Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39436 in Music
• Released on: 2008-06-10
• Number of discs: 4
• Formats: Box set, Original recording remastered

Album Description
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), K"nigsforst (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 Sch"nberg 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 J"rg 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.

Customer Reviews

If you have any sense buy this now!
I have been waiting for this release and hoping that wolfgang voigt would remaster in my opinion some of the best ambient music on earth. This is Zauberberg,Konigsforst,Pop,and the self titled Gas releases in a cardboard box with sleeves for cases along with four case sized art prints of the cover with different shades of color. If you like what you hear on the samples you wont be dissapointed with the nice quality these cds give you. I listen to GAS music daily that is how good it is in my opinion. Wolfgang Voigt is trully a gifted artist and most anything on Kompakt label is good so check out their website and go to mp3s to hear samples. Take advantage of this while you can buy this now its a bargan!

Visionary Ambient Dub Techno
Wolfgang Voigt is one of the cofounders of the German techno imprint Kompakt, and if you're familiar with its glistening electronica (a dominant and defining force this decade) you will grab this remastered boxset. Voigt's GAS project of the mid-late 90s was essentially one of the most important antecedents of ambient dubstep, and is visionary, beautiful music. Nah Und Fern is one of the boxsets of the year, and one of the greatest electronic releases of this decade.

Nah und Fern
When Mille Plateaux kicked the bucket in 2004, the four Gas albums under its auspices--Gas (1996), Zauberberg (1998), Königsforst (1999) and Pop (2000)--went out of print and began to sell for unthinkable prices. I bought them anyhow, and repeatedly argued with myself over whether I'd made a stupid move. I was $300 poorer, but the music was so special that perhaps the price tags made some sort of weird sense. Luckily this will all be moot for anyone patient enough to hold out for Nah und Fern, a remastered four-disc set containing all of Gas's full-length output for about half of what one CD used to cost alone.

There's no better time for Kompakt (co-owned by Gas, née Wolfgang Voigt) to share this with the world. Ambient music is gaining momentum, and Voigt's thumbprint is all over the work of Olaf Dettinger, Markus Guentner, The Field's Axel Willner, Yagya's Aalsteinn Gumundsson, and nearly everyone on 12k. Regardless of its historical importance, Nah und Fern contains some of the most breathtaking music in the entire ambient electronic canon. Voigt took classical music from composers like Wagner and melted it down into a deep, rich liquid, distilling it to its sonic essence. Often he would add a muted 50 Hz kick drum--more dreamy than clubby--to push the tracks forward; ironically, this only reinforced their sense of endlessness. But the reason Gas's work stands tall among the fold is because it doesn't simply create an atmosphere; these rivers of sound possess such luxurious depth that they seem to penetrate the skin and move throughout the body, such that the music isn't just lovely or enjoyable--it's actually therapeutic. One decade and several thousand ambient albums later, it remains a singular experience.