Last year, the storied Cologne label Kompakt released a box set of Gas’s ambient, techno-derived works: Box. With hindsight, that well-received retrospective now seems like a palate-cleanser for this first new Gas album in 17 years, from Kompakt co-founder Wolfgang Voigt, who releases under many aliases. Narkopop consists of 11 typically unnamed but numbered tracks of austere, saturated electronic polyphony. Ambient is an even more subjective genre than most, so depending on your internal state, passages like the 11-minute Narkopop 2 suggest that Voigt’s awe at the natural world might be evolving towards churchy iridescence. Alternatively, it can sound like being plunged into a dark, Dante-esque forest, with only a muted aortic throb to guide you home. Immersive, to say the least.
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