Fuck what you know: Kompakt is a trance label.
This is the realization that the time of year, basically techno christmas (or just Xmas, for the debauchery-inclined), provides. There’s always one right at the start of fall, because it’s when the beloved German stalwarts, our comrades in the low-end and open hi-hat, issue their State of the Dancefloor for the coming year in the form of Kompakt Total whatevernumber. This year is Kompakt Total 9….and there’s more euphoria than the morning when Obama wins the presidency (that’s some American political humor for you Europeans, insert “Justice” for “Obama” and “melts your face” for “wins the presidency” and I think we’ve managed a similar reference!).
I’ll save my lectures of disapproval on the current state of Superpitcher, as apparently he and M. Mayer, the former dark lords of the dancefloor, have decided the electronic equivalent of fart jokes are sufficient for the forthcoming year in terms of musical output. Whatever, Super-P, when somebody tells you that your girl/boy-friend looks like a boy/girl-friend they had in February of last year and you need to cry/mope/emote/make real shit again, call me like Blondie. I’ll be waiting by the phone for you to call me up and tell me I’ m not alone…NOT! Because your label’s making serious catharTrance.
It must be handed to Kompakt, they always sequence their Total comps with a serious hand and a breathtaking attention, and this year’s model is no exception. The next-to-last piece on the first half, from legendary Thomas Fehlmann, melts a dub aesthetic backbeat with wanting-to-rage-but-not trance sythns, as though this one track is the herald of the coming onslaught.
Who the hell knows who Nightguy is? Who the hell cares? Not me nor my wiki, particularly not as the rolling snare unfolds into a “Running Up That Hill” bassline and a middle-of-the-night trance set modus operand. This one gets it entirely right.
Almost everything on Kompakt Total 9 wins-it’s almost depressing what doesn’t, because the Gui Boratto track basically smacks you in the face with the words “trance” and “ecstasy” and the Superpitcher/-mayer tracks all lead to dumb, and some of us have had our fills of stupiDisco. Other than that? I welcome, with open arms and heart on fire, the assimilation of trance by minimal tech. It can only lead to more beauty in the world.
You have cracked the secret code of Kompakt my friend, und now you must face ze music~! :)
Nice review and yeah they have got us.