Solid, Liquid...

This week I write about a surprise reissue of some of my favourite electronic music ever, plus the usual reviews.

Firstly, a big welcome and thankyou to all my new subscribers - I’ve had a massive boost this week and there’s well over 100 of you now from all corners of the music industry as well as those who just enjoy this kind of stuff. I hope you enjoy what you read and I look forward to reading any feedback, comments or debate you might have.

Last week saw one of those genuinely mind-blowing reissue announcements, the kind that only come around once or twice a year, at most.

The first GAS album - unavailable on LP since 1996 is finally getting a reissue, along with the later, better known studio albums.

GAS is an alias of Wolfgang Voigt, one third of the founders of German record shop and label Kompakt, and a producer of many aliases including Mike Ink, M:I:5, Love Inc, Freiland, Gelb and Studio 1 (those being just a fraction of the 40+ names listed for him on Discogs)

The first release under the GAS name was a 4 track EP titled Modern on Kompakt sub-label Profan back in 1995. This is quite different from what came later, but some of the building blocks are there, the looping, foggy ambiance sounding exactly how you’d imagine a gas filling up a space to sound. There’s something otherworldly about this music, it doesn’t sound quite of this earth. I could easily imagine the aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind emerging from their mothership to the first track Heller. It sounds soft, very feminine which is not something you’d expect from German techno. The tempo gets upped on the remaining tracks, Klang a more generic techno tune, albeit with a recognisable GAS sound palate and the only track on the EP to feature kick drums. The two tracks on the B-side follow the Heller formula, growing and expanding over the next fifteen minutes. 

Modern was followed a year later by the first self-titled GAS album on Mille Plateaux, and this stuck to what we’d already heard. A mixture of ambient tracks and those with kicks, it was one of the forerunners of the minimal genre that became hugely popular over the next few years. There’s definite shoots of the more familiar GAS sound here, and many people rate this albums lighter touch as their favourite of all of them. It’s always been fairly hard to find, and hence valuable on the second hand market (I spent almost £100 on my copy many years ago), so I’m glad it can be more widely available now. Arguably this is one of the handful of foundational electronic music albums, and set the tone for what was to come.

The GAS records most of us will know (and indeed my own first exposure to the music) came between 1997-2000 with the four classic releases, Zauberberg, Kongisforst, Pop and the Oktember 12”. Here Voigt builds on the formula he started on GAS, but adds historic German signifiers such as samples of classical music, folk music and pop tunes combined with the dubbier techno sounds already being experimented with in Berlin. The artwork for these four releases (and every release since) has followed a theme - close up of a canopy of trees in a forest, and that’s what the music sounds like - not necessarily being lost in a forest, but being closed in on all sides. I wouldn’t exactly call it claustrophobic, but it is total and all encompassing. Overall I guess you’d probably call the music dark or say that it gives you a sense of unease, but small leitmotifs and samples tend to break through at opportune moments, like sunlight breaking through the trees - none more so than on Pop.

I’m nowhere near expert enough on German Romanticism or Schlager music to explain these samples and put them in context, and I’m sure smarter folk than me have done that already. I’m not sure it needs my thoughts on what it means or says - ambiguity is fine and in this case why not let the music do the talking?

In 2016 we were treated to a reissue of Zauberberg, Konigsforst, Pop and Oktember (with a different track Tal 90 from an old Kompakt Total compilation on the B-side) all collected in a box set with an accompanying book of images shot by Voigt. A year later, and seventeen years since the last album came a new album Narkopop, followed a year later by Rausch. The last we heard from GAS was in 2021 with the release of Der Lange Marsch - the soundtrack to an art exhibition.

I’m not going to pick a favourite release - I love them all, Oktember has an intensity you can’t breathe in, whilst Konigsforst is exactly like being on a walk through a big forest. Pop is just pop, a lightness to the dark, a palate cleanser when sitting in for a long GAS session. The Nah und Fern 2LP/4CD box set is the closest thing there is to a GAS ‘Best Of’ featuring alternative takes and recordings of tracks from the first four albums, plus new material which makes it an essential (and expensive) purchase too.

If I’m perfectly honest, although the records sound immense on LP, it works better on CD or high-def download. Having to leap up every 25 minutes to change sides is a bit of a frustration, but those are some of the deepest most meditative minutes you’ll spend listening to music. Like the old Chris Morris sketch about Cake making “a second feel like a month” GAS is the same, time stops when you’re inhaling this music.

A few years ago I did a Breathwork session (coincidentally, the guy Stuart who ran it has just run a session for the England football team), and something I found really interesting about it was that the trainer puts you into a controlled panic state via your breathing, and by taking you to the edge of panic actually allows you to focus on your relaxation and calm you down. That’s a little how I experience GAS - it’s overwhelming and potentially terrifying, but you can use that to relax. I could sleep to this, the intensity of it bringing me into a calm state.

My recommendation - lose yourself in it, let it envelop you completely and succumb to its will. You won’t hear anything else like this. There’ll be an exit at some point, but if you’re anything like me you’ll head straight back into the trees - it’s addictive.

A Forest

On to this weeks new tunes then - a real mixed bag of stuff to listen to, plus some of my GAS favourites before that.

Rainfall Widens The Cracks In The Concrete - After Dark [Industrial Coast]

No digital on this one, and it’s mostly sold out already, but I was invited to produce a short story for the sleeve notes for this release on Industrial Coast. They’re a label I’ve admired for some time now for their absolute focus on putting on great experimental music nights in Middlesbrough as well as releasing some of the most interesting music that exists today. If you’re quick the Special Edition features a bonus cassette from my good pal Stonecirclesampler.

Mica Levi - slob air [Hyperdub]

Last year I went to the Nan Goldin exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam - one of the pieces (Memory Lost) was scored by Mica Levi and it was one of the most effecting artworks I’ve ever seen. This new track dropped yesterday and is also very good - there’s not many doing it better.

Ability II - Rediscovered [I9M]

Everyone knows Pressure Dub but here’s a whole slew of unheard/unreleased tunes from UK bleep techno don Ability II. I love this stuff, such a crucial take on UK electronic music that burned so very brightly for such a short period of time. It’s about time this kind of stuff got a revival isn’t it? Shout out Ben for the tip on this.

Loefah & Teklife - Jump Start [Teklife]

Sticking with that 90’s rave sound Swamp 81 man Loefah joins Teklife for this new one - close your eyes and this could have been released in 92, proper hard acid gear.

Like Weeds - Bog Standard [Brachliegen Tapes]

Noise, unsettling atmospherics, metal on metal. Sounds like being lost in a large abandoned industrial facility this. In other words, well up my street.

That’s it for this week - thankyou as ever for reading, sharing and subscribing. I’ll be back next Friday.