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Wolfgang Voigt is an electronic music artist from Cologne, Germany, known for his output under various aliases on a plethora of record labels, including Warp, Harvest, Raster-Noton and Force Inc. Although widely known as a tireless producer, he is best known for co-founding the influential German microhouse label Kompakt alongside Michael Mayer and Jürgen Paape.
Gas
Gas is the most abstract of Voigt's projects with each album comprising several similar long tracks of dense, hypnotic, atmospheric sound. Usually there is a repetitive bass drum pulse underneath the multiple layers of music but occasionally a song will just drift on its own ambience. Voigt has commented that he builds his tracks using samples, which are manipulated beyond recognition to create what can better be described as textural environments than songs. Indeed, most of the time there is no clear horizontal trajectory in a Gas track as Voigt seems to be more interested in exploring depth of the stereo field, utilizing subtle shifts in sound. Because Gas music lacks any trace of melody or chord change, many would not describe it as musical. However, Voigt does not purely use samples of noises; the sources of the samples often seem to be of musical origin, such as orchestral strings, and therefore lend the tracks some sense of musicality. Some have described experiencing Gas music as similar to hearing a band playing very far away, under water, or from behind walls. His music does not, however, suffer from the distinct "under-water" sound of a simple bypass filter like Pole. The key word is subtle.
