Send "Jurgen Paape " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Can it really have been nine years since Jürgen Paape's "So Weit Wie Noch Nie" lept out of Kompakt's Total 3 compilation? The intervening decade of dance music seems shorter than that, though maybe it shouldn't, since "So Weit Wie Noch Nie" felt eternal from its first spin. "Timeless" sounds fatuous, but this tune seemed to exist almost outside of time, oblivious to the sedimentary accumulation of fashions and techniques that ordinarily define dance music.In its pert synth-pop and soothing dreaminess (by way of its female schlager vocal), the track feels like Kompakt's quintessential moment: Much of the label's greatness, and certainly most of its distinctiveness in contemporary German techno, can be traced to its privileging of concepts alongside-- and at times above-- sonics. The novelty and inventiveness of many of its greatest records resides more in their articulation of the relationship between pop music and dance music than in pure production values. By extension you could make a case for the reclusive and decidedly unprolific Paape's being one of Kompakt's most defining producers. Alongside fellow label co-owner Michael Mayer, Paape captures glints of nearly all of Kompakt's pop-minded adventurers: The wistful melancholia of Superpitcher, the utopian dazzle of Rex the Dog, the childlike openness of Justus Köhncke. Where Paape differs from Mayer is that, while the latter retains the dancefloor as the site where groove and nostalgia intersect, Paape's finest pop creations evoke the sensation of flipping the radio dial and stumbling upon a tune that seems to echo with the spirit of a memory you've forgotten; you can certainly dance to these tunes, but that fact is almost incidental to their powerful charm. For all that, "So Weit Wie Noch Nie" could be Paape's curse, a tune so brilliant that he is doomed never to surpass it. The difficulty of Paape's task-- proving that he is more than just one inspired moment-- hangs over this otherwise fine retrospective of his past work for the label like a small question mark. Which is a shame, because Kompilation, if it was released as an artist's first album, would rightly be hailed as one of Kompakt's finest, an excellent balance of dancefloor functionalism and pop daring that the label has tried many times but usually failed to capture successfully....full text |
| Latestmusicheadlines |
| Despite a lack of prolificness, Kompakt co-founder Jürgen Paape has been one of its most defining architects; now his decade of work is finally collected....full text |
Jurgen Paape lyrics
|
| |||||||
