Pitchfork

As the co-head of Cologne, Germany's Kompakt label, minimal techno pioneer Wolfgang Voigt has spent this decade mostly focused on other people's music. But in the previous decade, his albums as Gas helped define the sound Kompakt artists are still perfecting.

Voigt and Kompakt will revisit the Gas catalog with the reissue of the out-of-print Gas, Zauberberg, Kônigforst, and Pop in a single four-CD/two-LP collection called Nah und Fern. Originally released on Frankfurt label Mille Plateaux, these records come restored and remastered for Kompakt's reissue in May.

Also in May, Voigt will publish a book through art and music collective Raster-Noton titled Gas: Loops. The book will present "the visual side of Gas," according to a press release, but its pages' specific contents remain a mystery. Gas: Loops will come with a CD featuring two tracks from the November edition of Raster-Noton's 1999 "20' to 2000" series (where artists were asked to soundtrack the final 20 minutes of the 20th Century), as well as various Gas loops and previously unreleased tracks.

For a deeper, more personal look at Gas, check out our own Mark Richardson's column, "Resonant Frequency #48".