So, why is everyone seemingly down on Kompakt this year? I think what people are claiming as the downfall of the label is totally because of the lackluster ambient stuff they've been putting out recently. I mean it must, right? Andrew Thomas, the much maligned Pass Into Silence and Klimek (sorry Ron!) have not been cutting it, especially in light of the halcyon days of Guentner and Dettinger. I think we’d be hard pressed to find more people hungering for Pop Ambient 2005 than people wondering why the hell there isn’t a Total 6 scheduled for release. Well? Guys? And this is the EXACT reason that people have been grumbling about the fact that it’s slow year for the label (if they have) because this ambient stuff is all they have to go on, aside from ‘Pitcher which seems to split audiences down the middle. Oh, yeah, and that double disc thing. But that hardly counts, right? Remixes? Pffft. (good disc(s), though!)

But I think that's always been the knock on Kompakt. Maybe it's just the pre-winter doldrums, waiting for the yearly compilations to come out? Who knows...but with the Mayer solo album on the horizon and another Koehnecke as well, there seems to be little to worry about in Cologne, if there was at all.