[Studio 1]

From his groundbreaking ambient work as Gas to his acid-fueled excursions as Mike Ink, to his foundation of the pioneering Kompakt empire, Cologne’s Wolfgang Voigt has had an especially active hand in the development of electronic dance music sounds in the last decade and a half. For all the weight the above carries, however, Voigt’s nameless, color-coded Studio 1 12-inch series that ran from late 1995 to 1997 may be the most lauded of them all, and with good reason. These ten records contain the basic DNA for what we know today as minimal techno. In fact, Voigt arguably both invented and perfected the model in one fell swoop; these records might have been equaled since their release, but they haven’t been exceeded.

This ten-track compilation CD, originally released in 1997, doesn’t provide the complete picture — far from it, actually. Compiling some of the best of the vinyl material along with four otherwise unavailable tracks, Studio 1 (pronounced “Studio Eins,” so don’t think it’s a reggae reference) certainly provides an illuminating look at the early development of the minimal sound: slightly distorted bouncing and popping beats locked in time with bubbling bass lines and a variety of frequencies swirling in their own space. His tracks seemed stripped to the bone but also fairly dense in their moving parts and compositional complexity. These aren’t just beat records, they’re living, breathing beings, as valuable for dancing and mixing as they are for listening and marveling, full of tiny unexpected moments that make for both gasps of wonder and knowing nods.

Whether it’s nostalgia, greed, vanity, or some combination of the three that led Voigt to reissue first his Gas albums and now this long-out-of-print compilation CD is beside the point — just be thankful it happened. Now if we can just get a reissue of Thomas Brinkmann’s stunning, hypnotic Studio 1 Variationen…