Truly phenomenal in scope, content and diversity, Die welt is Klang lives up to its ambitious attempt to document an almost translucent, organic world of sound.
Die Welt ist Klang is something altogether special. Produced in memoriam for the death of the ambient composer and producer Pete Namlook (AKA Peter Kuhlmann), musicians, colleagues and fans have teamed together to curate a truly diverse, physically immense collection of tributes which range, liltingly, exploratively, across eight CDs and 91 tracks.
Its strength is its variety and reach. The first four CDs cover the work of FAX+49-69/450464 alumni, the German label founded by Namlook in 1992 whose early focus on trance and techno would segue into a leading source for talented ambient and drone musicians. As such, the collection has an enormous and continually surprising range—from turbulent, industrial drone, through sine-waves of gentle organic field recording, to busier works inspired by synth loops and strings (e.g., Commodity Place – “Solis”).
It would be impossible to give a blow-by-blow reaction to each track, but it is easier—more manageable—to pick out the handful that stood out. There are a number of very strong pieces which explore and push at the edges of organic ambience (Bill Laswell & Bernie Worrell—By a River (for Peter)) and arrhythmic samples (Drøn – Polarwind). Ernaldo Bernocchi’s “She came dancing across the water,” with its harmonic, dramatic drone that walks along the edge between sentimentality and darkness, is a particularly outstanding piece—with slow clusters and synths which blend between foreground and background. Differently good is Burhan Öçal’s “Seyh’in ruyasi (the sheik’s dream),” a gloriously rich electronic and string track with a core of middle eastern oud and drum, high tempo beats and complex layers. Similarly, “Rune” by One Arc Degree offers a haunting and melancholic construction of drone and echoing synths, underpinned by rising and falling keys which build throughout the track into its many dense layers. The slow build and emerging, wavering keys of Illuminum’s “Principles of Life” is another outstanding piece of this enthralling whole.
To find coherence—a single, running method—in all of this would of course be unproductive. Die Welt ist Klang’s strength, its great and monumental achievement, is precisely its surprising range, the sense that we are exploring a great, ancient tree whose roots lead back to a single source, yet expand into many different worlds.
Perhaps it is redundant to say it, but there is no doubt that ambient fans will find something in here among its many and varied treasures. While the arrangement doesn’t hint at any primary theme, it is rewarding to dip in and out, to shuffle and pare apart the collection—listening to musicians and fans in the same session. Truly phenomenal in scope, content and diversity, Die welt is Klang lives up to its ambitious attempt to document an almost translucent, organic world of sound.
Die Welt ist Klang is available on Carpe Sonum.
