One Year After A Long Sabbatical, Wolfgang Voigt Returns Yet Again As GAS

After the German electronic artist Wolfgang Voigt released, as GAS, his ambient masterpiece Pop in 2000, the German artist took a long sabbatical from the project. Before releasing the majestically disquiet Narkopop last year, Voigt spent 17 years co-running Kompakt Records and releasing singles under a variety of pseudonyms. Now, only a year after his last release as GAS, he's announcing another instrumental-ambient missive.

Rausch "is intended to be heard as a whole from beginning to end," shares the press release. So don't expect any pre-release tracks, just the record to be dropped, in full, on May 18. You can hear a little bit of music in the teaser video, and yeah, it sounds like something to get lost in.

The press release also features a poem of sorts, without any sort of explanation. There are references to Pink Floyd ("Careful with that axe Eugene"), Depeche Mode ("Personal Jesus"), Beethoven ("Freude schöner Götterfunken"), Schoenberg ("The wine we drink through the eyes / The moon pours down at night in waves") and perhaps Voigt's own music as GAS ("Eighteenth of Oktember").

Rausch with no name / My beautiful shine / You are the sun / This is where I want to be /
Rausch with no morning / This is where we burn / The Stars sparkle / In a sea of flames /
Horns and fanfares / Fanfares of joy / Fanfares of fear /
The wine we drink through the eyes / The moon pours down at night in waves /
Careful with that axe Eugene / Personal Jesus / No beginning no end /
Eighteenth of Oktember / The night falls / The king comes / The hunt starts /
Freude schöner Götterfunken / The long march through the underwood / Trust me there's nothing /
Once upon a time there was a bandit / Who loved a prince / That was long ago /
Spring Summer Fall and Gas / There is a train heading to Nowhere /
Drums and Trumpets / Future without mankind / Warm snow / Alles ist gut /
The bells toll / You are not alone / The murmur in the forest / The murmur in the head /
Light as mist / Heavy as lead / Music happens / To flow like gas /
A clearing / Heavy baggage / Debut in the afterlife / Death has seven cats /
World heritage Rausch / Finally infinite

Voigt's music has always been symphonic (and not just as a GAS — Rückverzauberung, under his own name, dips modern classical in industrial drone). Perhaps with this poem he's connecting the dots of his work — classical, ambient, pop music — to make the point that category doesn't matter, or perhaps he's just spinning more mysterious threads to follow.

Rausch comes out May 18 via Kompakt Records. GAS starts a short U.S. tour on March 20.

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