Gas to unleash new “composition” Rausch this May on Kompakt

Gas to unleash new "composition" Rausch this May on Kompakt
Yass. It's ascot time, readers.

• One is one seventeenth of 17.

• Wolfgang Voigt released Pop, his fourth album under the name GAS, on March 28, 2000. His next and most recent, Narkopop, was released on April 21, 2017.

• A NEW GAS album, Rausch, is going to be released on May 18, 2018, barely a year after Narkopop.

Like most albums released after long public absences, Narkopop was greeted like a gift. (And like only a few of its long-awaited peers, the glow of its immediate reception has not dimmed.)

The announcement of Rausch is, in a lot of respects, more surprising than Narkopop was after more than a decade and a half of dormancy. Does the short interval between Narkopop and Rausch signify a return to the same pace? Or could Rausch, however it sounds and whatever its reception, be followed by another decade-plus gap? Will GAS settle into existence as just another artist releasing albums at regular intervals? If so, will the project’s sense of mystique dissipate? What were the components of that mystique — how much came from GAS’ intoxicating sense of aesthetic unity, and how much simply from the lionizing chatter that ensues when an artist retires at their peak?

All of Voigt’s GAS-acknowledged GAS-releases (not including the self-titled album and first EP, which were not included in the GAS BOX of a couple years back, and which Voigt does not seem to consider a part of the project any longer) have possessed subtle but distinct differences from each other; and so it looks to go with Rausch. Although the forest imagery on the cover remains, the details so far released about Rausch take pains to call it not simply an album, but a “composition,” a unified work.

All of the prior GAS albums make the most sense as front-to-back listens (and most of them have even historically had differences between their CD and vinyl editions), but this time the difference is clearer: the vinyl will have only four tracks, A,B,C,D, divided by side; while the CD and digital version will have seven, and their listings in Kompakt’s press release come with the following note: “all formats contain the same version of Rausch. The album is meant to be heard from beginning to end as a whole. It has been track marked or separated due to format restrictions.”

The release also includes the following poem:

Rausch with no name / My beautiful shine / You are the sun / This is where I want to be / Rausch with no morning / This is where we burn / The Stars sparkle / In a sea of flames / Horns and fanfares / Fanfares of joy / Fanfares of fear / The wine we drink through the eyes / The moon pours down at night in waves / Careful with that axe Eugene / Personal Jesus / No beginning no end / Eighteenth of Oktember / The night falls / The king comes / The hunt starts / Freude schöner Götterfunken / The long march through the underwood / Trust me there’s nothing / Once upon a time there was a bandit / Who loved a prince / That was long ago / Spring Summer Fall and Gas / There is a train heading to Nowhere / Drums and Trumpets / Future without mankind / Warm snow / Alles is gut / The bells toll / You are not alone / The murmur in the forest / The murmur in the head / Light as mist /Heavy as lead / Music happens / To flow like gas / A clearing / Heavy baggage / Debut in the afterlife / Death has seven cats / World heritage Rausch / Finally infinite

There will be a live premiere of Rausch in Cologne at the Köln Philharmonie on May 9, followed by a global tour. The album is pre-order-able now from Kompakt, and its announcement also comes with a trailer, which you can watch below. The trailer also includes a number of tour dates leading up to and following the premiere and release of Rausch, which you can ALSO read below. Because, frankly, I can’t type one more sentence. I’m totally gassed.



Rausch tracklisting:

CD / Digital*:
01. Rausch 1
02. Rausch 2
03. Rausch 3
04. Rausch 4
05. Rausch 5
06. Rausch 6
07. Rausch 7

2XLP*:
A. Rausch A
B. Rausch B
C. Rausch C
D. Rausch D

* All formats contain the full version of Rausch. The album is meant to be heard from beginning to end as a whole. It has been track marked or separated due to format restrictions.

GAS dates:

03.20.18 - New York, NY - Elsewhere
03.23.18 - Knoxville, TN - Big Ears Festival
03.25.18 - Washington, D.C. - Sixth & I
03.26.18 - Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer
03.27.18 - Montreal, Canada - Rialto Theatre
03.29.18 - Chicago, IL - The Art Institute
04.06.18 - Istanbul, Turkey - Sonar Festival
05.09.18 - Köln, Germany - Köln Philhormonie
05.19.18 - Kiev, Ukraine - Strichka Festival

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