It's been 10 years since Wolfgang Voigt's illustrious Kompakt label began the
Pop Ambient series, focusing on the more delicate end of the imprint's spectrum. By now it's become something to look forward to each year; an ambient Christmas.
Voigt is a man of many pseudonyms, churning out sounds that fall under the ambient and techno umbrellas, and his influence can be heard in the variety of artists featured.
Pop Ambient 2005 fades into a three track suite of looped out, crackling ambience - not entirely different from Herr Voigt's Gas releases. Both The Orb and Markus Güntner work their magic with deceptively minimal pieces that reveal new layers as they progress. Among the obscured atmospheres is Pass Into Silence's "Blue," a beautifully simple song that alternates between melodies with grace; the ideal soundtrack to "floating in the sky" scenes. It may not be the most technically impressive song here, but its pop sensibility makes for prime earworm material.
From there the quality becomes a little less consistent. You have the plush tremolo of "Soft Bullets" and erratic, burbling twinkles of "Sunbeams," both pleasant enough. The unmentioned, however inoffensive they may be, don't reach the same heights as the first half of
Pop Ambient 2005. And that's okay, they don't need to; the album is easily one of the best in the
Pop Ambient series without my nitpicking. I can't make any excuses for tacky ornate covers though.
