- Kompakt's annual Pop Ambient series may have disappointed many this winter for its almost resigned return to its roots, but don't fault Markus Guentner. The veteran producer took a rare break from the compilation, presumably to spend time crafting his own rival collection of ambient tracks on Joachim Spieth's Affin label, as well as this new album of material on Dutch imprint Sending Orbs, an imprint perhaps best known for Rigning, 2009's dreamy set from Iceland's Yagya.
Truth be told, the absence of Guentner from Pop Ambient 2010 is perhaps not that surprising. After a flurry of ambient releases in the mid-'00s on Kompakt and his often underappreciated house productions on Mathias Schaffhauser's Ware imprint, he floated off the radar for awhile. Back again on screen, he seems to have brought with him something of a retrospective feel to his music that might have added little to Kompakt's 2010 collection, but on its own stands as something of a solid closure to a wonderful year.
Dopplegaenger, after all, doesn't really reach much beyond Im Moll or 1981, but as the work of a single artist, it seems to make more sense than a collection of disparate producers that sound the same. In other words, whereas Pop Ambient 2010 had the feel of a tour group who missed the boat, Dopplegaenger sounds like one man fishing on his own yacht who doesn't care where the rest are going.
There is less of the wide-eyed stargazing optimism of his previous ambient work on Dopplegaenger. Guentner is surprisingly more pragmatic and shadowy, largely jettisoning his wilder emotional edge for a more densely textured journey. The action below the surface is immense yet the effect is one of profound stasis and resilience. "Das Haus Steht Leer" shimmers with watery harps and cracks and pops, yet is more reflective than a mighty river. "Flimmerfrequenz" uses a similar array of sounds to create a sense of regret, but it's nonetheless embedded like a fossil in a dense drone. The other tracks bear Guentner hallmarks, from the probing bass in "Angelpunkt" to the oblique lines carved out by the different meters in "Toter Hafen," while "Dreiglanz" sports a rollicking beat that gives the album its first real sense of profound motion.
In essence, it's vintage Guentner. And while it's perhaps not as emotionally rich as bvdub, Yagya or some of the other fine beatless electronica from 2009, Dopplegaenger and the compilation he curated for the Affin label clearly show that ambient pop is not dead.
Tracklist 01. Angelpunkt
02. Das Haus Steht Leer
03. Doppelgaenger
04. Flimmerfrequenz
05. Dreiglanz
06. Asphaltwiese
07. Meer Der Luegen
08. Niederwald
09. Toter Hafen