KOMPAKT - Forced Exposure

$15.50 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 9/24/2021

Total turns 21 this year, and Kompakt's venerable compilation series couldn't have asked for a more auspicious coming-of-age collection. If Total 20 was consolidation against the odds, the Kompakt crew producing for a dreamt-of dancefloor in an uncertain future, then Total 21 feels abuzz and alive with possibilities. Significantly, it's the first Total in some time that's streamlined down to a single disc; this makes Total 21 even punchier than usual, a joyous, reflective, and always thrilling 75-minute audio scan of the world according to Kompakt. As with every instalment of Total, there's a deft balancing here of Kompakt regulars and new blood. Of the latter, there's a first appearance by Kollmorgen, remixed by Patrice Bäumel into an astral torch song; Amsterdam's Nicky Elisabeth, offering up Roman Flügel's pulsating, arpeggiated remix of "Celeste"; and Captain Mustache swoops down into view, Play Paul in tow, with the dream-like electro lift-off that is "Everything". Jonathan Kaspar also drops by with a new track, "Von Draussen", a stealthy and lethal floor-hugger with prowling bass. Elsewhere, there's the lead track to Michael Mayer's astonishing recent EP, Brainwave Technology, which not-so-gently spears the tech-futurist babble of AI, transhumanism and posthumanism, soundtracked by one of Mayer's typically lush, glimmering soundscapes. John Tejada reaches back to the heyday of glitch and dub techno with the gorgeous "Spectral Progressions", while the brothers Voigt & Voigt, on "Nicht Mein Job", seem reinvigorated by the interwoven patterns and funky minimalism of the Profan days. Not to be outdone, Jürgen Paape kicks Total 21 with "La Guittara Romantica", a chiming and lilting lullaby for woozy late-night reflection. Throughout, it feels as though Kompakt are taking a moment to both breathe in the dust of the past and look forward to a bright future. Perhaps that's why, on "Fasson", Sascha Funke seems so confident, with pinprick melodies bouncing around a hall of audio mirrors, or why The Bionaut returns with "Blue Sky Motor Lodge", a song so moistly melancholy, so enduringly lovely, it'll make you weep tears of joy. Robag Wruhme gets a little delirious on the ticking, twisting "No", and then Gui Boratto mops everything up with the bubbling, bumping glam-stomp "Wake Up".

$34.00 IN STOCK

Over the past decade, Egyptian-born, Barcelona-based DJ and techno producer Raxon, known to friends and family as Ahmed Raxon, has popped out a steady stream of twelve-inch singles, precision-tooled, for labels like Cocoon, Drumcode, Diynamic, Truesoul, and Ellum Audio. An alumni of Kompakt's Speicher series, with Sound Of Mind, Raxon has produced a long-awaited debut album that's ready and aching both for the dancefloor and the boudoir, traversing the heat of the club and the warmth of the home. "The idea of an album has always floated around in my head for the past few years," Raxon confirms, "but it was never the right moment in my mind." Instead, he's been insistently pursuing his vision of deep, elegant techno, taking him from early DJ gigs in Dubai, including the legendary audio tonic night, then relocating to Europe on the recommendation of Herman Cattaneo, all the while allowing his experiences to inform and transmute his producer's thumbprint. He's an architect by training (though he gave architecture up for electronic music), which might explain why Raxon productions are so sturdy and well-designed; but remember also that architecture is a field filled with brave experimentation, something Raxon definitely draws on throughout Sound Of Mind. Like many albums from 2020 and 2021, Raxon's debut developed partly thanks to the unique social situation the planet has found itself caught within. "In the beginning of 2020 I started working on a few tracks with the album in mind," he recalls, "with no idea of what's to come in the next few months. As catastrophic as the situation was/is, I found myself in the studio; in a way the lockdown gave me that creative freedom in the studio, [to] try to tell my story through sound." Raxon's productions pay subtle homage, perhaps, to his formative listening experiences in the late nineties. It's no retro trip, but there's plenty of variety here, and a few moments that'll tickle the collective memory -- see the prowling pulsations of the opening "Majestic", the alien breakbeat action of "Vice" and "Journey Mode", where the interstellar tones feel like Foul Play or Steve Gurley, the leaking gas and woozy keys that make "Droid Solo" so subtly destabilizing, or the strobe light drones that sputter and flare throughout "El Multiverse", where dappled organ tones fight it out with interdimensional transmissions, all sucked into the vortex of a late-night techno mantra. Beautifully sculpted, Sound Of Mind feels consummate, an elegant set that pulls Raxon's vision into its sharpest focus. Includes download.

$34.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 9/24/2021

Double LP version. Total turns 21 this year, and Kompakt's venerable compilation series couldn't have asked for a more auspicious coming-of-age collection. If Total 20 was consolidation against the odds, the Kompakt crew producing for a dreamt-of dancefloor in an uncertain future, then Total 21 feels abuzz and alive with possibilities. Significantly, it's the first Total in some time that's streamlined down to a single disc; this makes Total 21 even punchier than usual, a joyous, reflective, and always thrilling 75-minute audio scan of the world according to Kompakt. As with every instalment of Total, there's a deft balancing here of Kompakt regulars and new blood. Of the latter, there's a first appearance by Kollmorgen, remixed by Patrice Bäumel into an astral torch song; Amsterdam's Nicky Elisabeth, offering up Roman Flügel's pulsating, arpeggiated remix of "Celeste"; and Captain Mustache swoops down into view, Play Paul in tow, with the dream-like electro lift-off that is "Everything". Jonathan Kaspar also drops by with a new track, "Von Draussen", a stealthy and lethal floor-hugger with prowling bass. Elsewhere, there's the lead track to Michael Mayer's astonishing recent EP, Brainwave Technology, which not-so-gently spears the tech-futurist babble of AI, transhumanism and posthumanism, soundtracked by one of Mayer's typically lush, glimmering soundscapes. John Tejada reaches back to the heyday of glitch and dub techno with the gorgeous "Spectral Progressions", while the brothers Voigt & Voigt, on "Nicht Mein Job", seem reinvigorated by the interwoven patterns and funky minimalism of the Profan days. Not to be outdone, Jürgen Paape kicks Total 21 with "La Guittara Romantica", a chiming and lilting lullaby for woozy late-night reflection. Throughout, it feels as though Kompakt are taking a moment to both breathe in the dust of the past and look forward to a bright future. Perhaps that's why, on "Fasson", Sascha Funke seems so confident, with pinprick melodies bouncing around a hall of audio mirrors, or why The Bionaut returns with "Blue Sky Motor Lodge", a song so moistly melancholy, so enduringly lovely, it'll make you weep tears of joy. Robag Wruhme gets a little delirious on the ticking, twisting "No", and then Gui Boratto mops everything up with the bubbling, bumping glam-stomp "Wake Up". Double LP version includes two vinyl-only tracks by Michael Mayer and Marc Romboy & C.A.R.; includes download with full CD track list.

$31.50 IN STOCK

Melt is the debut full-length album by Blank Gloss, the Sacramento duo of Patrick Hills and Morgan Fox. Attentive listeners will recall their lovely contribution to Kompakt's Pop Ambient 2021, "Of A Vessel", which reappears here; others might know their 2020 mini-album, January, released on the stylish Miami label, Night Young. With Melt, Blank Gloss make a heavy contribution to Kompakt's ongoing explorations of the hundreds of hues of Pop Ambience. A lush dream of an album, it's a remarkable index of the gilded eternities that you can magic from a reduced tonal palette: glistening guitars, ruminative piano, warps and weaves of subtle drone and hum. The two members of Blank Gloss met through their shared involvement in punk and experimental music. Fox's band had recorded at Hills' Earthtone studio a number of times; they hit it off and made the decision to explore making music together. Their initial explorations resulted in their mini-album, January; for Melt, they aimed for something more minimal and improvised. Choosing not to spend too much time hyper-focused on any one thing freed Fox and Hills to make music that's guided by intuition, inhabiting the moment and reaching for the next surprising possibility. The long reels of e-bow guitar that wind through opener "Those Who Plant" ease the listener into an album that says plenty by doing less: witness the dream scripts that play out through pieces like "Hollowed Out" and "Of A Vessel", the gentle weightlessness of "Almost Home", or the clusters of guitar, expressive yet restrained, that sculpt "Rags" into being. It's an album that feels sui generis, somehow, much as it clearly sits within a number of fields -- pop ambient, touches of new age and drone music. Some provisional clues, though, for music that echoes Melt's loveliness: the humble ambience of the artists on Cold Blue Music; the eventless horizon of Bark Psychosis' "Pendulum Man"; the emotive pointillism of Labradford; some of the snippets of song that drift through Pieter Nooten and Michael Brook's Sleeps With The Fishes. Like all of this music, Melt embraces a radical ambiguity, one that allows the listener to enter the frame and inhabit the corners of the duo's music. There's pleasure and joy here too, of course -- you can hear it in the ease of the playing and the beauty of the melodies that Blank Gloss carefully dapple across the tonal field. Clear vinyl; includes download code.

$18.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

Dearly beloved, we are gathered together to celebrate the long-awaited matrimony of the DJ and dancer. For many of us, the summer of 2021 appears to be the occasion we have waited for more than a year. And who other than Robag Wruhme to commemorate the soundtrack to this once in a lifetime experience. He makes a return to Kompakt Extra's seemingly endless series Speicher. But is it a follow up to his Speicher 115 of last year? That is a firm "No" though is preceded by a "Yes" so perhaps it should just be left as a big maybe? It really has no matter in the end when the music is just perfect for this moment. Before you get overwhelmed with emotion, flip that record over and escape to the "Frontex Frappant". Robag Wruhme provides his signature peak time dexterity, making a solid strike to protect the border between unity and redemption.

$32.00 NOT IN STOCK

2020 repress. Originally released in 2012 on Kompakt. WhoMadeWho may lack a question mark after their name, but their music will certainly have you asking after them. The Copenhagen based collective is difficult to pin down, but their music sounds as effortless as it is stylistically and sonically adventurous. Having formed in 2003, the genre-bending trio made up of Jeppe Kjellberg, Tomas Høffding, and Tomas Barfod honed their skills on stage and in the studio, releasing a series of bestselling records on Munich based Gomma label and topped off by their Kompakt released 2011 mini album Knee Deep. They remain one of Europe's most cherished live acts -- performing alongside the likes of LCD Soundsystem, Daft Punk, Azari & III they are found as staples of the summer festival circuit with a breakthrough performance in 2011 at the legendary Roskilde festival. It must be said that Josh Homme of Queens Of The Stone Age loves the band so much that he even did a cover of "Space For Rent". WhoMadeWho have truly succeeded on their mission to eschew convention. Fusing pop and disco memes with punk paraphernalia, they released Brighter in 2012. The album operates as the missing link between the radical playfulness of the band's previous full-length The Plot and the introspective focus of Knee Deep, bridging their early work with a newly founded sense of sincerity and musicianship. "The Sun" has already proved itself as a crowd favorite with the band; cocky, bold and catchy this is the hymn that fans new and old will be screaming to over the summer months. "Below The Cherry Moon" submerges the band in pop perfection revealing a matured depth and lyrical brilliance. Other songs on "Brighter" such as "Inside World", the hard-hitting "Never Had The Time" or existentialist groove study "Running Man" feature the accessibility as well as the edginess that describe both ends of the same passion: Jeppe Kjellberg's characteristic vocal hit the pop-nerve in the verses while Tomas Høffding's soft falsetto holds the song together, giving the album its constantly evolving flow. Clearly, the band members never settled for streamlined mediocrity, but keep looking for those dark spots on their own map that demand to be conquered, thus churning out another instant classic that will rule our hearts and minds.

$15.50 IN STOCK

With his new album, Year Of The Living Dead, Vienna-born and LA-based producer John Tejada finds a blissful extended moment of balance between the new and the familiar. Anyone who's followed his career to date, which has included four previous albums for Kompakt, outings for storied labels like Plug Research, Playhouse, and Cocoon and numerous remixes and collaborations -- most recently, his Wajatta duo with actor and musician Reggie Watts -- will immediately sense the warmth and eloquence that Tejada brings to his gilded, pliant techno and electro hybrids. But there's more here, too; an explorer's glimmer in the producer's eye, as he gets to grips with new ways of working and being, while offering a reflective opening for the listener, something echoed in artwork by graphic designer and "contemplative artist" David Grey. "The album was started using tools I was unfamiliar with, which became an interesting exploratory process," Tejada says. "Staying away from the obvious and having to re-learn simple things was a fun challenge." You can hear these new creative pulsations pushing the eight tracks on Year Of The Living Dead ever-forward; the album has an unique cast, and though there are trace elements of the genres Tejada has indulged previously, he's never quite put them together this way before. There's the dubwise glitter sprinkled across the moody opener "The Haunting Of Earth", the kind caresses found amongst the deftly woven textures of "Sheltered", and the churchy melancholy, all hymnal and golden, of "Echoes Of Life". Year Of The Living Dead also speaks obliquely to its moment, though Tejada works this implicitly, allowing the strange circumstances of 2020 to cast their inevitable shadow without being obvious or didactic. "The production process began right before lockdown and continued through what felt like a very serious time for all of us," he recalls. "Not being able to see or touch our loved ones made me feel we are all like ghosts. We can observe from a distance but cannot really be there. We are isolated and alone." And yet, Year Of The Living Dead's tenderness offers an out for that anxiety and loneliness, its intimate immensities gifting the album a redemptive and compassionate core. Compact and glistening, Year Of The Living Dead sculpts unassuming beauty.

$31.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

Double LP version. Includes download. With his new album, Year Of The Living Dead, Vienna-born and LA-based producer John Tejada finds a blissful extended moment of balance between the new and the familiar. Anyone who's followed his career to date, which has included four previous albums for Kompakt, outings for storied labels like Plug Research, Playhouse, and Cocoon and numerous remixes and collaborations -- most recently, his Wajatta duo with actor and musician Reggie Watts -- will immediately sense the warmth and eloquence that Tejada brings to his gilded, pliant techno and electro hybrids. But there's more here, too; an explorer's glimmer in the producer's eye, as he gets to grips with new ways of working and being, while offering a reflective opening for the listener, something echoed in artwork by graphic designer and "contemplative artist" David Grey. "The album was started using tools I was unfamiliar with, which became an interesting exploratory process," Tejada says. "Staying away from the obvious and having to re-learn simple things was a fun challenge." You can hear these new creative pulsations pushing the eight tracks on Year Of The Living Dead ever-forward; the album has an unique cast, and though there are trace elements of the genres Tejada has indulged previously, he's never quite put them together this way before. There's the dubwise glitter sprinkled across the moody opener "The Haunting Of Earth", the kind caresses found amongst the deftly woven textures of "Sheltered", and the churchy melancholy, all hymnal and golden, of "Echoes Of Life". Year Of The Living Dead also speaks obliquely to its moment, though Tejada works this implicitly, allowing the strange circumstances of 2020 to cast their inevitable shadow without being obvious or didactic. "The production process began right before lockdown and continued through what felt like a very serious time for all of us," he recalls. "Not being able to see or touch our loved ones made me feel we are all like ghosts. We can observe from a distance but cannot really be there. We are isolated and alone." And yet, Year Of The Living Dead's tenderness offers an out for that anxiety and loneliness, its intimate immensities gifting the album a redemptive and compassionate core. Compact and glistening, Year Of The Living Dead sculpts unassuming beauty.

$29.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

LP version. For Böser Herbst, Thomas Fehlmann returns to the sediment of ages, drawing from a similar lexicon of sounds to that used on 2018's 1929 - Das Jahr Babylon (KOMP 153CD/KOM 401LP). Like that album, Böser Herbst was produced as the soundtrack to a documentary made by Volker Heise, Herbst 1929, Schatten Über Babylon, which offers historical insight to the third season of the television series, Babylon Berlin. It adds yet another string to the bow of this most forward-thinking and creative artist, whose history takes in NDW (Palais Schaumburg), techno (3MB) and psychedelic ambience (The Orb), plus a clutch of gorgeous solo albums that explore wide terrain, from the dancefloor through supine home listening to compelling soundtrack work. Fehlmann's approach here was to "capture" samples of contemporaneous music, "picking up the dirt and dust of original 1920s archive sound and music excerpts and shaping the essence into this selection of tunes," he recalls. After delivering the material to the editing room, Fehlmann "threw all the pieces up in the air, deliberately lost the overview in consequence, researched the atmospheric thread and assembled it for this album." That explains the singular nature of the material here, and its ability to sit together so neatly and discretely, as its own entity. For Böser Herbst is a music box of possibilities, shadowed by its historical provenance, but never crudely beholden to it, rather "keeping the references only as a distant nod, a scent." It's certainly an evocative listen, a cornucopia of textural pleasure and sensual, tactile assemblage. The spiraling, psychedelic cycle of "Karnickel" winds its way between the ears like thread to the needle; "Mit Ausblick" immerses the listener in deep, gaseous tones, only to be lifted into the air by the glassy drones of "Umarmt". "Wunschwechsler" crackles with the unpredictability of weather systems while a guitar-like loop unspools across the horizon. Throughout, you can catch tiny tastes of the source material, but they're pressed into greater service, Fehlmann using these sources for their evocative capacity and then saturating them with grain and rumble, abstracting outwards. It's a music of temporal disjuncture and clairvoyant resonance, "speaking with the past -- alert, distant and quixotic."

$15.50 NOT IN STOCK

For Böser Herbst, Thomas Fehlmann returns to the sediment of ages, drawing from a similar lexicon of sounds to that used on 2018's 1929 - Das Jahr Babylon (KOMP 153CD/KOM 401LP). Like that album, Böser Herbst was produced as the soundtrack to a documentary made by Volker Heise, Herbst 1929, Schatten Über Babylon, which offers historical insight to the third season of the television series, Babylon Berlin. It adds yet another string to the bow of this most forward-thinking and creative artist, whose history takes in NDW (Palais Schaumburg), techno (3MB) and psychedelic ambience (The Orb), plus a clutch of gorgeous solo albums that explore wide terrain, from the dancefloor through supine home listening to compelling soundtrack work. Fehlmann's approach here was to "capture" samples of contemporaneous music, "picking up the dirt and dust of original 1920s archive sound and music excerpts and shaping the essence into this selection of tunes," he recalls. After delivering the material to the editing room, Fehlmann "threw all the pieces up in the air, deliberately lost the overview in consequence, researched the atmospheric thread and assembled it for this album." That explains the singular nature of the material here, and its ability to sit together so neatly and discretely, as its own entity. For Böser Herbst is a music box of possibilities, shadowed by its historical provenance, but never crudely beholden to it, rather "keeping the references only as a distant nod, a scent." It's certainly an evocative listen, a cornucopia of textural pleasure and sensual, tactile assemblage. The spiraling, psychedelic cycle of "Karnickel" winds its way between the ears like thread to the needle; "Mit Ausblick" immerses the listener in deep, gaseous tones, only to be lifted into the air by the glassy drones of "Umarmt". "Wunschwechsler" crackles with the unpredictability of weather systems while a guitar-like loop unspools across the horizon. Throughout, you can catch tiny tastes of the source material, but they're pressed into greater service, Fehlmann using these sources for their evocative capacity and then saturating them with grain and rumble, abstracting outwards. It's a music of temporal disjuncture and clairvoyant resonance, "speaking with the past -- alert, distant and quixotic."

$16.50 NOT IN STOCK

2021 repress. This is a re-release of Blond, originally released in 1998 on Kompakt. His father used to be an electrician. Twenty-something years after leaving the cradle, he lets his lifelong-influence show with a superb debut single that will convince all minimal lovers with its subtle charm and dreamy ambience. Blond is the prototype of a Kompakt EP. Two tracks ambient, two for the floor.

$31.00 IN STOCK

2021 repress. Originally released in 2010 on Kompakt. Thomas Fehlmann remains as one of the most endearing and respected artists on Kompakt. He has inspired generations of fans and musicians over the course of his 30+ year career, from his early days as part of the legendary band Palais Schaumburg, and the pioneering Detroit/Berlin act 3mb (with Juan Atkins and Moritz Von Oswald), to his longstanding membership with The Orb, combined with his contributions as a solo artist to esteemed imprints R&S, Plug Research, and of course Kompakt. Gute Luft is the result of months of work scoring the hit German TV film 24h Berlin -- the longest documentary film in history which featured 80 camera teams following the lives of Berliners over a 24-hour period. Obviously, a huge challenge for Fehlmann, beyond the scope of the project and hours of music involved in a 24-hour film, there was dealing with the decision-making process that went with working with such a large production team. As he shared scoring duties with another musician (separately), inevitably a lot of his music ended up not making the final cut. Gute Luft is about re-tweaking and editing material from the countless hours of recording he had created. In a sense, Gute Luft is Fehlmann's ideal soundtrack to the 24h Berlin documentary. Fans shall rejoice as Thomas Fehlmann doesn't steer far from his signature path of trailblazing the finer links of classic Detroit house and techno with the submerged beauty of Berlin dub. One will immediately recognize the classic scoring techniques Fehlmann brings to Gute Luft -- various themes and sounds resonate in various forms and versions throughout the tracks. Fehlmann succeeds in synergizing the best of the past 20 years of Berlin's expansive history of electronic and dance music with Gute Luft. A recreational album in every way in which he hopes will make you "feel at peace with you and your environment, inspire you to lush, imaginative dinners, make babies, or just walk your own way with open eyes." Well put Thomas!

$14.50 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 2/5/2021

2020 repress. Originally released in 2004 on Kompakt Extra. Here we are again. In the middle of life. Those rituals of the urbans in summer are so oddly affecting. There is a comprehensive offering of wonderful periphrases and comparisons coming up. And we have chosen and decided: What happens outside, on innocent Sun-, Mon- or Whatever-days afternoons under the sun from Wherever, pent-up between several towers of speakers, mostly resembles to the droll ado on a baboon rock. The males and females, always striking weird poses and grimaces, sometimes hilariously romping out of the group, sometimes scratching their forehead, yelling, racing, delousing, making love and so on. These things are totally obvious for us. There is no difference. If you want to know it precisely check out papa's bookcase, in Brehm's Animal Life under B like baboon. It's right that we only clambered a few steps of the evolution ladder, but who promises us, that it gets even better upstairs?

$14.50 LOW STOCK LEVEL

2021 repress. Originally released in 2002 on Kompakt Extra. Two of Kompakt's most prolific artists appear on this split 12" and they both have moved away from the typical Kompakt minimalism (for this 12", that is) to show the world that pure raving techno can also come from Cologne. Mayer's "Pride Is Weaker Than Love" (updated title) versus Reinhard Voigt's "Supertiel" are a bow down before the bassdrum and their straight forward 4/4 beats. This is made to make the dancefloors burn, so rave on!

$37.50 IN STOCK

The story's been told before, though perhaps it hasn't been documented as well as it should have been: a group of young producers in Germany were knocked out by acid tracks, and in particular, the UK's acid house moment, convinced by the way it negotiated pop's pleasure and dancing's drive. Across the turn of the decade, The Bionaut's Jörg Burger, alongside friends and peers Wolfgang Voigt, Ingmar Koch, Cem Oral, Andreas Bolz, and Gregor Luttermann, would produce a dizzying number of tracks under a mountain of pseudonyms. 1992 was a turning point for Burger. Moving between Frankfurt and Cologne, Burger produced Everybody's Kissing Everyone with one eye on the dancefloor, the other on the lounge room. The productions from these fruitful sessions share a glam pop element, even at their most supine, with Burger returning to his pop roots. This was a running theme across the '90s, as he released a stretch of pop-electronica albums and EPs as The Bionaut and The Modernist. Vivid and welcoming, precision-tooled for the dancefloor, dewy-eyed and humbly melancholy, The Bionaut's productions manage to make risk and experimentation welcoming, joyous -- the inverse of so much studious experimental music. Talking about his productions as The Bionaut, Burger uses the term "metapop" to explain his music, and that's a perfect way of thinking about what he does -- it's at once pop and beyond pop, with a knowingness that gleefully ransacks pop's history. You can hear, in the seven tracks on Everybody's Kissing Everyone, reflections of UK acid house, the spiraling squelch of Chicago acid tracks, the lilting lightness of pop-trance, but the connecting force is a lushness of tone and richness of melody that points forward to the pop-tronica of later Bionaut. Here, Burger takes a snapshot of that precise middle-point between the dancefloor and the bedroom and colors it in both primaries and pastels. It's a most elegant swoon. Includes liner notes. Includes download code with two unreleased bonus tracks. Yellow marbled vinyl.

$31.00 NOT IN STOCK

Double LP version. Kompakt welcomes back Copenhagen's WhoMadeWho. Tomas Barfod's penchant for electronic music poetically juxtaposed with Tomas Høffding and Jeppe Kjellberg's respective backgrounds in rock and jazz, gives their music an electrifying combination of sounds, merging a variety of influences to produce a unique sonic fingerprint that is emotive, irresistible and immensely satisfying. Though they have yet to strike a note together since the release of their 2012 full length Brighter (KOM 254LP/KOMP 097CD, 2012), WhoMadeWho have been remarkably productive. With two full-lengths, a DJ mix for Watergate's series (WG 026CD), the trio have found themselves diving more and more into the world of electronic music, tapping into their goldmine of connections within the scene to spearhead an array of collaborations. Synchronicity is all about "meaningful coincidences" -- bringing interpretation to bear on connections that have no actual causal relationship. It's a canny concept to pin onto Copenhagen trio WhoMadeWho's latest album, which sees them return to Kompakt for the first time since 2012's Brighter. On Synchronicity, WhoMadeWho call on friends old and new: Michael Mayer, Echonomist, Adana Twins, Alex Boman, Robag Wruhme, Frank Wiedemann, Sainte Vie, Mano Le Tough, Marc Piñol, Rebolledo, and Perel is the cast list; WhoMadeWho direct the material, shaping it into one lovingly flowing gem of dance-pop glory. There's something particularly generous about hearing an album as all-inclusive and open-hearted as Synchronicity in the midst of the profound social and cultural shifts everyone is currently experiencing. While some songs on Synchronicity were recorded together, in real time, such as the collaborations with Adana Twins and Rebolledo, most of them have taken place via long distance, thanks to the pandemic lockdown. But you don't need to know who was where to understand either the magnesium-flare melancholy of "Sooner", recorded with Piñol, which has you holding your breath with the gentle thrill of the song's lush melody, or the stomping strut of the following Adana Twins collaboration, "Shadow Of Doubt". Elsewhere, there's the stentorian robot voice at the heart of "Hamstring", where they're joined by Michael Mayer; the lustrous headsoak of "Twenty Tears", a tender intervention by Rebolledo; the strip-light, slow-motion disco strut of "Cecil", produced alongside Echonomist; or the glittering, arpeggio dreamwork that Perel helps sculpt into shape on "Der Abend Birgt Keine Ruh". From pop revelations to dancefloor delirium to slow-burning brooders, Synchronicity is a space for the joys of the unexpected to collide.

$15.50 IN STOCK

Königsforst -- following the 1997 release of Zauberberg (KOM 370-1LP), Wolfgang Voigt's GAS project returned with Königsforst in 1998, a full-length that has stood the test of time as a template for introducing fundamentals of '90s techno into the principles of contemporary electronic music. Originally released in 1998 on the iconic Frankfurt imprint Mille Plateaux, and then reissued in 2016 as a part of GAS Box (KOM 370LP), Königsforst is now released on Voigt's own label, Kompakt, on CD in its original artwork. Königsforst brings glimmers of light into Voigt's dark, magnificent forest. Melodic strings and brass are added to his signature layers of ominous intensity. The forest path is laid out by muffled kick drums as classical music loops incessantly swirl with no direction.

$15.50 IN STOCK

Zauberberg -- Wolfgang Voigt's most fundamental (and foreboding) release under his alias GAS and perhaps of all in his untold discography -- finally stands alone once again and is released in the way its original splendor. Originally released in 1997 on the iconic Frankfurt imprint Mille Plateaux, and then reissued in 2016 as a part of GAS Box (KOM 370LP, 2016), Zauberberg is now released on CD on his own label, Kompakt. Though this narcotic symphony is not the first release under the GAS moniker, Zauberberg is the first to disclose the true nature of Wolfgang Voigt's unified sound and ideology as GAS. Layers of ominous intensity supported by muffled kick drums as classical music loops incessantly swirl with no direction, Zauberberg is the definitive GAS album and a perfect starting point for those not familiar with his music.

$15.50 IN STOCK

Pop -- the album that has become widely recognized as the defining moment in which Wolfgang Voigt brought his listeners into a clearing of his deep, psychedelic forest. A landmark release in the GAS odyssey that drew international attention, Pop was originally released in 2000 on the iconic Frankfurt imprint, Mille Plateux. Pop was heralded by Pitchfork at the time of release as being "an exercise in sonic texture... pure sonic velvet, the layered drone radiating a palpable warmth." Pop was reissued by Kompakt in 2016 as a part of GAS Box (now out of print) and finally now, Pop is released on Kompakt -- for the first time on CD in its original artwork.

$28.50 NOT IN STOCK

LP version. Includes download with full CD track listing. LP version features Blank Gloss, Yui Onodera, Thore Pfeiffer, Morgen Wurde, Reich & Würden, Neozaïre, Joachim Spieth & Pepo Galán, Max Würden, and Leandro Fresco & Thore Pfeiffer. It's 2020, the year Pop Ambient turns twenty-one years old, a spritely young adult waltzing out of its teenage joys and tears. Pop Ambient has always stood for a certain classicism and elegance, a kind of beatless music that's diaphanous and hazy, gossamer and glittering. For twenty-one years, Kompakt co-founder Wolfgang Voigt has curated a series of peerless compilations that repeatedly find refreshing answers to a simple question: What happens when the dancefloor is empty, and everyone's home to drift away? As with many other Pop Ambient compilations, Pop Ambient 2021 offers a welcome platform to contributions from both old friends and new faces. It opens with the gorgeous, slo-mo drift of "Of A Vessel", from new Kompakt signings Blank Gloss. Sending their music out into the world from their home in Sacramento, this duo makes music that's featherlight and luscious, the muted chime of a guitar over here, the steady hum of a halatial drone. Neozaïre and Seventh World are two additional new voices, the latter closing Pop Ambient 2021 with a long, lambent dreamsong, Neozaïre offering two gaseous, morphing driftworks, "In Verschwenderischer Fülle" etched across with bell-like arpeggios. Pop Ambient has always felt like a field for play for the Kompakt cognoscenti, and 2021 is no different, with Joachim Spieth collaborating with Pepo Galán on the sidereal visions of "Libration", while Leandro Fresco teams up with Thore Pfeiffer on the lovely "Abejorro". Pfeiffer also contributes two lovely solo miniatures of abstract longing. Yui Onodera calls in again, long distance, for their fourth Pop Ambient running, with the refracted, glinting lightscapes of "Cromo 5" and "Monochrome", while there are also star turns from Max Würden, both solo and in Reich & Würden, and Morgen Wurde, who drops by with the "ethereal drama" of "Mittsommer". Pop Ambient gets the balance right: visions and soundscapes, long-distance communications and intimate asides, sweetness and light, drama and dreaming, all wrapped up in floral abstractions -- a most beautiful distraction.

$27.50 IN STOCK

Videosphere, the debut album by the London-based artist Lake Turner (aka Andrew Halford), swoons into focus with "The Sunbird", a teasing drift of lilting, ambient tones, riding out a submerged piston-pulse rhythm. Across its brief 109 seconds, it manages to traverse evocative terrain --something mythopoetic, something both humble and grandiose, a glimpse of the other behind the sky's curtain. It's both sky-bound and earthen, a ritual incantation to call in the music of the spheres. Turner was introduced to the Kompakt family by his sometime collaborator Yannis Philippakis of Foals. He'd previously made music in post-punk and indie groups Great Eskimo Hoax and Trophy Wife, but Videosphere is the first time he's fully articulated his own vision of electronic music, aside from one limited lathe-cut 12", 2018's Prime Mover EP, on Algebra. The lush ambient-disco-techno dreams of Videosphere were constructed and completed in his London studio and at his parents' arable and sheep farm in Worcestershire, which might help explain the hazy, unhurried pastoralism of the album. A student of archaeology and ancient history, Turner is no doubt carefully attuned to the twisting cogs of history and memory, and it's no surprise that Videosphere has a nostalgic, melancholic cast; much of its beauty rests in the way it tugs, gently, at the heart strings. It's not all drift-dream hypnosis, though -- Videosphere is very much grounded in the now. "'No Way Back Forever' is a nod to the linear nature of time," Turner explains by way of example, "and the tipping point of the world climate crisis that scientists have now declared." Jayne Powell's vocals are sent spinning through the song, wound like candyfloss; she takes center stage on the techno hymnal title track, too. Throughout, there's a sense of forward movement, despite the life stasis we find ourselves collectively bound by in mid-2020; there's also a yearning for the communal, for community, that's captured in the album title, a nod to an object Turner encountered at London's Geoffrey Museum, "a television set in the shape of a spaceman's helmet from the 1970s." "The vision I loosely had was to make an electronic record that had a communal warmth and almost ceremonial or ritual feel. I wanted to examine the relationship of our archaic minds in the trappings of the modern world," Turner concludes. "What the Videosphere also symbolizes for me is the oneness of humanity and community, prevailing."

$15.50 LOW STOCK LEVEL

It's 2020, the year Pop Ambient turns twenty-one years old, a spritely young adult waltzing out of its teenage joys and tears. Pop Ambient has always stood for a certain classicism and elegance, a kind of beatless music that's diaphanous and hazy, gossamer and glittering. For twenty-one years, Kompakt co-founder Wolfgang Voigt has curated a series of peerless compilations that repeatedly find refreshing answers to a simple question: What happens when the dancefloor is empty, and everyone's home to drift away? As with many other Pop Ambient compilations, Pop Ambient 2021 offers a welcome platform to contributions from both old friends and new faces. It opens with the gorgeous, slo-mo drift of "Of A Vessel", from new Kompakt signings Blank Gloss. Sending their music out into the world from their home in Sacramento, this duo makes music that's featherlight and luscious, the muted chime of a guitar over here, the steady hum of a halatial drone. Neozaïre and Seventh World are two additional new voices, the latter closing Pop Ambient 2021 with a long, lambent dreamsong, Neozaïre offering two gaseous, morphing driftworks, "In Verschwenderischer Fülle" etched across with bell-like arpeggios. Pop Ambient has always felt like a field for play for the Kompakt cognoscenti, and 2021 is no different, with Joachim Spieth collaborating with Pepo Galán on the sidereal visions of "Libration", while Leandro Fresco teams up with Thore Pfeiffer on the lovely "Abejorro". Pfeiffer also contributes two lovely solo miniatures of abstract longing. Yui Onodera calls in again, long distance, for their fourth Pop Ambient running, with the refracted, glinting lightscapes of "Cromo 5" and "Monochrome", while there are also star turns from Max Würden, both solo and in Reich & Würden, and Morgen Wurde, who drops by with the "ethereal drama" of "Mittsommer". Pop Ambient gets the balance right: visions and soundscapes, long-distance communications and intimate asides, sweetness and light, drama and dreaming, all wrapped up in floral abstractions -- a most beautiful distraction.

CD version features Blank Gloss, Yui Onodera, Thore Pfeiffer, Morgen Wurde, Reich & Würden, Neozaïre, Joachim Spieth & Pepo Galán, Max Würden, Leandro Fresco & Thore Pfeiffer, and Seventh World.

$15.50 IN STOCK

Kompakt welcomes back Copenhagen's WhoMadeWho. Tomas Barfod's penchant for electronic music poetically juxtaposed with Tomas Høffding and Jeppe Kjellberg's respective backgrounds in rock and jazz, gives their music an electrifying combination of sounds, merging a variety of influences to produce a unique sonic fingerprint that is emotive, irresistible and immensely satisfying. Though they have yet to strike a note together since the release of their 2012 full length Brighter (KOM 254LP/KOMP 097CD, 2012), WhoMadeWho have been remarkably productive. With two full-lengths, a DJ mix for Watergate's series (WG 026CD), the trio have found themselves diving more and more into the world of electronic music, tapping into their goldmine of connections within the scene to spearhead an array of collaborations. Synchronicity is all about "meaningful coincidences" -- bringing interpretation to bear on connections that have no actual causal relationship. It's a canny concept to pin onto Copenhagen trio WhoMadeWho's latest album, which sees them return to Kompakt for the first time since 2012's Brighter. On Synchronicity, WhoMadeWho call on friends old and new: Michael Mayer, Echonomist, Adana Twins, Alex Boman, Robag Wruhme, Frank Wiedemann, Sainte Vie, Mano Le Tough, Marc Piñol, Rebolledo, and Perel is the cast list; WhoMadeWho direct the material, shaping it into one lovingly flowing gem of dance-pop glory. There's something particularly generous about hearing an album as all-inclusive and open-hearted as Synchronicity in the midst of the profound social and cultural shifts everyone is currently experiencing. While some songs on Synchronicity were recorded together, in real time, such as the collaborations with Adana Twins and Rebolledo, most of them have taken place via long distance, thanks to the pandemic lockdown. But you don't need to know who was where to understand either the magnesium-flare melancholy of "Sooner", recorded with Piñol, which has you holding your breath with the gentle thrill of the song's lush melody, or the stomping strut of the following Adana Twins collaboration, "Shadow Of Doubt". Elsewhere, there's the stentorian robot voice at the heart of "Hamstring", where they're joined by Michael Mayer; the lustrous headsoak of "Twenty Tears", a tender intervention by Rebolledo; the strip-light, slow-motion disco strut of "Cecil", produced alongside Echonomist; or the glittering, arpeggio dreamwork that Perel helps sculpt into shape on "Der Abend Birgt Keine Ruh". From pop revelations to dancefloor delirium to slow-burning brooders, Synchronicity is a space for the joys of the unexpected to collide.

$30.50 IN STOCK

Double LP version. On his fourth album proper, Now Here No Where, Danish producer Kölsch (aka Rune Reilly Kölsch) is charting new terrain. Fans of his "years trilogy" -- 1977 (KOM 276LP/KOMP 107CD), 1983 (KOM 329LP/KOMP 122CD), and 1989 (KOM 373LP/KOMP 139CD) released on Kompakt over the past decade -- were privy to a kind of sonic diary, an autobiography, tracking the artist's early years through three albums of superior, meticulously rendered techno. Calling in collaborators where needed -- most notably, the strings of Gregor Schwellenbach -- there was still something deeply personal going down, not quite hermetic, but internally focused; the albums proved not only Kölsch's mastery of his chosen form, but also his capacity to make techno personal, individual, and to trace histories of the self through music. But on Now Here No Where, Kölsch finds his feet firmly planted in the present. For Kölsch, this makes Nowhere Now Here "an album about life in the year 2020. A time defined by confusion, misinformation and environmental challenges." Kölsch does this with music that effortlessly balances emotional heft with the dancefloor's brimming desires. It's a space that Kölsch has navigated for a while now -- one of techno's breakthrough acts -- but Now Here No Where ratchets up the lushness, making for a delirious drift across twelve tracks that are at once perfectly poised and deeply trippy. "Great Escape" is an elegant swoon, an opener that pivots on a sigh and a prayer; then "Shoulder Of Giants" bustles into view, subliminal clatter and an aching violin line giving way to a riff that glows with fluorescence and iridescence. "Remind You" combines an odd ECM jazziness with notes from a 21st century torch song; "Sleeper Must Awaken" mines huge buzzing synths and lets them float, in and out of sync, with reduced, ticking beats; "Traumfabrik" (dream factory) is oddly lush, the tones malleable and plastic, morphing across a glitching undertow. There are sad, emotional washes of strings throughout the penultimate "While Waiting For Something To Care About", while the patterns of "Romtech User Manual" twist and shape in the light. Throughout, Kölsch never keeps his eye off the dancefloor, and you can tell this is his still his home. The club as a temporary autonomous zone, as a space both of freedom and of politics; somehow, that's all here, Now Here No Where.

$15.50 IN STOCK

On his fourth album proper, Now Here No Where, Danish producer Kölsch (aka Rune Reilly Kölsch) is charting new terrain. Fans of his "years trilogy" -- 1977 (KOM 276LP/KOMP 107CD), 1983 (KOM 329LP/KOMP 122CD), and 1989 (KOM 373LP/KOMP 139CD) released on Kompakt over the past decade -- were privy to a kind of sonic diary, an autobiography, tracking the artist's early years through three albums of superior, meticulously rendered techno. Calling in collaborators where needed -- most notably, the strings of Gregor Schwellenbach -- there was still something deeply personal going down, not quite hermetic, but internally focused; the albums proved not only Kölsch's mastery of his chosen form, but also his capacity to make techno personal, individual, and to trace histories of the self through music. But on Now Here No Where, Kölsch finds his feet firmly planted in the present. For Kölsch, this makes Nowhere Now Here "an album about life in the year 2020. A time defined by confusion, misinformation and environmental challenges." Kölsch does this with music that effortlessly balances emotional heft with the dancefloor's brimming desires. It's a space that Kölsch has navigated for a while now -- one of techno's breakthrough acts -- but Now Here No Where ratchets up the lushness, making for a delirious drift across twelve tracks that are at once perfectly poised and deeply trippy. "Great Escape" is an elegant swoon, an opener that pivots on a sigh and a prayer; then "Shoulder Of Giants" bustles into view, subliminal clatter and an aching violin line giving way to a riff that glows with fluorescence and iridescence. "Remind You" combines an odd ECM jazziness with notes from a 21st century torch song; "Sleeper Must Awaken" mines huge buzzing synths and lets them float, in and out of sync, with reduced, ticking beats; "Traumfabrik" (dream factory) is oddly lush, the tones malleable and plastic, morphing across a glitching undertow. There are sad, emotional washes of strings throughout the penultimate "While Waiting For Something To Care About", while the patterns of "Romtech User Manual" twist and shape in the light. Throughout, Kölsch never keeps his eye off the dancefloor, and you can tell this is his still his home. The club as a temporary autonomous zone, as a space both of freedom and of politics; somehow, that's all here, Now Here No Where.