Kompakt Germany Vinilo y CD

Review: Captain Mustache brings his crazy and creative signature sounds to this new electro outing on Cologne's Kompakt. The opener 'About Love' (feat Speakwave) is a glittery and cosmic excursion on sleek synth lines and with textbook vocoder vocals. 'Shifting Basslines' (feat Chicks On Speed) then brings darker, more pulsing low ends and androgynous vocals from the famous Chicks while 'Laser Me' is a strobe-lit Italo-tinged workout and three further cuts explore sugary synths, new wave influences and much more to round out an adventurous and accomplished EP which covers plenty of ground.

Review: Kompakt have billed their latest collaborative spiritual house release - three groove sandwiches shared between Deer Jade, David Hasert and Nicone - as an antidote to the all-to-prevalent late-winter blues and lack of sun, an affliction that seems to blight ravers in particular. Aside from canvassing for more outdoor and/or glass-roofed venues, all we can do in the meantime is weight the tonearm and jog-start the disc; 'Jukurpa' and 'Wasting My Time With You' are just the course of sonic vitamins us daywalkers need. The former is a deep, righteous blur of just piano tritones and circumscribed handholds around fires, as weighted knee-slaps and impacts evoke the feeling of a collective ritual come out-of-body experience. 'Cosmic Dream' returns to the very same rave spot at nighttime; at this point, it's all gone a bit lunar-psy, but the desert winds and temperate nighttime heat allow ample energy for continued soul flight.

Review: I Talk To Water, the fifth album for Kompakt by Danish producer Kolsch, is the artist's most personal statement yet. While all the trademarks that make his music so popular and powerful are still present - lush, melodic techno; swooping, trance-like figures; sensuous, shivery texturology - I Talk To Water is also a deep and intimate rapprochement with family and history, a finely-detailed document of loss and memory, and a tracing of the long, unbroken thread of grief that runs through our lives once we've lost those we loved. This mapping is something that Kolsch has proven remarkably adept at through the years; dance music for both body and mind, but also both for the here-and-now, and for the hereafter.

Review: Global Essence Sampler is a new series from Deep Inspiration Show Records that calls upon a fine roster of international producer talent to serve up one track each and reflect on what deep house is today. For Allstarr Motomusic the answer is smooth and cruising house grooves with elastic basslines and distant vocal wails. Barce explores classic Larry Heard-style cosmic melodic territory with plenty of star-gazing potential, and Zarenzeit's 'Zahara' is another one that floats amongst the stars with lush ambient pads. Jank offers a more dusty, rhythmic house sound for cosy backroom parties, and then come the jazzy melodies and soulful bass noodling of Jan Kincl's '3300 Gratiot Ave.' Magic stuff.

Review: If you have ever wondered what a German oompah band might sound like if they were doing low-slung and playful house music then check out 'Ofterschwang' which is one of Jurgen Paape's finest and silliest moments. Thankfully it also makes the long-time Kompakt servant's new Kompilation. It comes across four sides of vinyl and features some of his best bits from over the last 20 years. It is a wide-reaching and often leftfield collection with piano pieces, loopy disco gems, loved-up deep house sounds and steamy and seductive vocal minimal music in the case of 'So Wird Die Zeit Gemacht'. If nothing else this proves what an underrated and unique creative mind Paape really is.

Review: Kompakt unveils the third volume of Jorg Burger's Velvet Desert Music compilation series, dedicated to music that hits the sweet spot between the cinematic, the (pop) ambient, and the psychedelic. The Cologne-born musician is known for his various releases on Kompakt and adjacent collaborative efforts with the likes of Wolfgang Voigt; but this series is his curatorial crown jewel, spanning no end of oddball electronic mystique that touch on every cornerstone from dub to post-punk to minimal to groove, with the aim of finding music that "leads out of the desert and into the velvet universe".

Review: For those that enjoy the more accessible, melodic end of ambient and deeper, gentler explorations of electronica, Kompakt's long-running Pop Ambient series has always been a must-check annual treat. The Cologne label's latest edition undoubtedly lives up to the quality of its many predecessors. Beginning with the spacey swell of T. Raumschmiere's 'Eternal', the collection attractively sashays between delicate, new-age influenced aural bliss (Mikkel Metal), immersive sunrise soundscapes (Yui Onodera), birdsong-smattered beatless beauty (Triola), enveloping sound design epics (Thore Pfieffer and Niko Tzoukmanis), crackling ambient transmissions from another dimension (Sono Kollektiv), nods to the Orb's FFWD collaboration with Robert Fripp (Blank Gloss) and cavernous explorations of slowly shifting audio textures (Umit Han).

Review: Michael Mayer's Kompakt label has managed to help shape a number of niche sounds, from ambient with its excellent annual compilations, to a mature and melodic take on techno through countless LPs and 12"s. This new remix EP sits somewhere in between. Running Back don Gerd Janson goes first with his take on 'Follow Your Line' which has zoned out and filtered vocals of a nice and languid electronic disco rhythm. Ada then brings some signature melodic beauty and whisky to a remix of 'Talking Man' that has Balearic potential and the boss himself dubs out 'Follow Your Line' to perfection.