Records I

With the change of name to Kompakt in 1998 and the associated conceptual consolidation of the various artistic and commercial activities within a single brand, the image of Kompakt as a company, as projected to the outside world, entered a new era. This was certainly evident in their product design.
 
The visual image, largely invented by mastermind Wolfgang Voigt and repeatedly developed further by the graphic designers Bianca Strauch, Veronika Unland, and John Harten, mainly consists of the classic Kompakt period marks, the Kompakt Extra/Speicher logo inspired by Cologne’s old coat of arms (see also the story on Disk 2), and the annual Total and Pop Ambient compilations, which were design as a distinct series.

Many of the series of artworks and the visual loops and repetitions contain references to pop art, which can also be found in the solo releases, the various projects (see the image for Roter Platz by Burger/Voigt), and also the digital art of Wolfgang Voigt. Besides this very visible style (culminating and distilled in the covers for Voigt's ambient project GAS, see below), which lies behind and was largely responsible for Kompakt’s international image as a label strong on sophisticated graphic design and with a genuine artistic/conceptual bent, there were many other musicians, artists, and designers who contributed to the label’s unique look.

“The main difference between Warhol’s Factory and ours is that Warhol’s Factory was only about Warhol’s own art. At Kompakt, I’m mainly concerned with the music of others, and my own music is only really of peripheral interest. Hardly any of my own music is on the Kompakt label. I have my own labels, with Kompakt again taking care of distribution. This is another interface. My contribution to Kompakt as a label, while I was actively involved, was mainly to pick up on the music of others, to help it on its way, and to showcase or perhaps even package it like Warhol used to do—by giving it a kind of corporate identity or visual trademark.”

From the interview Kompakt Fokus: Wolfgang Voigt with Ableton, September 2013

Kompakt’s Total series, which just reached its 20th volume, began as an easy-use repository for the Cologne techno label’s 12”s—just like every other dance-label compilation series in existence. But as Kompakt itself became a touchstone, the Total series became more like a state of the nation address.

A Guide to All 20 Volumes of Kompakt’s Total Series, by Michaelangelo Matos, 2020

The first Pop Ambient Compilation was released on Kompakt in 2001. In the meantime, twenty-one albums have emerged, compiled every year by Wolfgang Voigt himself. Taken together, they form an encyclopaedia of Pop Ambient history and contain music by, among others, GAS, Rückverzauberung, The Orb, Tim Hecker, The Field, Triola, Gregor Schwellenbach, Marsen Jules, Klimek, Donnacha Costello, Dettinger, Leandro Fresco, Ulf Lohmann, Max Würden, Andrew Thomas, Mikel Metal, ANBB (Alva Noto & Blixa Bargeld) Pass Into Silence, Thore Pfeiffer, Jens-Uwe Beyer, bvdub, Superpitcher, Michael Mayer and Jürgen Paape. 

In a conversation with Vice in 2015, Wolfgang Voigt talked about the importance of Pop Ambient in the Kompakt cosmos. 

»The original abstract idea, fantasy, hypothesis of "pop ambient" was to put pop music under a giant microscope and to enlarge it, stretch it and slow it down, till you get back to the DNA of pure sound and aesthetics, free from any meaning.«

At that moment, ambient music was still understood within the context of rave, and hearing these sounds in a “chill room” while coming down from a night of drugs and dancing was for many still a recent memory. In the two decades since, ambient music has grown more ubiquitous while also losing some of its distinction. Vastly improved tools for the creation and dissemination of electronic music have led to a flooded market, and playlists of “functional” music have proliferated, giving casual music fans easy access to ambient music for any occasion. But in this time of plenty, individual artists can find it harder to stand out. In this climate, as the Pop Ambient compilations continued to arrive each year, it was hard not to wonder about the point of it all. Do these comps make sense in the streaming era?

Various Artists: Pop Ambient 2019 by Mark Richardson in Pitchfork, December 2018

I see some people expecting something new and exciting every time this compilation comes out - something to write about maybe. It's the struggle I realize - how do you write about something new which sticks to the same great recipe and does it so well? Ambient music doesn't have something this consistent at this level - it's called 'Pop' Ambient for a reason, and I'm all good with it presenting a solid roster every year capturing the slowly evolving sound of the music we all love.

Pop Ambient 2018 by Ryan Griffin für A Strangely Isolated Place, November 2017

G A S is the main musical project of German electronic musician and composer Wolfgang Voigt (born 1961). The project was created as an expressive medium inspired by his experiences with taking LSD in the Königsforst, a German forest situated near his hometown of Cologne, for long periods in his youth. He has claimed that the intention of the project is to "bring the forest to the disco, or vice-versa.

Wikipedia

Music with no beginning or end, cushioned contours that fall softly into the room and seem to suspend time. GASeous music captured in a drum being marched by, flowing in and out through the brushwood on the floor of a forest.

Wolfgang Voigt in an interview with Mercedes Bunz, Telepolis, April 1999

Rune Reilly KÖLSCH is a Danish native electronic music performer and producer. The 3 albums »1977«, »1983« and »1989« released on KOMPAKT between 2013 and 2017 are his autobiographical musical trilogy.

And so it begins, with the first track on the album 1977 by the Dane Rune Reilly Kölsch. A kick-ass bass drum and organ chords that could be lifted straight from a hymn. Welcome to the church. You are tempted to shout »Hallelujah« and raise your hands skyward in the hope the techno god might deign to take you. And so it continues, with crazy hook lines that really stir the blood, with playful jazzy breaks that make you want to cry and drop to your knees in joy, with incredible melodies that simply knock you out, with ultra-trashy and super-sexy piano chords, with supernatural harmonies, blissfully poppy sung sections, and devilishly dirty sawtooth riffs (the incredible »Eiswinter«), with completely exaggerated and over-the-top trance crescendos that give you goosebumps—leaving the reviewer pretty much speechless at times. Maybe a string movement too many for some. This is textbook rave. Music that embraces the world.

Kölsch: 1977, review by Xaver Oehmen, in Groove magazine, August 2013

Born in southern Sweden, Axel Willner spent his formative years living in Stockholm and Lisbon, studying both at a formal music academy and in the mosh pit, citing bands like Misfits and Dead Kennedys as inspiration to pick up the guitar and play in punk bands. His The Field project was signed to Kompakt in 2004. This monicker saw him constructing ambient techno based on a stoic and a perpetually rotating hook, with the debut full-length „From Here We Go Sublime“ receiving highest accolades from the likes of NME, the BBC or Pitchfork - who went on to place it inside the Top 200 records of the decade.

The covers of his albums and maxis (see above) consistently continue the loop principle. In their minimalist similarity, they are reminiscent of Peter Saville's artwork for Joy Division. 

Aksel Schaufler aka Superpitcher used the artwork of his brother Matthias Schaufler on the Kompakt albums Here Comes Love and Kilimanjaro and the compilation So Far, So Super. The releases of Matias Aguayo, both his solo ones and those with Dirk Leyers as Closer Musik, were designed by the artist Sarah Szczesny.

All of a sudden, there is singing on house music. And proper lyrics, not just pointless phrases. A minor revolution and, of course, some persistent doubts. Should people be doing this? Is it not a bit too close to pop? Aksel Schaufler, alias Superpitcher, is happy to disregard the norms and rules of the scene. And in doing so, makes enduring changes to the typical image of a raver …

Superpitcher: Here Comes Love, review by Philipp Laier, Puls/Bayrischer Rundfunk, April 2009

Matias Aguayo had all eyes asquint for Are You Really Lost, his debut record on Kompakt. As half of Closer Musik, whose minimal mascara-club singles like One, Two, Three (No Gravity) and Maria and 2002’s full-length After Love sat along Villalobos and Luciano a-sides as the where-to-go of global tech, Aguayo provided the husky, black-cavern mumblings to the duo’s more pop-friendly leanings.

Matias Aguayo: Are You Really Lost, review by Derek Miller, Stylus magazine, November 2005

The album, which has become a genuine Kompakt classic over the past decade, showed that electronic music and feelings can go together, long before the deep house wave of the mid-noughties.

Closer Musik: After Love, review by Thomas Venker in Die 50 besten elektronischen Alben (The 50 Best Electronic Albums) Groove November/December 2013

Justus Köhncke has traditionally been very close to art and the art scene in general. His revolutionary debut LP for Kompakt titled »Was Ist Musik« is graced by a drawing by Michael Krebber.

»I try and imagine Justus Köhncke sitting there, musing about what music is, and then starting to doodle. The result is the cover of the latest album. But things did not happen like that. He asks Michael Krebber to do a drawing of him. A kind of portrait. Even Justus did not expect it to be figurative. He describes it as a kind of scrawl on a grid with perspective.«

Justus Köhncke in an interview with Sascha Horsley for De:Bug, July 2002.

Four covers of The Orb, SCSI-9, Supermayer, and Terranova, designed by renowned artists and which play with pop art references, illustrations, comic quotations, and photorealistic drawings. These artworks, and the artists behind them, rarely or ever get the attention they deserve

It's an album heaving with ideas, but just coherent enough to stick together as one piece of work - it's slightly erratic at times, and perhaps a bit of prudent editing might've aided matters, but c'mon - this is The Orb we're talking about. Perhaps it's Fehlmann's influence on this era of The Orb, or maybe it's simply the sound of a band evolving into something new, but whatever it is that's got them here, it doesn't really matter that much in the end, as it's a great little re-introduction to all things Orb. Long may they continue ...

The Orb: Moonbuilding 2703 AD, Review von Gavin Miller in Drowned in Sound, Juni 2015

Kompakt's flagship acts - Michael Mayer and Superpitcher - team for an album many anticipated might be the ultimate statement of the Cologne label's emo-house aesthetic. Instead, it's a ramshackle assemblage of dancefloor tracks, eccentric stabs at pop, and cinematic interludes.

Supermayer: Save The World, Review von Tim Finney, Pitchfork, Oktober 2007

Four artworks for memorable Kompakt albums that experiment with the human face as a central element of the record cover. 

The montage by Marco Dos Santos for Unknown by Saschienne, in which Sascha Funke and Julienne Dessange merge into a deliberately imperfect and incomplete whole, is reminiscent of portraiture from the Middle Ages, but also heavily charged with current issues surrounding gender and identity. 

The cover of DJ Koze's debut album for Kompakt deals with similar things using different means. Stefan Kozalla's often subtle humour is perfectly captured in this very postmodern collage put together by Marcnesium. 

Linda Loeskow's minimalistic and somehow mysterious artwork for the album 24/7 by GusGus reduces any expression and facial details, at first sight, to simply the eyes, lashes, and hair. But here too, questions gradually emerge regarding the gender and identity of the person sketched.

The cover by Bianca Strauch for Michael Mayer's debut album Touch underlines the idea of touch and human closeness alluded to in the title through garish, digital colors. The image of the rather slender artist, who can be seen hugging himself, looks like something taken with a thermal imaging camera because of the electronic filters used. It’s a kind of fluorescent effect that harks back to the acid house aesthetic, as seen through the rear mirror of history.

... battling thick and heavy swathes of processing. Fehlmann has a long history to him, too. He was a founding member of legendary post-punk/tech-poppers Palais Schaumburg alongside Moritz von Oswald, with whom he later formed 3MB with Juan Atkins in the nineties, before picking up with The Orb and finding his present home at Kompakt.

Dedicated to Joseph Beuys' 1977 installation ‘Honigpumpe Am Arbeitsplatz’ ('Honey Pump in the Workplace'), in which the equally material-obsessed artist pumped honey through a museum, »Honigpumpe« (Honey Pump) is as treacly as Fehlmann has sounded yet. Like the matter-state of honey, Fehlmann's tracks can't decide whether to hang and bang like techno-solids or drip and flow like ambient-liquid. In the tradition of GAS, Markus Guentner and Triola, much of Honig Pumpe is powered by a cushioned 4/4 thud, but unlike their fixations on gaseous clouds, Fehlmann's work is denser, viscous, more ambivalent: like dancing in quicksand.

Review by Joshua Meggitt, Resident Advisor, Mai 2007

The Swiss artist and music producer Thomas Fehlmann first used the artistic services of Bianca Strauch in 1999. It was around this time that Kreisel 99/39 was released (part of the Kreisel series via Kompakt). This was followed by the art direction for two 12″ maxis (Whistle and Streets of Blah, 2002) as well as the three albums Visions of Blah, Honigpumpe (2007), and Gute Luft (2010).

It is said that Gregor Schwellenbach has a taste for the subversive. Is rifling through Kompakt’s back catalog and choosing his faves to remake in any style he wanted considered such? So be it. Welcome another in the long line of special Kompakt releases this year, »Gregor Schwellenbach Spielt 20 Jahre Kompakt«.
Schwellenbach is sometimes seen as a rogue outsider, but that is OK because his stripping down of these 20 classics and restringing them (pardon the pun) in his view of what chamber music should sound like is indeed an interesting take on things. Some of the concoctions he came up with are really ingenious. Voigt & Voigt’s »Vision 03« is now a subtle piano study and Gui Boratto’s »No Turning Back« gets a similar treatment. Jonas Bering’s »Melanie« is a now a piece of fragile beauty.

Review of »Gregor Schwellenbach spielt 20 Jahre Kompakt« on intlmusicsnobs.com

When was the last time a journalist simply rated an album as »beautiful«? That would be appropriate here. For all its idyll, the album is too melancholic to be clumsy in its beauty, too space-filling to be perceived only on the sidelines in its playful lightness. To break it all down: clunky machines are usually only so enriching for everyday life when you have made the leap from washing dishes by hand to a dishwasher.

Vermont: Vermont, Review von Pippo Kuhzart, hhv.mag, März 2014

Psychedelic art has traditionally had plenty of influence on electronic music. The reasons for this, from a pop culture and historical perspective, are all too clear. The aesthetic enthusiasm for certain forms, structures, and colours, kaleidoscopic effects, and similarly wafting, flowing, and overlapping visuals are omnipresent at festivals, clubs, and open air raves and have been always been a feature of the Goa and psytrance scene. The KOMPAKT catalog has many examples too of artworks that gladly indulge the rush of colours and visual signals associated with the expansion of consciousness.

Gui Boratto: Chromophobia (2017)

COMA: In Technicolor (2013) 

WEVAL: Weval (2016) 

Japanese DJ, producer and photographer Hiroshi Watanabe aka Kaito aka has been an integral part of the KOMPAKT label family since the early noughties and is considered a specialist for his very own interpretation of the genres Ambient, Deep House and especially Trance. He has tackled the topic of trance, or let's say Kaito's special version of trance, on numerous maxis and albums for KOMPAKT. A special feature of Kaito's oeuvre are the beat-free versions he regularly made of his own tracks - an art that can be heard in particular on the legendary mini-LP "Special Love" from 2003.
Hiroshi Watanabe designs all his cover artwork himself, mostly based on his own photographs. Some of them photographically accompany the growing up of his son Kaito.

Essentially, the Kasper Bjørke Quartet, with The Fifty Eleven Project, is attempting to impress on people what a critical and even threatening phase of someone’s life actually feels like. Fortunately, it avoids the mistake of indulging in excessive avant garde trickery or laying on the pathos too thick, as sadly often happens when electronica is combined with a more classical style. It prefers instead to rely on minimalistic means with more of a focus on functionality; not unlike Brian Eno and Max Richter.


Kasper Bjørke Quartet, The Fifty Eleven Project, review by Toni Hennig, laut.de, October 2018

The visual side of »The Fifty Eleven Project« is made in collaboration with the culture laboratory Prxjects and acclaimed LA based artist/filmmaker/photographer Justin Tyler Close, who has created art films for each of the album’s 11 tracks - plus one music video, including clips from all 11 films.