Wolfgang Voigt's GAS Project: the Poll

my daughter went through a brief Pop phase, but as she got older it started to creep her out. Recently, she loves Marconi Union’s “Weightless”, which imo owes a bit to Pop stylistically.

Thank you mh and LBI!

I had completely forgotten about that Raymond Scott album but yeah I would never play that one. Too sharp sounding, it’s hilariously wrong it’s described as soothing.

Speaking of Raymond Scott, I was listening earlier a spotify playlist called MoogTube and she did not seem to enjoy the Raymond Scott track in there (Portofino 2) which I ended up skipping but she relaxed to Chrome Country by Oneohtrix and to Isao Tomita’s Clair de Lune. The later made me particularly glad because I adore Clair de Lune in all its forms.

naw cute thread updates :)

I noticed from the rolling reissues thread that Kompakt has reissued Zauberberg, Königsforst, and Pop as individual CDs, but the first album is again missing, like it was missing from that box set a few years ago. Seems like Voigt has truly decided to excise it from the Gas canon. :(

And here's how the reissues of Zauberberg and Königsforst are described on the Kompakt site:

CLASSIC Wolfgang Voigt production from 1997 reissued via Kompakt! 'Zauberberg' laid the foundations for the GAS sound - a noxious blend of dragging orchestral arrangement with the weight of dread-heavy dub.

Following the 1997 release of ZAUBERBERG, Wolfgang Voigt’s ambient GAS project returned with KÖNIGSFORST, a full length that has stood the test of time as a template for introducing fundamentals of 90’s techno into the principles of contemporary electronic music.

I noticed that. A real shame. Glad I have the Mille Plateaux cd.

xp

Wolfgang Voigt just released a new GAS album on @Kompakt https://t.co/bKQsxt4o14

— Resident Advisor (@residentadvisor) December 3, 2021

The new one is more of the same (track 8 even samples Pop 1) but it's always great to visit the psychedelic techno forest.

i'm still trying to figure it out. it's new. at first glance, it seems like a "best of" for new gas listeners. but yes, we know this territory very well

really enjoyed diving into this
never really returned to rausch but this i much prefer

This is lovely except some of the track transitions really fuck up the ongoing flow

They released a single track version with the fadeouts removed as well.

As far as I can see the streaming versions on apple and Spotify have the gaps, which are really detrimental. Is the vinyl like this too?

Wow, what is the point of those fadeouts? And then the following track starts so abruptly. I was going to get the CD but if it's like that I'll do a bandcamp download instead.

just listened to this, and the last two paragraphs of the pitchfork are 10000000000% otm for me:

There’s one development, though, that has already made Der Lange Marsch the most divisive GAS album: the high-pitched beep on every other beat. Some listeners don’t notice it, others seem able to tune it out, and for many, it’s an impassable barrier to entry. Voigt used a similar frequency on Rausch, but only in short intervals. Here, it literally never lets up except during the brief bits at the beginning and end with no drums. Once you realize you’re going to have to learn to live with that beat, the album starts to earn its title: The Long March.

It seems like an odd artistic choice to throw such a jarring and potentially alienating sound over your career-spanning retrospective, especially considering that this is otherwise the sunniest and most euphonious of the three GAS albums Voigt has released since bringing the project back from hiatus in 2017. Voigt suffers from tinnitus, and it’s possible that he’s asking the listener to empathize with his condition. But is putting a beep over an otherwise perfectly enjoyable album the right way to go about it? If there’s a new GAS album to look forward to, it’s a fan edit that cuts that frequency right out.

fucking bizarre

what a fucking bummer, holy shit. i could do a slight EQ "fix" myself to dampen that frequency and the ones right around it, but i know it would make the rest of the mix worse. shit, man.

somewhere not faraway, just beyond the edge of the forest, where the thick darkness of the trees gives way to the dull light of a new grey dawn, a garbage truck is reversing eternally

if only the beep were at the reversing garbage truck level. it is higher, like very high. i really do feel like i got to have tinnutus for a while. thanks GAS!

i actually don't mind the noise, though it is a curious choice. maybe there should be some element of discomfort though if you're trying to communicate latent anxiety and dread?

sort of a reaction to the music being used purely for relaxation?

a niggling contrast to the sumptuousness of the rest of it

maybe there should be some element of discomfort though if you're trying to communicate latent anxiety and dread?

yeah, i do understand this angle. have to say, though, one of the things i loved about all of his other albums is his ability to communicate those same things by other means, using mild discordance and strange overtones and resonances going in and out of line. it's very easy to signal anxiety, i think -- just put an alarm clock going off through your album -- but it's so much more rewarding to do it subtle ways

ha yes an alarm clock. think you're gonna fall asleep to my music huh suckers?

but yeah, i do think the annoyance of it would vary highly from listener to listener. to me, it puts it in the same category as labradford's Mi Media Naranja, which is probably a beautiful listen but features an insanely boosted high frequency, and they play the triangle a LOT so

never noticed that about mi media... actually, so yeah we may have different tolerances here. i am a bit old and deaf though

I made myself a version with the offending frequency much reduced (10436hz at -18db) I used a really sharp notch filter to not monkey around with the surrounding frequencies too much, happy to share if anyone wants it.

yes plz

this sounds like something that would be absolute torture to listen to

relieved to see others were bothered by the tone and i'm not nuts, had to turn it off almost immediately, really disappointing. i'm also interested in the maresn3st edit

never noticed that about mi media

yeah, it starts suddenly at about 55 seconds into the first track ("S")

and about 3 minutes into the third track "WR". i don't remember which one on the back half of the album, but i remember playing side B of the record and thinking "goddamn it AGAIN?!" so i know it's somewhere on that side too

co-sign on maresn3st edit

Pop me an email at n@k@ginc@psuleto✧✧✧@gm✧✧✧.c✧✧ (w/out google-proofing)

Oh bum, that didn't go well apologies, n a k a g i n c a p s u l e t o w e r @ g m a i l . c o m

Have only listened to this on shitty speakers and and didn't notice the tone at all. Am I very aware of the high-pitched frequency on the Labradford album though and never found it offensive so perhaps I'll be OK.

Side issue but I am terrified of the implications of hearing vs not hearing certain sounds and frequencies. I remember being with my old man around Christmas time and pointing out the piped silver of a robin singing and being distraught that he simply couldn't pick it up. He shrugged it off so I guess there is that.

Yeah bill oddie has talked about his sadness at not being able to hear the calls of certain birds any longer. The GAS bleep did make me think of the alarm calls that blackbirds make in the hedgerows round here as night comes in

I can't hear the offending tone am I losing it

I am become bill oddie

As someone with tinnitus and some hearing loss in my right ear - you get used to it, the alternative is a deep dark depression, staring mortality and fragility in the face directly, and its resulting, unrelenting anxiety. Basically stopped going to concerts and listening or writing music for a year when it first became "permanent". Copium is a pretty powerful drug and one that probably saved my life.

That said, that high pitch ringing (which I can clearly hear) is dreadful and I can't listen to this new one.

I have tinnitus / hearing loss and cannot hear the high-pitched tones on this album at all.

I first listened on shitty laptop speakers and did t notice it. I’m afraid now that you all have pointed it out that when I give it a proper listen I’m primed to hear only that. Kind of like I can’t not hear “smoke pot smoke pot everybody smoke pot” in I Am The Walrus ever since a fundamentalist preacher told my school class to listen for it nearly 40 years ago.

yeah, those of you who can't hear it, or who it doesn't bother - i kind of want that! i feel a little worried that it DOES bother me, given my many years playing drums in small concrete rooms

xp coolest fundamentalist preacher ever!

I still feel like you don't need anything past the first four albums.

I think the frequency of the beeps is drowned out by the constant one I hear all the time, so it's not that I don't hear the high-pitched beep, it's that mine is louder.

"listen up kids -- watch out! after church there's this guy i know who will try to give you drugs. he'll tell you that if you take them you'll probably never come back to church ever again, because you'll see the world in a different way from then on! so many people have done this before, and it's right outside out these doors! goodbye children!"

Bill Oddie being invoked on a GAS thread is either the greatest moment in mankind's history or the sign of the approaching singularity and I'm going to walk stark bollock naked into the woods now bye.

i have slight tinnitus, so there is a chance i would not notice this quirk,
but the main question for me is : given i have 6 GAS cds (4 cd boxset from a few years back, and subsequent 2 albums), do i actually need more?

I'm so interested in what Voigt's process is. I'd love to watch him assemble a GAS track from start to finish. I can't imagine I'll be listening to this many more times, though. The insistent marching beat is annoying and unsettling, even without the high pitched beep that I can't hear.