• Preview: Wolfgang Voigt - Gas

In the middle of the 1990s, wolfgang voigt, better known under a great many pseudonyms such as MIKE INK, STUDIO1 or GRUNGERMAN, and the driving force behind the rise of cologne minimal techno, had reached a temporary peak in his career. regardless, he never really stopped pursuing and developing his true creative music passion. going back to the 1980s, voigt began working under a self realized concept he named BLEI. taking in the most varied sound models, he began to extract elements from classical, polka, or brass music, and along with electronic pop music and german schlager sounds 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 nor end beginninglessness and endlessness, their intoxicating, smooth and partly amorphous structure sounded to him like evaporating gas and thus, GAS music was born. GAS is the vision of a sonic body between schönberg and kraftwerk, between french horn and bass drum. GAS is wagner goes glam rock, and hansel and gretel on acid. GAS is there to take you on a seemingly endless march through the under woods - and into the discoteque - of an imaginary, nebulous forest.

In his music, Wolfgang Voigt does not create a direct reference to the original sounds and or even the forest itself. He rather tries to reduce the "material" to its basic aesthetic structure by using different zoom, loop and alienation techniques in order to release it from its original meaning and context. His intention is to create a kind of aesthetic essence, a cave (detail/loop/repetition) where you can get lost.
and for all of you who think that this is too heavy to ingest, please accept this as wonderful music.

For the first time ever, this book „WOLFGANG VOIGT - GAS“ also presents the visual aspect of the comprehensive GAS project. it is not meant to be a „monolithic“ retrospective of his visual work, but it features a broad spectrum of photographic images taken between 1995 and 1998 showing many different moods and perspectives of wolfgang voigt’s cosmos. what they all have in common, however, is the mystical focus and seemingly, the blurring of boundaries between lightness and darkness, happiness and depression, kitsch and art, pixels and leaves. and the enclosed music cd, voigt has opened his treasure chest and presents some well-selected, rare jewels from the very early days (and nights). 4 of the 5 tracks have never been released or played before. raster-noton.net