Pop Ambient 2011

The 11th volume of Kompakt's Pop Ambient series is the darkest one yet, its tone set by a sullen Alva Noto/Blixa Bargeld collaboration that appeared the previous year on the Raster-Noton label. The duo's "Bernsteinzimmer" is something of an outlier in the series, involving tension-raising knocks and a typically halting reading from Bargeld (the series provides very little in the way beats and clearly heard voices), yet it indicates that the disc is not geared for pondering snowflake construction. This round of alluring, quietly disquieting tracks is highlighted by Jürgen Paape's "Ein Schoner Land," where smeared warning sirens and trumpets, a ghost choir, and a simply strummed acoustic guitar fade in and out to gradually chilling effect. Some of the new names -- a small cast that includes the Magazine label's Barnt, as well as Ewan Pearson and October's Bhutan Tiger Rescue -- supply frights. Crato's "30.6.1881" is somewhere between Pink Floyd's "Saucerful of Secrets" and early Labradford, awash in agitated cymbals over a buried, irregular pulse. Mikkel Metal adds a little levity with the out-of-character "The Other Side of You," marrying bright atmospheres with basic drum hits and a simple that sounds positively chipper in relation to the various shades of doom and gloom on the remainder of the disc. ~ Andy Kellman