Buy/stream: https://kompakt.fm/downloads/pop-ambient

It’s 2020, the year Pop Ambient turns twenty-one years old, a spritely young adult waltzing out of its teenage joys and tears. Pop Ambient has always stood for a certain classicism and elegance, a kind of beatless music that’s diaphanous and hazy, gossamer and glittering. It’s a music that’s no less inviting for its slow pace and becalmed nature, with a different kind of tension bubbling under the surface. For twenty-one years, KOMPAKT co-founder Wolfgang Voigt has curated a series of peerless compilations that repeatedly find refreshing answers to a simple question – What happens when the dancefloor is empty, and everyone’s home to drift away?

As with many other Pop Ambient compilations, Pop Ambient 2021 offers a welcome platform to contributions from both old friends and new faces. It opens with the gorgeous, slo-mo drift of “Of A Vessel”, from new Kompakt signings Blank Gloss. Sending their music out into the world from their home in Sacramento, this duo makes music that’s featherlight and luscious, the muted chime of a guitar over here, the steady hum of a halatial drone over there; everything in its right place, and nothing overdone. The poise is all. Neozaïre (Tobias Sawitzki) and Seventh World (Juho Hietala aka Blamstrain) are our other two new voices, the latter closing (the CD version of) Pop Ambient 2021 with a long, lambent dreamsong, Neozaïre offering us two gaseous, morphing driftworks, “Vor den Toren Europas” and “In Verschwenderischer Fülle” (CD only), etched across with bell-like arpeggios.

Pop Ambient has always felt like a field for play for the KOMPAKT cognoscenti, and 2021 is no different, with Joachim Spieth collaborating with Pepo Galán on the sidereal visions of “Libration”, while Leandro Fresco teams up with Thore Pfeiffer on the lovely “Abejorro”. Pfeiffer also contributes two lovely solo miniatures of abstract longing. Yui Onodera calls in again, long distance, for their fourth Pop Ambient running, with the refracted, glinting lightscapes of “Cromo 5” and “Monochrome”, while there are also star turns from Max Würden, both solo and in Reich & Würden (with Luis Reichard), and Morgen Wurde, who drops by with the ‘ethereal drama’ of “Mittsommer”.

Pop Ambient gets the balance right: visions and soundscapes, long-distance communications and intimate asides, sweetness and light, drama and dreaming, all wrapped up in floral abstractions – a most beautiful distraction.

Leandro Fresco & Thore Pfeiffer - Abejorro

https://thorepfeiffer.bandcamp.com

https://www.facebook.com/thorepfeiffermusik

Releases 2019:
-Exclusive Track 'BUCHT' on Grenzwellen Vier Compilation. Out May 22nd.
https://grenzwellen.bandcamp.com/album/grenzwellen-vier
-Ep HERBS 04/05/2019 via Kohdu Records
https://www.beatport.com/release/herbs/2559428
-Album UMLAND 1/1/2019 via Savvy Records
https://thorepfeiffer.bandcamp.com/album/umland


music-projects by thore pfeiffer:
-thore pfeiffer
-leandro fresco / thore pfeiffer
-the velvet circle
-gen pop
-eroht
-e-typ

“Music always surrounded me.” says Thore Pfeiffer when asked about his life.

 

Between the music emanating from his eldest brother’s bedroom and the rare electrofunk mixtapes borrowed from his sister’s DJ friend, Thore’s siblings had some of the earliest influences on his musical repertoire growing up. 

 

After that, a wave of old school hip hop and rap began to spill over from the United States. At the same time  early European and German electronic sounds started to make an impact on Thore’s life. This led Thore down a path all the way up to the most recent minimal techno music.

 

Born in 1973 in Braunschweig, Germany, Thore grew up in the Rhein-Main area near Frankfurt. In the early 1980s when Thore was only an adolescent, he joined a local breakdance crew and even landed a few gigs on stage. Around the same time Thore began practicing illegal graffiti. Although he has never been caught, this was the beginning of a new passion for painting.

 

Thore finds the alliance between art and music essential for the overall impression of an artist's work. He practices acrylic painting every so often, and used his own artwork as covers for his demos.

 

For several years Thore felt the urge produce to his own music but was missing the technical skills and connections to teach him. This changed when Thore met techno DJ and producer, Thomas Gwosdz.

 

Ever since, puzzling with bizzare samples not only became a hypnotizing habit but also a useful form of therapy.

 

“Other people might go for a jog after work. I prefer working on my tracks. I totally forget the world around me. There’s just the sample, the music and me."

﻿THORE PFEIFFER

MAINZ, DE
​

Label, booking agency & online record shop

Demo submission: 
We receive a lot of demos every day. Please understand that we are unable to listen to everything. Send your private soundcloud link to: label@kompakt.fm.