Various – Pop Ambient 2003

Leandro Fresco's beautiful track 'Buenos Amigos' has clearly inspired Sasha Funke for the pad in his track 'Mango'

This is one of my favourite albums in the Pop Ambient series. They're usually of a good standard but this one has two killer tracks that take it up a notch.

I bought it specifically for Leandro Fresco's "Buenos Amigos", which is a lovely summery guitar tune that loops smoothly for eight minutes but I could listen to it endlessly. The second standout is Markus Guentner's "Express Yourself", which is conceptually similar, although whereas "Amigos" is static "Express Yourself" evolves subtly. It gradually turns into a bouncy tune with a heavenly choir.

The rest of the album has a lot of looped guitar plucks. The two tracks by Klimek sound a little bit like "Buenos Amigos" but with a darker mood; "Milk and Honey" has the twang sound from Spandau Ballet's "True". Guentner's "Chrom" sounds like a perfume factory. Alltag 5's track sounds like a broken country and western record. The track by the latter-day Orb is surprisingly not bad; I didn't have high hopes for it but it was better than I expected.

Overall this is worth it for the two killer tracks by Fresco and Guentner. They're hard to find outside the compilation which is itself out of print although still available on e.g. iTunes.

One thing, though, and it didn't become apparent until listening to it with good headphones - and perhaps it's the iTunes version, I dunno - but some of the tracks have really distracting hiss. It sounds as if some of the source samples were really hissy, because it's intermittent, and yet it's on several tracks, as if the artists used the same samples. It's puzzling.

Ulf Lohmann"s "Nicht Die Welt" & Markus Guentner's "Express Yourself" are beautiful beyond the words ability to express all that which lies within their transcendental listening experience.

All's "Alltag 5" is an extended version (5:14 mins) of the track "All Music", which appears on the "Clicks & Cuts 2" compilation (Mille Plateaux 098 CD/LP) with a length of 4:44 mins and a slightly different intro. "Alltag 5" is the continuation of the "Alltag"-EP on Kompakt (KOM 034).