Various - Pop Ambient 2006 - Kompakt - LP/CD

Once a year it's worth getting excited about a new album that includes the word 'Ambient' in its title... I'm talking of course about Kompakt's (almost) legendary series of chill-out Electronica albums which have grown in stature, if not in scope, over the last 5 years.

Since day one - or Pop Ambient 2001, to give it its full title - there has been a shift towards the more ethereal, the more breathy and the more downright musical and after a slight blip with '2005' and some initial reservations about this particular edition, I'm glad to say that it is, in fact, a real grower.

Some people may think of it as 'Ambient-lite' and I can kind of see why, but essentially, Kompakt aren't out to challenge the listener and they certainly don't seem to want to be overly experimental. It's simply a great slab of listening music for easy-going afternoons and smoky-hazy evenings.

The one notable absence on this album is that of Wolfgang Voigt - discounting the fact that he did the artwork, of course - which is a bit disorientating at first. What's the point of Pop Ambient without the Godfather of the sound being involved? Luckily there are some new pretenders to the throne as well as some old faces as well.

The Orb get strangely folky with a cute guitar riff and a surprisingly rhythmic sound that is light, airy and actually got me jiggling about in my seat! They win the prize for the most upbeat Ambient track on the album.

Mikkel Metal and Andrew Thomas both deliver gems that fill the gap left by Voigt's absence. Taking over where Gas left off they sculpt wonderfully dense textural tracks with plenty of depth and beauty.

Uli Teichmann (father of Andi and Hannes, by all accounts) really does do a fine job of sounding classical yet utterly contempoorary with a hypnotic loop that has haunting melodic sweeps and a gentle tone.

Ulf Lohmann and Popnoname are responsible for two delightful tracks that are coherently abstract but always melodically, whilst Markus Guentner once again proves that when he's not writing commercially inclined Techno and House he's still perfectly brilliant at putting together lush soundscapes of the highest order.

To be honest the weakest moments for me are Klimek's 'Gymnopedie', which treads familiar ground and doesn't really do anything particularly interesting with Satie's masterpiece, and the version of 'Albatross' by Kohncke & Heimermann... a pretty tune but, unfortunately, due to its blatant associations with Ambient music not terribly exciting.

That said, there's more than enough here to keep the avid fan going and, as always, there'll be plenty of people waiting for this with baited breath.

Will the next Pop Ambient take a slightly different direction? Who knows? Until then however you get a pleasantly horizontal album that will blissfully pass over you, through you and around you, and sometimes, let's be honest, that's all you really want.