Thomas Fehlmann – Gute Luft

I listened to this album a lot before owning the records, but wow, it just sounds incredible on vinyl - well done Kompakt for doing this phenomenal work justice. Listening to it just now, has to be in my top 5 electronic albums.

Repress available on Kompakt.FM for 19€.
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Excellent! Laid back, with dubby techno influence, some interesting 'straightforward' melodic, rhythmic pieces and a seamless quality that can sometimes be absent on soundtrack-type releases. Not as 'berlin school' as I was hoping but a real pleasant alternative all the same. If you know The Orb you know things can get a bit 'lost', 'meander' or go a bit 'gloopy'. Thomas keeps the ideas circulating in (I'd imagine) a strict, economical rotation, no bloat or whimsical introspection!

Thomas Fehlmann's GUTE LUFT gets off to a pleasing start with "Alles, Immer" a reverberating track that seems to bounce off itself like a rubber ball and "Falling Into Your Eyes" shimmers with an easy, ambient grace. Fehlmann moves from one mood to the next easily: "Wasser Im Fluss" has a surprising bounce to it, which the soft house beat only emphasizes (its sister track, "Fluss Im Wasser" has a much more insistent beat), and "Schwerelos" just decides to be funky. "Speeding" wanders a bit more, but still has the rhythmic backing, but "Soft Park" pulls things back in with a staunch beat. "Von Oben" initially goes the beatless route, and it feels like being suspended in mid-air, with soft gusts of wind buffeting you from all directions, as the quiet rhythm propels you forward. "Berliner Luftikus" offers dub techno that's always right on the edge of ambience ("Im Uberblick" is a more pure for of dub techno but drops into ambience right at the end), and "Darkspark," with its disembodied harps and strings, crosses over. Always changing, always interesting...

Thomas Fehlmann has long been a towering figure in electronic music. He was producer on The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld and executive producer for Sun Electric. He and Palais Schaumburg bandmate Moritz von Oswald (of Basic Channel fame) famously collaborated with Juan Atkins in the early nineties as 3MB. More recently he’s been producing solo work for Plug Research and Kompakt. Gute Luft is Fehlmann's original soundtrack from "24H BERLIN" - a 24 hour television event, billed as the world’s longest documentary. Eighty camera teams filmed Berliners over the course of a day. Fehlmann provided a portion of the score, which he reworked here into album format. The title translates to “Good Air”. My favorite tracks are the most rhythmic. Some of the more cinematic pieces strike me as too museum-y. To that end, I enjoy the deep bass and cascading textures of “Alles, Immer”. In fact, it reminds me of Moritz von Oswald Trio. “Wasser im Fluss” falls into a nice, breezy groove. Crisp chord changes contrast reverberating string notes. “Schwerelos” is similarly lively, with bouncy bass and the occasional airy harp glissando. On “Speeding”, Fehlmann’s music takes on a darker tone with muted, tapped percussion and long, droning chords. “In the Wind II” has a bassline that is almost electro, while flutes play what seem like traces of “Londonderry Air”. It’s better than my description would have you believe. “Soft Park” is funkier, but woefully short. Dubby chords splatter over deep bass and percussion snaps. “Permanent Touch”, “Von Oben,” and “Cityscape” are all upbeat, but they sink into the background for me. For a soundtrack, that’s probably not a bad thing. “Fluss im Wasser”, on the other hand, is one of my favorite tracks on the album. The bass is lush and dynamic. A guitar slides, beats pound, and the sun shines. “Berliner Luftikus” follows with a deep dub techno vibe, the sounds of falling rain, and a pretty four-note pattern played on bells. “Darkspark” is an immediate attention-grabber, with an orchestral palette of strings and horns. Two-note chords pulse and change. I wish Fehlmann had extended this over a full ten minutes or so. “Im Überblick” is another tune that is over way too soon. It morphs from dub techno to bass-heavy minimalism to ambiance. The album ends with panning white noise and decaying piano tones on “Scheiben”. Gute Luft is released by the Köln (Germany) based Kompakt, run and operated to Wolfgang Voigt. The label's recent output includes the 11th installment in the Total series featuring an excellent roster of artists, such as DJ Koze, The Field, Gus Gus, and of course Voigt and Fehlmann. There's also a 12" Gute Luft Remixe edition, with three tracks reworked by Soulphiction (Michel Baumann) and Move D. (Original review posted by Jacob Arnold on Gridface. Republished with permission of the author.)

I certainly won't disagree with the other review posted; however, it is only one line. Hardly a review. At any rate, it mentions how this is a very good album, and indeed it is very good. Outstanding actually. This album was commissioned for a film project documenting the lives of Germans (of course there is more of a concept to it than that, but I was not so interested in the film project, as much as I was looking forward to the soundtrack!). As I understand it, the film is an amalgamation of a number of different lives unfolding over a period of time. Why is that important? Because that seems to be the guiding principle behind the album as well. This is a deep and layered work, in some ways new, in others a retrospective of Thomas' solo output. It would seem that he took the same approach that he and Alex take with the Orb in terms of remixing which is to reshape the songs in question, using elements from all over the place and placing them someplace new. :) If you are familiar with the majority of Thomas' output, you will smile as snippets surface from every one of his solo albums, weaving and morphing among new sounds in order to create something both fresh and refreshing. In addition, I am of the opinion, and this is merely subjective mind you, that various different styles of German electronic music are given little subtle homage here and there as well. The shuffle of Kraftwerk, the pulse of Basic Channel and the immersive immensity of GAS all feel like they were woven into the intricate, intimate tapestry. Every sound appears to be placed with the greatest of love and care, by an individual who has constantly proved himself to be one of the true legends of electronic music throughout a long and prosperous career. This is essential listening, and truly a defining record for the so called "ambient techno" canon.

..a very good album, every single track is amazing, must have ;)