V/A - Pop Ambient 2010

V/A - POP AMBIENT 2010 (Kompakt)

Both of the Kompakt compilation annual series have helped to cement the Koln-based label’s position as one of the premier exponents of electronic music today. Whilst it might be easy to merge Voigt and Mayer’s label in with the more nauseous aspects of hipster-minimal, the fact is that if you scratch below the polished sheen of many of the records they release, you’ll find music and ideas of significant substance. This compilation is the 10th, and follows the trend of featuring a selection of established artists and a handful of new ones.

Looking at the artists concerned, it’s hard not to be impressed by the ambient cogniscenti on offer. From the dusty Balearic vibe of Alex Paterson’s The Orb to legendary producer Wolfgang Voigt, these new compositions go a long way to confirming that this genre, which hasn’t really evolved much over the years, is still going strong. None of these tracks really delve too far from a central aesthetic which is predisposed towards soundtracking the bucolic hedonism of summer. Jorg Burger’s contribution as “Triola” on “Schildergasse” is perhaps endemic of this, featuring flickering melodies washing over a field recording. New Zealander Andrew Thomas, who releases an album on Kompakt in the Spring, follows the same path, hesitation and a sense of furtiveness being channelled through layers of static, washed over with a penumbral melody. The use of acoustic instrumentation, such as on Mikkel Metal’s “Blue Items” helps to colour the audio spectrum, but to my surprise many of these tracks ended up being somewhat forgettable, lacking in character and identity. One of the more lauded artists of last year, Brock Van Wey, opens and closes the album, and it’s a shame that his first seems to register only faintly.

Fortunately Voigt rescues matters somewhat with “Zither Und Horn”, demonstrating his unfailing ability to surprise and entertain. It’s reminsicent of “Ananas Symphonie” by pre-Autobahn era Kraftwerk, and true to all great pop songs, ending just as you want it to continue forever. Elsewhere DJ Koze’s “Bodenweich” is marvellously ambiguous, a simple interplay of double bass and piano being the root of a sinewy synth line that wraps itself around the rhythm. Like all Koze material, it’s full of ideas and energy. From thereon the album continues to go from strength to strength, Jurgen Paape’s “864M” mixing subtle rising horns and the odd clang of metallic percussion, and old hand Thomas Fehlmann conjures up some potent twilight ambience with the ease one would expect from him. As a statement of intent, Van Wey sees out the album with the 17 minute “Will You Know Where To Find Me?”, but I found it somewhat linear and only halfway through did his ideas seem to coalesce in something worthy of the grandeur afforded by such a timeframe.

For a 10th anniversary celebration I found this somewhat underwhelming, and it was only the presence of a few old hands that rescued this from being somewhat forgettable. Kompakt’s prodigious output means that we’ll no doubt have more of the same next year, and the quality will be punctuated by some brilliance, but this isn’t one of their better offerings of recent times.

Toby Frith