releases/box

gas more like (_!_)==33

THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU for the heads up; I was able to snag one and cancel my Amazon order, which is an immense relief since they never gave me a ship date (and it actually ended up being cheaper to just get it via Kompakt somehow) and I couldn't find a shop in town which didn't sell out immediately.

The photo book included in the box is the cheapest default photoshop filter bullsht ever. Completely pointless and actually cheapens the whole concept. Music sounds great though.

yeah there are some scary Discogs reviews re: fingerprints/dirt on new records, etc. and everybody hates the photobook

It's pretty amazing how they've managed to confuse and disappoint people twice now (by remastering the music in a weird way or omitting some of the original recordings or fucking up a 150 euro deluxe box set), when most of them would've probably been happy if they'd simply just reissued the original albums as they were.

Thankfully I have the original Gas & Königsforst albums + Nah und Fern + various compilation tracks, so I don't need to pay ridiculous prices for a few extra minutes of those loops.

I just really want the two vinyl-only KF tracks and the Oktember 12" (and they even fuck that up in the box by omitting the A-side and subbing a comp track), the sad thing is that the box costs less than those two do total.

So, has anyone managed compared these new records to the older versions? Are they the original masters or the Nah und Fern remasters or completely new ones?

(xpost)

from the Discogs page:

Every track sounds better with this boxset over the original CDS and the Nah Und Fern boxset except track 1 of Pop. The Nah Und Fern version of track 1 on Pop sounds better in my opinion.

one person's opinion, but still...

Yeah, I get it, I can be a complete completists loon when it comes to music I really love. (And as nice as this stuff is, thankfully it isn't so good that it'd cause such an extreme reaction in me.) I just feel it's a bit of scam, because there must be a lot of people like you who already own some older versions of these records and are forced to pay ridiculous prices to get those couple of tracks they don't have, when Voigth could've simply just reissued the albums individually at a regular price.

(xpost)

agreed, for sure

That sounds pretty subjective to me, I wonder if anyone's done a proper waveform analysis? I haven't seen any of the promotional material say they would've been remastered again since Nah und Fern?

xpost

Note: This is an additional Delivery. A Re-press comes in February 2017.
Hinweis: Es handelt sich um eine Nachlieferung. Eine Nachpressung erwarten wir im Februar 2017.

grateful that I have nah under fern, that's all I need from gas

All i need from gas is r e l i e f

I've been on a major Wolfgang Voigt kick lately. The GAS stuff in particular is perfect for this time of the year. As of right now I think I have to go with Zauberberg.

I broke down and got the new box, everything was in great shape except for the Oktember CD which was ruined, Kompakt immediately sent me a replacement after I contacted them via email. Such great stuff, nice to have this in the non-tweaked Nah Und Fern versions. I just wish they had included both sides of the Oktember 12", but maybe one is just an edit of the other? Great to have the vinyl-only Koenigsforst tracks at last.

"great"

These are now available digitally, and on Spotify in the UK. As far as I can make out they are the same versions from the recent box

nice!

since my last post I have figured out that the other Oktember track is really just Konigsfirst 1, which explains why it was replaced with "Tal 90" on the reissue.

New album! NARKOPOP

h e l l y e a h

N A R K O P O P

wut

woah

i look forward to not being able to buy a copy when this sells out in 5 minutes

lol, me too.

w u t

w o a h

waht

pre-orders available through the Kompakt site, 16 euros for CD, 50 for 3xLP plus CD, both come with "artbook"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emUETcnDxnY

Live at the Barbican, London:

GAS Live
+ Huerco S Live
Sunday 8 October 2017 / Barbican Hall / 20:00
Tickets £17.50 – 22.50 plus booking fee

German artist, music producer, label manager and co-founder of Kompakt – the internationally renowned, Cologne-based label for techno and electronic music – Wolfgang Voigt, returns to the Barbican in October, following his two sold-out shows at the Centre in 2009. This autumn he brings the latest live iteration of his iconic ambient project GAS, featuring new audio-visual creations and material from the upcoming full-length release NARKOPOP (out on Kompakt on 21 April 2017).

In the body of the work of Wolfgang Voigt – who, like few others, has shaped and influenced the world of electronic music with countless different projects since the early 1990s –, the classic aesthetic of GAS stands out in particular. This timeless work of sound art combining abstract nature sounds with strings and brass has not lost any of its luster since the last official GAS album release nearly two decades ago. This is evident in Kompakt’s2016 autumn re-release of the back catalogue as a box set.

Tonight’s opening set comes from Brooklyn-based Huerco S aka Brian Leeds. The Kansas native, artist, producer and DJ has released music on labels such as Future Times, Proibito, Opal Tapes, and Software. Here he will present material from his more ambient-based 2016 album For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have).

This Barbican Hall date in association with The Hydra forms part of the first GAS live tour in eight years. A brand synonymous with global electronic music, The Hydra was founded five years ago by Dolan Bergin and Ajay Jayaram – they have been curating festival stages and events in unusual settings such as churches, dilapidated warehouses and a former department store and thus cemented their reputation as one of London’s most potent club brands.

On sale to Barbican Members on Thursday 16 March
On general sale on Friday 17 March
Produced by the Barbican in association with The Hydra

vinyl preordered, tickets booked, v v excited for this

got my ticket. looking forward to it, also the album.

Done! Slap bang in the middle of the Circle. This is like Jeff Mills last year (or 2015?)... bought without thinking and forgot all about it in the 6-month interim. (Did actually remember to go). Someone revive this thread first week of Oct, yeah?

in the pub with my flatmate who bought me a ticket last night: "october though. hope i'm alive then."

This was a buy-on-sight thing for me. The Barbican has really been hitting it out of the park in terms of electronic music over the last couple of years.

Done! Slap bang in the middle of the Circle.

I'll be on your left somewhere.

GASFAP, anyone?

👍

yeah I'm really looking forward to this - the show I saw him play in Chicago a few years ago was amazing. also Huerco S was my favourite album of last year.

Barbican does seem to have become the venue for interesting sit down electronic shows in the last year or two - the Actress show last year was awesome, v much looking forward to the Giegling silent disco in a couple of weeks, too.

Can't process this ... I'm already losing my mind over the one minute trailer!

No idea how I ended up on the hydra mailing list, I don't really go to things. This was a no-brainer tho for sure - if we all make it to oktember I'll be somewhere near the front

https://youtu.be/TSzHvRVE5uM

excited for this (Narkopop).. been playing some of the mp3s, difficult to gauge its quality at this point. Listening back to Konigsforst, it just seems like there's more going on (texturally, etc.), more depth and dynamic variety to it. One of the characteristics of Konigsforst that might be lacking on the new one is the (blatant) intermittent filtering out of the trebly elements, that gave it a sort of submerged/enveloping quality.. it's not so apparent on Narkopop.

Königsforst is frikkin' great, though. Sounds of it have that sort of distant, slow-motion epic procession quality that characterises some of The Disintegration Loops audio by W. Basinski.. very regal or golden. I imagine it's an excellent album for Autumn, maybe it's the cover art/color that's coloring my impression of it.

gassiest gas record ever

(it's incredibly good)

So, this cme out tpoday, and it's okay, I think... Pretty much what you would expect from a Gas album, so some quality hypnodrones, but it feels like it's missing something compared to Königsforst or Zauberberg? Lowell is right that it seems to be lacking some of the depth and submerged quality of previous Gas albums. At points you can clearly hear the separate string and brass sections of the classical music he's sampling, and I think that takes some of the mystery away. It's not this otherworldy, unidentified sound world anymore. I bet some trainspotter fans could even figure out where the samples are from.

Also, I feel that the fact that it has more and shorter tracks and less imposing beats makes it harder for me to really get into the proper Gas trance... 4 minutes is too short a time to submerge into it before the track changes. As blunt as the heavy bass drums on the previous records were, with the murky undecipherable drones they really did create something unique. I can't really fault Voigt for trying something a bit different, but the result is that the beatless tracks especially sound like numerous other droney ambient artists (some of whom were obviously influenced by Gas, to be fair) and not something sui generis like his earlier Gas works.

(xpost)

(checks mailbox, curses West coast location)

i love it, kinda like a real throw of all last three records in one

if any of you use spotify it is on there

a new gas album! i'm really really excited about this

this has grown on me quite a bit.. the general tone and that sort of queasiness (subtle vibrato) going on, it seemed too monotonous at first, but it's become strongly enveloping. listened on a pair of crappy headphones last night, the details are very fine-grained--it's expensive-sounding, as the Pitchfork review stated. Singling out tracks 1, 2, 3, and 5 as favorites. dig that blatant hiss, or wind-in-the-trees sound at the tail end of track three. track two is an obvious favorite, there's a lot of subtle melodic variation going on in the later tracks (following #7, the monotonous, super-consonant power drone), still haven't really 'lived' with the 17-minute closer. waiting patiently for the CD on amazon pre-order (cheapest), very pleased with this work.

So, this cme out tpoday, and it's okay, I think... Pretty much what you would expect from a Gas album, so some quality hypnodrones, but it feels like it's missing something compared to Königsforst or Zauberberg? Lowell is right that it seems to be lacking some of the depth and submerged quality of previous Gas albums. At points you can clearly hear the separate string and brass sections of the classical music he's sampling, and I think that takes some of the mystery away. It's not this otherworldy, unidentified sound world anymore. I bet some trainspotter fans could even figure out where the samples are from.

Also, I feel that the fact that it has more and shorter tracks and less imposing beats makes it harder for me to really get into the proper Gas trance... 4 minutes is too short a time to submerge into it before the track changes. As blunt as the heavy bass drums on the previous records were, with the murky undecipherable drones they really did create something unique. I can't really fault Voigt for trying something a bit different, but the result is that the beatless tracks especially sound like numerous other droney ambient artists (some of whom were obviously influenced by Gas, to be fair) and not something sui generis like his earlier Gas works.

― Tuomas, Friday, April 21, 2017 1:29 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a few tracks in and i see what you are saying

"narkopop 7" is like being hugged by a tractor beam

gonna listen the hell out of this when I get home and fire up Spotify

yeah, 7 was the one that stood out to me on first listen as well. looking forward to spending a lot of time with this, although i do see how some of tuomas' criticisms might apply

there's a continuity that makes it feel like one long piece.. several tracks share the same tonal center as others, like the way track 6 sets up track 7 - chord/pitch-wise. Track 6 stood out to me as the oddest, with its percussive bits and piano. The album has a subtle airiness about it that gels nicely with the listening environment.

Yeah, those percussive clangs on track 6 really stood out for me too, they're so unlike anything else on any Gas album. I think I could even hear marimbas there?

I have to say this album sounded better on the second listen, when I played it at high volume on my surround speakers instead of listening it on headphones while walking. Still not a fan of the short beatless tracks tho.

I think it's overall a more relaxing record than Konigsforst or Zauberberg.. I can't put those albums on and just zone out, like with Pop or Narkopop.. lots of passive, horizontal, half-conscious listening over the last several days.. it's more of a truly ambient thing, where you don't have to lock into it or fully engage.

recently re-watched seasons 2 + 3 of Homeland, there's a recurring musical motif that's eerily similar to that of track 3 on Konigsforst.. grew a sort of weird attachment to the show. Pop V is one of my favorite Gas tracks, and Pop was the only Gas album I knew for the longest while until discovering the other albums. Konigsforst has been sounding so ultra lately, just all of that popping detail, texture, and melodic content.. it's tough to beat.

loving this on first listen, I'm up to the martial drums on track 5. almost a Laibach vibe going on. I'm fine with the "shorter" tracks workign as interludes to these long pieces, I also thought the bass drum on track 2 was very satisfying

10 is really something. the clearness of the samples on the record is jarring, compared to his previous work. you can play tracks from the s/t, zauberberg and konigsforst on shuffle and they'll more or less sound of a kind, and pop takes similar ideas in a new direction. but narkopop wouldn't work in that playlist - the samples are too clear, the attack on the samples is shorter, clearheaded. it's not a criticism, just an observation.

Listening to this very loudly on big speakers is definitely the way to go - there's some serious low end on Narkopop 2, and I was totally unprepared for that huge swathe of La Mer when it emerged.

i have only listened to this a tiny bit, never making it the whole way through without someone at work rudely rousing me from my deep gas slumber, but it is so interesting even just as a kind of control group through which to think about the other gas records, i think. i listen to pop every day, sometimes, quite often in that sort of unflattering way in which Gas - Pop (FULL ALBUM) youtube is just a convenient tool solving various problems of noise or sleep or attention, &c, but still it so clearly means something & feels kind of like a place, to me, i like pop 4 the most but i think of the first two songs, which are always still this bewitching midpoint between nature & electronics & the things both sets of sounds elicit in you, to play it for the specific sensation of a kind of difficult to parse emotion: even with konigsforst i still think i am not far away from a sort of established implied mood of like foreboding synthesizer associations, like people talking about this record & mulholland drive. i am immediately bummed out hearing this to not find the same forest soup, to have something that is more recognizably parts, & then a minute into a song something will emerge from a synth & i'll feel the tension again, the same feeling of it becoming something i can't read, don't quite understand. any kind of unburied drum feels sort of crass because i just long for more time trying to find myself in the pop forest, but so far it is growing on me & i get the tractor beam feeling mentioned upthread instead.

<3

i listen to this furious to have been parachuted into the wrong gas world

hate to break it to you guys but according to the tracklist of this ra mix, i am wolfgang voigt https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=570

lol texas

original or Method Man-featuring version?

roll eyes emoji

original or Method Man-featuring version?

― boxedjoy, Monday, May 1, 2017 3:30 PM (thirty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

jesus i had completely forgotten about this

no seams between tracks on the CD version, it does work best as one full serving, with all of its variations cohering into one streamlined piece (tonally). Narkopop is definitely one of the best sounding GAS albums, airy and humid, it's ultra-pleasant. I'm sure the vinyl product is top notch but it's nice to not have to change sides every 15 or so minutes.

lol @ residentadvisor comment thread

Whoa is that tracklist the actual tracklist? That is a ballsy move.

Kompakt dude obsessed with shiny 80s pop shocker.

not ballsy, just lazy

i think it's great

I usually hate that "something different to what I normally play on the club" bullshit, and it is true that this sounds like a middle aged woman's spotify playlist, however, I enjoyed it more than any other RA podcast in a year or more (with the exception of that disco / italo mix by that Japanese guy).

huh, i missed this

only listening on my laptop at the moment, which cuts out a lot and always makes things sound smoover, but

OH JESUS

it sounds so much waaaaay more narcotic (dur) than a typical gas record, just like an instant ZONK, like a microwave beam, i suspect encephalography was involved at some stage

live show this year was fantastic. i don't know how long it went on for but i was spellbound the whole way through, that whole thing where creeping anxiety is slowly transmuted into joy and wonder and then you slip back into the dark again. my journey home from work is often through some woods in the dark and now narkpop is more often than not the soundtrack to that. it's really had the effect of recallibrating my ears and my emotional response to that environment, especially hearing the wind through the leaves in the treetops as that same static-like hissing, no idea why i hadn't thought of listening to gas in situ before

yes! the show was amazing

Cosign all that, just zoned out and became completely immersed in it.

fuck i guess i gotta buy tickets for here

i hope you like trees!

this album sends you under like nothing else

it's taken me a while to realise just how much I love Gas, and Narkopop has been the deal-sealer, one of my favourite albums for the last few months

So... Bleep lists this as 11 tracks, the last of which is >70min. Is that the vinyl-only track? (In which case, how come the vinyl is "only" a triple if it's 150min?) I'm guessing this is a typo, as the vinyl bonus on Discogs is 16min. And the vinyl is over £50!

CD w/booklet is sold out on Bleep (which might be the only way to get track 11 bundled, as a download, with the CD), so I may go for 11xWAVs and write 1-10 to disc with no pre-gaps (tracks are seamless on the CD release, right?).

presumably that last track is just the album in a single track - Spotify lists it that way as well

Ah, got it. The 71min version is for gapless streaming/burning. So Narkopop 11 really is vinyl-only, not downloadable.

£50 though...

Kompakt has it for €50 so that's about £44... without shipping

this trend of splitting up CD-length albums over as much wax as possible really bugs me

I have made my peace with it wrt the Cavern of Anti-Matter LPs (both triples), but they were £20 each, and pretty satisfying to own on vinyl. Having a bit of a thing at the moment for vintage synths on wax, possibly triggered by digging out Matmos's Supreme Balloon (a mere double LP) again a few weeks ago and marvelling at how that sounded.

But GAS I'd take as full-fat digital.

Many xxps: great post, nickb. I got offered a ticket for the Barbican show but I live in the Shires and am old and said no and oh fuck it.

Album of the year for me.

maybe me as well

RIYL GAS: F.E. Denning

i only started listening to him, uh, last night, but his music reminds me quite a bit of voigt - long, untitled drone-based songs, occasional string pads, effectively establishing a sense of unique space in each song, e

while generally being quite a bit darker in tone.
all of his songs have < 1000 listens on spotify so i don't think he's a household name quite yet, but

goddammit, i didn't mean to submit that yet, but i'll just leave it there. if anyone knows of him or knows any cool tidbits about him or his music i'd love to hear them. i find it to be excellent work music so i expect to be listening quite a bit more this coming year.

Aw, I know him, he is a cool guy :) Him and a whole bunch of Copenhagen jazz guys did a pretty cool Coltrane tribute a few years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1qs-z-7dJI

wow, that's very unlike his other material i've heard, thanks!

Another new album!

https://www.stereogum.com/1987630/gas-announces-new-album-rausch-watch-a-trailer/video/

whaaat

fuck yeah

Oh nice! I’m seeing him next week, hopefully he’ll play some stuff on the new one!

Nice. Does he do his own album art?

i'm pretty sure it's his own photography.

nice to see the new one is half the price of narkopop, not sure why that one was quite so expensive

It came with a book, didn't it?

oh yeah, that's right! (i didn't buy it obv)

Narkopop (CD) was $15, with the book-packaging.

Nice. Does he do his own album art?

Narkopop (CD) was $15, with the book-packaging.

Vinyl was £55 or something daft like that!

lol yeh i got one, deffo around the fifty quid mark

holy shit I went to the show in Philly last night and it was something. Did anyone see him in NY/DC/elsewhere?

crut saw the Big Ears show and said it was amazing, see that thread for details

london last year! hope he comes to uk again soon :)

Agreed on the greatness of the Big Ears show. It was the end of a long festival day so I sort of drifted in and out, which was maybe the perfect way to experience it.

saw him DC and it was exactly what i wanted... a roomful of people transported into the subconscious void staring rapt at dark forest abstractions for an unclear amount of time. it was odd emerging from that into the mid-afternoon sunlight at the wharf.

sounds amazing

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/0012922037_10.jpg
€11.90 EUR for the digital album "Rausch" (no thanks, Wolfgang)

lets hear some samples

cd edition cannot be that much more surely ?

i dont ever buy digital albums but is that bad?

it's approximately the same as paying for the CD (+ booklet)

lovely scarf, though

vinyl arrived today!

sounds quite pacy compared to previous records

listening to the album for the first time, and it's nice to hear these songs again! i heard him a few weeks ago, and i think he pretty much just played this album, or at least large stretches of it (i like gas but sometimes have trouble distinguishing between tracks that aren't on konigsforst or pop, the two i've listened to the most).

for me, 3 is a highlight. this will make it sound terrible, but it's gas as a blissed out droney late 80s reverb rock band, with traces of numan popping in and out.

odd atmospheres going on, on Rausch. Track two sorta reminds me of Tilt, by Scott Walker

Anyone know whether the CD version is supposed to include a booklet? My copy has a slot for one but none present...

same with mine (empty)

So much for singing along

I bet we're missing out on some great tree pictures!

last two comments A+

KOMPAKT.fm seems to indicate that this is just a relatively simple cd release as opposed to the fancy booklet/cd that they did for the last album.

the lyrics are printed on the part (on the inside) of the sleeve that holds the CD

wait, lyrics?

just got my copy via amazon : no booklet.

Every time i see the title for this record it looks like Ranch to me, which them makes me think that Voigt named his record after a mayo-based condiment

I've been listening to this for a couple of days, and it sounds pretty much, like a continuation of the previous album, no? The biggest change is that there's no beatless interludes anymore, which is appreciated... And Voigt seems to have put more variation into the beats in general, the minimal hihats in one of the mid-album tracks sound really really nice, especially considering he hasn't really used them in the Gas project.

But the complaints I made above still apply to this one too: the samples are too clean with recognizable instruments, which makes the tracks sound more like remixes of modern classical music (even if the recordings he samples are of older pieces, the droneyness and atonality makes them feel modern) and less like these organic but alien soundworlds from out of nowhere. The two new albums are still enjoyable music and it's nice he's continuing the project, but I don't think they quite have the magic and oddness of the original Mille Plateaux records.

yeah i'm liking the beats a lot

The album (Rausch) is one big plod, w/minimal variety--dynamically and tonally

tuomas otm, tbh I haven't found anything after the original albums to be that compelling

yeah I don’t need any more of these

Narkopop is up there with the earlier releases, imo. It's a different beast altogether, in its construction and crystalline fidelity, but it's really emotionally charged and resonant. Again, in my experience.

jrtl;jwrtjrwqjkergjertgn;ert

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gas-live-recombinant-festival-2018-opening-night-tickets-49798056327

First time Gas is playing in SF. Also it's, you know, FOUR BLOCKS FROM MY HOUSE.

And said show I referred to there just happened. Holy heck was that great.

I will confirm what Ned said: the performance (I attended the 9pm set) was fantastic. Probably true first time I’ve heard gas at a proper volume.

I was also at the 9pm set. What an incredible visual realization of the concept! Basically the music is inspired by a bunch of psychedelic experiences in the pine forests of Germany. Was it me or did it seem that many of the forest shots were entirely CG? Or were they just so excellently filmed and choreographed that it appeared to be the case?

Struck me as just amazing filming and editing. Also how did I not know you were all locals.

I’m such a homebody these days...but a local nonetheless

Yeah, the film was a fully immersive, psychedelic experience and I was only under the influence of a couple of beers. I’d love to have another opportunity to see the performance again and scrutinize the visuals. I was impressed how quickly I fell under the spell of the music and visuals.

I was the only one still reeling from Marcus Schmickler?

Yeah that Schmickler set was, how you say, intense. I had to move seats at one point!

Thank goodness for quality ear plugs! And yeah I'm a local, too. Biked to and from the show! Guessing you're in the Mission, Ned.

very affordable 3LP reissue of Königsforst

https://forcedexposure.com/Catalog/gas-konigsforst-3lp/KOM.370.2LP.html

I recently walked through Königsforst while listening to Narkopop on headphones. Highly recommend. Needed more LSD though

Königsforst
Narkopop
Pop
Zauberberg
Gas
Rausch

also thanks for the head's up on the Königsforst reissue, sleeve! it should arrive in the mail this weekend! :)

Sure, if we wanna do this...

1. Königsforst
2. Gas (the original version, not the Nah und Fern version with two tracks replaced with inferior ones)
3. Zauberberg
4. Pop
5. Rausch
6. Narkopop

Like I've said above, the two comeback albums are still nice, but they don't feel essential and magical the way the original quartet does.

100% agree

63% agree

I agree but maybe swap Konigforst with the s/t

BREAKING NEWS: #WolfgangVoigt releases brand new #GAS track as exclusive download. The track that is coming out today worldwide is called »Zeit« and is accompanied by a video clip taken out of Voigts legendary GAS live performances.

https://kompakt.fm/releases/zeit

BREAKING NEWS: #WolfgangVoigt releases brand new #GAS track as exclusive download. The track that is coming out today worldwide is called »Zeit« and is accompanied by a video clip taken out of Voigts legendary GAS live performances.https://t.co/YeHhMZoGjo pic.twitter.com/ci1xVai3dm

— KOMPAKT (@KOMPAKTREC) June 17, 2020

Only available as MP3, not FLAC or WAV? Fuck that.

AIFF

You already did a red cover Wolfgang you dope

AIFF

I've never had any Apple products so I don't know anything about AIFFs, are they lossless?

yes

Ok, I guess these days many non-Apple players support Apple formats too, so I could give a try... Still don't understand why the Kompakt site doesn't sell any digital music in FLAC or WAV, like most stores do these days.

that really seems like the kind of thing you ought to write them a letter about

otm

aiff on music sites is an oddball one but it’s nearly certainly the format that was used all the way back to pre-1990 and is comparable to .wav, just uncompressed pcm

So I’ve found out that my newborn baby relaxes when I play Konigsforst or Pop loudly. If she’s crying beyond reason I play either those or white noise and she calms down almost instantly. I guess it makes sense since it has the same repetitiveness and sort of textures as white noise which babies love.

Congrats on having a cool kid!

Is there a thread on ILM about which albums or music ilxors have found to relax their babies? I’d love to try some options.

(Those are my two favorite Gas albums, so kudos to your baby on her discerning taste)

Hahaha thanks. I’ve played all sort of music and so far it seems those are her favorite albums.

definitely wonderwall

<3 to your baby, Moka!

That's great Moka, many congrats! <3

Is there a thread on ILM about which albums or music ilxors have found to relax their babies? I’d love to try some options.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Wednesday, October 14, 2020 bookmarkflaglink

You wanna know which album didn't work at all, with either of my kids? Raymond Fucking Scott's Soothing Sounds for Baby.

did raymond scott ever have children? because i bet they're fucked up because of his music

my daughter went through a brief Pop phase, but as she got older it started to creep her out. Recently, she loves Marconi Union’s “Weightless”, which imo owes a bit to Pop stylistically.

Thank you mh and LBI!

I had completely forgotten about that Raymond Scott album but yeah I would never play that one. Too sharp sounding, it’s hilariously wrong it’s described as soothing.

Speaking of Raymond Scott, I was listening earlier a spotify playlist called MoogTube and she did not seem to enjoy the Raymond Scott track in there (Portofino 2) which I ended up skipping but she relaxed to Chrome Country by Oneohtrix and to Isao Tomita’s Clair de Lune. The later made me particularly glad because I adore Clair de Lune in all its forms.

naw cute thread updates :)

I noticed from the rolling reissues thread that Kompakt has reissued Zauberberg, Königsforst, and Pop as individual CDs, but the first album is again missing, like it was missing from that box set a few years ago. Seems like Voigt has truly decided to excise it from the Gas canon. :(

And here's how the reissues of Zauberberg and Königsforst are described on the Kompakt site:

CLASSIC Wolfgang Voigt production from 1997 reissued via Kompakt! 'Zauberberg' laid the foundations for the GAS sound - a noxious blend of dragging orchestral arrangement with the weight of dread-heavy dub.

Following the 1997 release of ZAUBERBERG, Wolfgang Voigt’s ambient 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.

I noticed that. A real shame. Glad I have the Mille Plateaux cd.

xp

Wolfgang Voigt just released a new GAS album on @Kompakt https://t.co/bKQsxt4o14

— Resident Advisor (@residentadvisor) December 3, 2021

The new one is more of the same (track 8 even samples Pop 1) but it's always great to visit the psychedelic techno forest.

i'm still trying to figure it out. it's new. at first glance, it seems like a "best of" for new gas listeners. but yes, we know this territory very well

really enjoyed diving into this
never really returned to rausch but this i much prefer

This is lovely except some of the track transitions really fuck up the ongoing flow

They released a single track version with the fadeouts removed as well.

As far as I can see the streaming versions on apple and Spotify have the gaps, which are really detrimental. Is the vinyl like this too?

Wow, what is the point of those fadeouts? And then the following track starts so abruptly. I was going to get the CD but if it's like that I'll do a bandcamp download instead.

just listened to this, and the last two paragraphs of the pitchfork are 10000000000% otm for me:

There’s one development, though, that has already made Der Lange Marsch the most divisive GAS album: the high-pitched beep on every other beat. Some listeners don’t notice it, others seem able to tune it out, and for many, it’s an impassable barrier to entry. Voigt used a similar frequency on Rausch, but only in short intervals. Here, it literally never lets up except during the brief bits at the beginning and end with no drums. Once you realize you’re going to have to learn to live with that beat, the album starts to earn its title: The Long March.

It seems like an odd artistic choice to throw such a jarring and potentially alienating sound over your career-spanning retrospective, especially considering that this is otherwise the sunniest and most euphonious of the three GAS albums Voigt has released since bringing the project back from hiatus in 2017. Voigt suffers from tinnitus, and it’s possible that he’s asking the listener to empathize with his condition. But is putting a beep over an otherwise perfectly enjoyable album the right way to go about it? If there’s a new GAS album to look forward to, it’s a fan edit that cuts that frequency right out.

fucking bizarre

what a fucking bummer, holy shit. i could do a slight EQ "fix" myself to dampen that frequency and the ones right around it, but i know it would make the rest of the mix worse. shit, man.

somewhere not faraway, just beyond the edge of the forest, where the thick darkness of the trees gives way to the dull light of a new grey dawn, a garbage truck is reversing eternally

if only the beep were at the reversing garbage truck level. it is higher, like very high. i really do feel like i got to have tinnutus for a while. thanks GAS!

i actually don't mind the noise, though it is a curious choice. maybe there should be some element of discomfort though if you're trying to communicate latent anxiety and dread?

sort of a reaction to the music being used purely for relaxation?

a niggling contrast to the sumptuousness of the rest of it

maybe there should be some element of discomfort though if you're trying to communicate latent anxiety and dread?

yeah, i do understand this angle. have to say, though, one of the things i loved about all of his other albums is his ability to communicate those same things by other means, using mild discordance and strange overtones and resonances going in and out of line. it's very easy to signal anxiety, i think -- just put an alarm clock going off through your album -- but it's so much more rewarding to do it subtle ways

ha yes an alarm clock. think you're gonna fall asleep to my music huh suckers?

but yeah, i do think the annoyance of it would vary highly from listener to listener. to me, it puts it in the same category as labradford's Mi Media Naranja, which is probably a beautiful listen but features an insanely boosted high frequency, and they play the triangle a LOT so

never noticed that about mi media... actually, so yeah we may have different tolerances here. i am a bit old and deaf though

I made myself a version with the offending frequency much reduced (10436hz at -18db) I used a really sharp notch filter to not monkey around with the surrounding frequencies too much, happy to share if anyone wants it.

yes plz

this sounds like something that would be absolute torture to listen to

relieved to see others were bothered by the tone and i'm not nuts, had to turn it off almost immediately, really disappointing. i'm also interested in the maresn3st edit

never noticed that about mi media

yeah, it starts suddenly at about 55 seconds into the first track ("S")

and about 3 minutes into the third track "WR". i don't remember which one on the back half of the album, but i remember playing side B of the record and thinking "goddamn it AGAIN?!" so i know it's somewhere on that side too

co-sign on maresn3st edit

Pop me an email at n@k@ginc@psuleto✧✧✧@gm✧✧✧.c✧✧ (w/out google-proofing)

Oh bum, that didn't go well apologies, n a k a g i n c a p s u l e t o w e r @ g m a i l . c o m

Have only listened to this on shitty speakers and and didn't notice the tone at all. Am I very aware of the high-pitched frequency on the Labradford album though and never found it offensive so perhaps I'll be OK.

Side issue but I am terrified of the implications of hearing vs not hearing certain sounds and frequencies. I remember being with my old man around Christmas time and pointing out the piped silver of a robin singing and being distraught that he simply couldn't pick it up. He shrugged it off so I guess there is that.

Yeah bill oddie has talked about his sadness at not being able to hear the calls of certain birds any longer. The GAS bleep did make me think of the alarm calls that blackbirds make in the hedgerows round here as night comes in

I can't hear the offending tone am I losing it

I am become bill oddie

As someone with tinnitus and some hearing loss in my right ear - you get used to it, the alternative is a deep dark depression, staring mortality and fragility in the face directly, and its resulting, unrelenting anxiety. Basically stopped going to concerts and listening or writing music for a year when it first became "permanent". Copium is a pretty powerful drug and one that probably saved my life.

That said, that high pitch ringing (which I can clearly hear) is dreadful and I can't listen to this new one.

I have tinnitus / hearing loss and cannot hear the high-pitched tones on this album at all.

I first listened on shitty laptop speakers and did t notice it. I’m afraid now that you all have pointed it out that when I give it a proper listen I’m primed to hear only that. Kind of like I can’t not hear “smoke pot smoke pot everybody smoke pot” in I Am The Walrus ever since a fundamentalist preacher told my school class to listen for it nearly 40 years ago.

yeah, those of you who can't hear it, or who it doesn't bother - i kind of want that! i feel a little worried that it DOES bother me, given my many years playing drums in small concrete rooms

xp coolest fundamentalist preacher ever!

I still feel like you don't need anything past the first four albums.

I think the frequency of the beeps is drowned out by the constant one I hear all the time, so it's not that I don't hear the high-pitched beep, it's that mine is louder.

"listen up kids -- watch out! after church there's this guy i know who will try to give you drugs. he'll tell you that if you take them you'll probably never come back to church ever again, because you'll see the world in a different way from then on! so many people have done this before, and it's right outside out these doors! goodbye children!"

Bill Oddie being invoked on a GAS thread is either the greatest moment in mankind's history or the sign of the approaching singularity and I'm going to walk stark bollock naked into the woods now bye.

i have slight tinnitus, so there is a chance i would not notice this quirk,
but the main question for me is : given i have 6 GAS cds (4 cd boxset from a few years back, and subsequent 2 albums), do i actually need more?

I'm so interested in what Voigt's process is. I'd love to watch him assemble a GAS track from start to finish. I can't imagine I'll be listening to this many more times, though. The insistent marching beat is annoying and unsettling, even without the high pitched beep that I can't hear.

The beep totally ruins it for me. I can hear it on my computer speakers and I'm afraid that if I play it loud on the big ones it'll make my ears ring for a few hours. That noise was on Rausch too, but it was quieter. and only when the kick drum is going.

I am guessing this wasn't intentional? It is probably just the same plugin he used on the last album, and since he has tinnitus I think he just can't hear it. I've noticed this sort of thing on a number of older artists' work, high pitched noises just appearing in the mix which clearly aren't supposed to be there. It makes me wonder if they have any (younger) people listen to these final mixes before putting them out there.

Fundamentalist do make sinning sound attractive. See the kids who get way into acting out the bad stuff in Hell Houses, etc.

It makes me wonder if they have any (younger) people listen to these final mixes before putting them out there.

i did wonder about this scenario too, totally speculative. but the emperor has no clothes thing where no one can tell him because it's assumed he wants it?

it's funny that nobody complains about the kick drum. I kinda like the beep myself. but I listen to a lot of EAI.

another example is "Appleshine" by Underworld which has this piercing hi-hat run through most of the song. thankfully when it was actually released in physical form they adjusted the levels so it wasn't so distracting. but yeah this definitely seems to be an issue among older electronic guys

I was able to successfully EQ the ringing tones out; found some choice details in another forum and checked the spectral. There's actually TWO tones, a 2nd at nearly 16k that I can't hear. But here's some EQ settings to remove them, applied it and it works! Album is completely enjoyable now for me.

Band 1:
Type: Bell
Freq: 10480hz
Gain: -30dB
Q: 40
Slope: 96 dB/oct

Band 2:
Type: Bell
Freq: 15725hz
Gain: -25dB
Q: 40
Slope: 96 dB/oct

Hm, listening to this on my ok (albeit old) speakers and can’t hear anything that bugs me. Listened to some high frequency tones and my hearing seems to top out at 16khz but everything below that was audible. This is on a Spotify stream. Ah well I guess I get to enjoy a Gas album.

it's the first and third beat of every measure, and it's the same tone each time. very interesting what's audible and what isn't!
my dog fucking hates the album

you must hate your dog if you named it fucking

yea I'd buy that some speakers either can't hit that frequency or do so at a level that's difficult to hear

as mentioned I can think of a number of recordings by 50+ electronic musicians that have (almost certainly inadvertent) high-pitched noises which are impossible to ignore on the car stereo but nearly inaudible on my home speakers, despite the home speakers being much better

you misunderstood me Nick! it's that i'm fucking the dog, and the act of that "hates" the album, in a way!

i hear it very loudly using headphones, on my MBP speakers, and stereo speakers

Oh wow I just listened to it on my phone and it is unmistakably there and super-annoying. So it’s something to do with my home system (which is vastly better than an IPhone 7!)

weird! yeah i guess it would be pretty device-dependent. maybe iphone 7 has some sort of equalizer you're using, or the speakers have lower frequencies? beats me. but yeah, once you hear it, it's like someone saying "carwash. carwash. carwash. carwash." for an hour straight

Yeah totally, it’s impossible to ignore on the phone speaker.

My streaming stuff goes on a complicated little journey from a Raspberry PI to an old Squeezebox to a Cambridge Audio DAC - and the latter has some sort of switchable filter setting that I’ve never fiddled with but I suspect it has stripped out the offending frequency.

I’m listening to the CD on an Onkyo with my Sennheiser headphones plugged directly in to the player and I don’t hear it…

i should have said, i've been listening to the Spotify version the whole time. not sure if format makes a difference or not

Would be kind of funny if he added the frequency and the fade/sudden starts only to the streaming versions.

I've tried this on several devices and speakers and I still can't hear it. I don't know if it's because I'm focusing hard on the higher frequencies or if the beeps are triggering it, but it seems to exacerbate my tinnitus every time I listen to it.

I put the first track into Audacity and looked at the spectral pitch display. Both the c. 10khz and c. 16khz beeps are clearly visible - little dotted lines. I tried using the EQ to turn down the 10khz as low as it would go, but this also stripped out some other sounds like the higher-frequency crackles. Then I tried using the marquee tool to select and delete the dotted line at 10khz, and that worked much better. I guess my hearing isn't good enough to hear the 16khz beeps - I don't notice them at all.

Then I started thinking that if I have to actively edit an album in order to enjoy it, maybe I should just say I don't enjoy the album and listen to something else. But it was kind of a fun exercise to excise that persistent beep.

Not Audacity, Audition.

the beep doesn't become audible until about 3 minutes into the first track. but then it's in all the others, from the very beginning, i think

sorry, then it's in all the others, all the way to the end, i meant

Yes. In the first track you can start to see the dotted line at about 2:30.

screenshot, screenshot, screenshot!

sorry, i'm getting worked up here

Track 1

https://i.imgur.com/bcjCIQm.jpg

the proof is in the pudding

Track 7 (and end of 6, beginning of 8): a new, higher frequency beep appears, way up at 19khz. I can't hear it.

https://i.imgur.com/SHRsNSM.jpg

Thanks for the pics, Chinchilla! I can't hear the beeps but the pitched bom-bom march beat is driving me nuts (OK, what did I expect from an album called "the Long March", fine) so I think I'm out anyway.

Does the beep line up with the higher or the lower-pitched kick or neither?

Somewhat depressing not to hear it though. I remember probably 10-15 years ago a friend was saying that electronic artists should retire at 35 because they can't hear the treble well enough and their beats become insufficiently punchy. Which seemed a bit harsh at the time (& even aged <30 I couldn't hear the alleged problem), but now I'm in my 40s and still daydreaming of maybe putting out some little blurts of bleepy thumpy stuff on bandcamp one of these decades, only to realise that I'm missing at least half of the CD-quality spectrum...

At least I now feel vindicated in my decision not to buy this thing unheard on Bandcamp Friday in protest at there being no streamable preview tracks.

Chinchilla did you rip a CD or was it a download?

Thank you for those EQ settings, octobeard.

Yes, thanks - that post inspired me to tinker.

The images above are from a FLAC CD rip. I bought the download on Bandcamp, but the individual tracks there are faded out at the end (still not sure why he or anyone thought this was desirable). The continuous mix is one big file. What I wanted was no fades and individual tracks, so I went to that illicit place where Souls are Sought and found a CD rip. Individual tracks, no fades. But now I'm back to working with the big long full-album file, to make it easier to strip out those frequencies across the whole album. Then if I'm feeling ambitious I'll split it up into tracks myself.

I'm not actually that obsessed with this, but I'm a casual/for fun user of Audition who is still learning, and this gives me a good chance to learn some new skills.

I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I listened to the tracks on Apple Music (lossless setting, no eq override, soundcheck turned off) and didn’t hear the beep

listened on youtube (quality unknown) and did hear the beep

yup, checked two more tracks and I’m not going crazy — the youtube tracks have everything that has been mentioned, apple music does not

I wonder if it’s been re-uploaded there, or if something in the mastering process/file export got botched

for what it’s worth, the apple music version also has no fade-outs or gaps between the tracks

I listened to the 1 track version of this from slsk. Initially I couldn't hear the beep at all on my laptop speakers, but when I plugged into my stereo (and verified that the beeps were there in the sonogram) I could make them out. If no one had said anything I doubt that I would have noticed, but now that I do - I can't miss it. Sorta like hearing John Bonham's squeaky bass drum pedal - you may not notice it, but once you ID it you can't not hear it.

Looking at old and new files confirms that they have replaced the beepy version. mh's posts got me to listen anew on streaming - beeps gone. So I redownloaded from bandcamp and looked at the spectral display - beeps stripped out, and the new files look much like the ones I edited for myself (needn't have spent that time, I guess). Dotted line replaced with empty space.

I listened on Spotify just to hear this beep (GAS is not really my thing) and I couldn't hear it at all. I can usually pick out pretty high frequencies so I wondered if maybe I heard the fixed versions

When I was looking around for streaming examples, I noticed the new one wasn’t listed on boomkat and some others. I’m guessing they may have yanked the release

the one on YT is very beepy on my computer speakers!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGLmnvv8hjM

i listened to the spotify version on my phone and i could still hear something but way less pronounced

Wow interesting discussion. The FLACs I have do have the beep. Downloaded for the same reason - no previews on Bandcamp, and can't buy the CD on Bandcamp.
I hope the CD I eventually purchase doesn't have the beeps! As someone with mild tinnitus I'm surprised I can hear them, but my hearing loss is actually slightly lower in the frequency band (annoyingly).

Vinyl just arrived and it has the beeps. It's in four sides, and it fades out at the end of each side.

Spotify confirmed, the beep has been removed there, at least on my streams

Supposedly the dings have been stealth removed from all official online sources. Sucks for those who have the CD/LP, perhaps they'll be worth something when they get replaced with the 'fixed' versions

uh...lol, I'm listening on macbook pro speakers/spotify again and the beeps are still there in full force. I didn't hear them earlier because i was listening via my...*david lynch rolls in his living grave* iphone 6 speakers!

but it's still there. i promise i'm not crazy

amazing. i listened to the whole album last night, via my iphone 6 to my ear, and it was so lovely. i really liked it a lot, without that frequency, and i put it in my "new listen pile" playlist. now i'm back on the laptop, and it sucks again! lol

this is a rare music audio case of it being a good idea to play this thing on the shittiest sound system you have, with the worst/absent high frequencies

i'm not hearing the bleep on spotify anymore, but there is a lot of digital crackle? maybe that was there before though, but i was too busy listeting to the beep to notice?

we need to get like a 1000 people into a room with the same sound equipment and do a focus group on this. or like 100. even 20 ok

actually it sounds like a really bad vinyl rip now

but we need to get 20 people in a room and play it out 5 different sets of speakers, 5 different platforms (spotify, CD, LP), 25 tests in all, and figure out what the heck is going on because this is crazy

i need to figure out if there's a way to listen to this that doesn't like shit, other than through the speakers of my iphone6 SE while playing spotify

god, when i was a child, i remember when i only had 2 or 3 big problems. i could count them on my hand, and i would think about what i would do about them. and all the problems were so inconsequential. and now look at my life

really it sounds awful now to me. listening via decent headphones on a laptop via spotify and it sounds like garbage

the tone is gone on spotify afaict, but i think the crackle was always there, i assumed it was intentional. a lot of gas stuff has chaotic treble messin with your reverie

cool kids these days take their album and record it onto VHS tapes before throwing it up on bandcamp or pressing vinyl masters

lol none is this makes me want to actually listen to the album, esp since there's no preview option on Bandcamp

they should add a preview of only the beep

Again, I hear no beep on the CD but that might be me.

What a palaver this is.

Heard the tones clear as day last week on Spotify (SoundMagic e11 earbuds plugged into MacBook)
That evening I couldn't pick them out on the stereo (Marantz MCR610 into Q-Acoustics 2020s), same source
Today it's Sennheiser HD558s, Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, USB from work laptop - definitely gone from Spotify, but clear in that YouTube clip upthread (which hasn't been updated since Dec 3)

i'm sure whenever anyone asks wolfgang voigt about it he just grimly stares at his mixer until the person goes away

The streaming version now also lacks the horrible track breaks

I sent an email to Kompakt’s Bandcamp, and this is the official word re: downloads:

1) Are the files 16 or 24 bit?

It will be 16 Bit

2) Are these the files with or without the high-frequency ping on every other kick?

files come without the high-frequency ping - the record unfortunately still contains the "problem".

3) Are the individual tracks faded out or blending seamlessly into each other?

You will receive the fade out version and the continuous file.

best regards kompakt

So that’s it: files have been depinged, but individual tracks are still fading, which I guess makes them good for shuffle. If you want a continuous experience, you always have the single mixed file, which, I guess, makes sense.

Forgot to ask if those few tracks off Rausch will/have also been depinged.

the "problem"

hahaa

do you think anyone has dared ask voigt out loud if he did that on purpose or not?

honestly, unless i were mastering or something (this is a fantasy world, ok), i don't think i would have the guts to ask

first album on vinyl, just pre ordered a copy

https://boomkat.com/products/gas-bdf31db7-af60-4495-aa2a-3812f4f9bdc5

Nice. I paid out for a decent copy of the first EP, Modern in May. Good to see this one getting a reissue. Hopefully in its original form?

Always rated the first album slightly below the others, but for whatever reason it's sounding a lot better to me now, maybe the equivalent of Pop and almost as good as Konigsforst. I think, like a lot of people, I heard the s/t after the others, but revisiting it now and experiencing it in isolation, outside of the context of the Gas legacy, it's really an extraordinary album. The new remaster sounds terrific

yep, really enjoying it