85. Gas - Pop (2000)

Explaining how an ambient album works is just as hard as explaining how one doesn't work, and even harder than both of those explaining how an ambient album sort of works. This album is basically a drone record in the vein of Stars of the Lid except with a strong albeit sublimated heartbeat-ish percussion effect placed on most of the tracks. One thing that really helps this album work is listening to it on headphones: it is effectively numbing and overwhelming. The mix is packed solid, and it makes what is ostensibly an ambient record sound like a great torrent of noise. The problem with this album is that these tracks are not very atmospherically effective, which to my mind is a central tenet of ambient music: everything is too loud and forceful, too intense. Also, there are no moments of ebb and flow in the tracks, because how a track starts is exactly how it ends and exactly how it is the entire time between the two. The only track that really carves out an interesting atmosphere for itself is the final track (all tracks are untitled): it's by far the most aggressive and dramatic thing here, and at times it sounds more like M83 or Mew than a normal ambient album. The rest exists in a no-man's-land between atmosphere and noise without really committing to either: as an electronic record it isn't as human as Burial nor as terrifyingly inhuman as Autechre. Creative, and distinct, but all too middling.

MY RATING: 6.6

Gas - "Untitled #3"