Pop Ambient 2012

Like many of the preceding 11 volumes, Pop Ambient 2012 features a mix of familiar producers, new producers, and familiar producers under new aliases. Aksel Schaufler, whose Superpitcher guise dates back to the Kompakt sublabel Kreisel 99, contributes his first Pop Ambient track with "Jackson," a spooky, gradually intensifying piece that could pass for a Kompakt 100-style remix of Justus Köhncke's 2001 B-side "Shelter." Longtime partners Wolfgang Voigt and Jörg Burger follow up their Total 12 debut as Mohn with a score for a heavy-industry hallucination. Burger also makes his tenth series appearance as Triola, layering majestic flourishes over turbulent undercurrents on "Richmodis." The wobbly cello and rainfall FX of "Pan" come from Morek, "a familiar face from past times who is making an anonymous return" (Ulf Lohmann? Dettinger? Klimek?). Two of the more notable tracks appear at the end of the program. Former Slowdive drummer Simon Scott, who has released largely ambient albums on t