If
the notion of a German enterprise tasked with alchemizing sound into something
like vapor doesn't excite you, it should. That was effectively the premise
behind Gas, one of many projects marshaled by Wolfgang Voigt before he started
the epochal electronic label Kompakt. From its inception in the mid-'90s, Gas
music has tried to conjure the mysterious depths of the German forest—the
streaks of light and pockets of darkness that fizz between trees that breathe.
On the four albums bundled into the reissue box set Nah Und Fern, the results
have been beautiful and unnerving. The Gas sound is all about the changing
same, with long washes of ambient textures and a sublimated pulse that evokes
techno without sounding the least bit literally danceable. Glimmers of brass
and strings wander in from old traditional German songs, but mostly, it's a
magisterial sound that begs listeners to get lost inside it.