Gas
Pop

<< It is towards the end of the 1940s when the famous French composer Pierre Schaeffer begins working on the manipulation of pre-recorded sounds for compositional purposes: this gives birth to the so-called musique concrète, based on the idea that any sound or noise, regardless of how it was produced, can be treated musically as long as the composer can recognize its potential and derive a coherent and meaningful musical form from it >>.
Famous are the Cinq études des bruits (1948, Pierre Schaeffer), short compositions where the sound material consists, for example, of train noises or pots
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Now, don't worry, the album I'm going to review today is not composed of enraged car horns or pots falling to the ground, but this preamble was necessary to introduce you to the album in question. The great step was then taken many years ago by Schaeffer. Since then, there is equal dignity between a piano or guitar chord and any other noise, whether it is natural, artificial, voluntary, or involuntary.

Wolfgang Voigt, known as Gas, is a German ambient music composer. And Germany, as we know, knows its stuff when it comes to music, especially electronic music. To make things even more interesting, you might be interested to know that this is a "Nature Recordings" album. As the name clearly explains, the artist uses all natural sounds in this particular "genre" such as rain, bird songs, the noise of leaves moved by the wind, etc., and samples them, integrating them into his music.
Ambient music, as we know, has always aimed to paint the so-called Imaginary Landscapes. It goes without saying that good old Gas, by sampling all these aforementioned sounds, cannot fail in the spiritual localization of his music. In this way, he makes the listening experience less personal and uniform.
Listening to Pop is just like being there, in close contact with nature. Everyone will choose the tourist destination they prefer, be it mountains, hills, forests, lakes, etc.
The listening will remain purely personal in any case, but the metaphysical transposition is, as mentioned, unified with nature.
To tell the truth, this close naturalistic tie is actually well-presented only in the first half of the album; as for the second half, Gas shows off his excellent compositional skills, delighting us with quality ambient music and significantly speeding up the rhythms just at the end of the album. The now-famous "Ambient Techno" in the style of Aphex Twin will come into play, with pressing and robust rhythms. This divide within the album is clearly an asset in my opinion, showcasing great artistic maturity.

Overall, Pop is a very fine album. A musical experience that few other albums can boast. Regarding the concepts we have previously expressed, it must always be emphasized that behind this project is a musician with a 360-degree range, capable of navigating with great flair between multiple musical paths and integrating all these ideas into a work that appears stylistically complete and perfectly refined in all its details.

Pop is a sort of escape route from everyday life and the stressful city life.

PS: Don't make the same mistake I did: don't listen to it in the mountains. I really had difficulty distinguishing the sounds within the album from those I heard near me.