It's only produced two previous chapters over the last eight years, but it wouldn't be a stretch to hold up the Immer series as a blueprint for the rushy, melodic, and morose brand of minimal that Michael Mayer and Kompakt have perfected over the last decade. Part of that is just simple math. Unless you count the minute shifts in Kompakt's aesthetic over the years as part of Mayer's creative legacy, the rangy German hasn't exactly been prolific. Sure, there was that memorable Fabric mix, the Speicher series of full-lengths and 12"s, the retrospectively unremarkable solo album Touch, the immediately underwhelming Superpitcher collab Supermayer, and other one-offs and quick-draws. But spread over 12 years, and for a guy who is still routinely held up as a genre figurehead, that's actually not so much.
Better to point to the more intangible things that Mayer developed and honed during that period: his taste, his tempo, his belief in techno as a more fluid, utilitarian, and lovelorn instrument. It's this underlying aesthetic that's informed his best work, his most inspired live sets, his most fruitful signings-- basically the dude's entire legacy-- and nowhere has that been more directly vocalized than in these mixes. They might not happen any more regularly than the World Cup, but it's hard not to feel like the Immers are Mayer's most personal works, the best distillates of everything he loves most.
So it's reassuring to know that Immer 3, still dutifully, almost stubbornly, works within the same parameters as its predecessors. Comprising an Ewan Pearson refit of Cortney Tidwell's possibly overplayed-by-now "Don't Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up", Closer Musik's twerky "Departures", and the DJ Koze remix of Ben Watt's "Guinea Pig (Vocal Variation with Julia Biel)", Immer 3's opening trio is predictably slow to get off the ground. It isn't until the grinding chords and everything-but-the-kitchen-sink electro house of Tim Paris' wonderful "Edges of Corrosion" that the tempo moves into aerobic territory. Mayer standbys Smith N Hack and Poker Flat alum Raudive provide a stretch of lonely electro leading into the record's highlight: a Gui Boratto remix of Massive Attack's "Paradise Circus". Boasting Hope Sandoval on vocals, a sequence of perfectly interlocked rhythms and melodies, and some of the most desolate piano chords this side of Max Richter, "Paradise Circus" is basically Mayer catnip. It'd be beautiful anywhere, but in these surroundings, it feels especially potent.
Things get a bit lighter after that; Popnoname's "Hello Gorgeous" trades in early-80s synth-led quirk while Superpitcher's exclusive Charlotte Gainsbourg remix ("The Operation") marries her cold, Gallic pop sensibilities with his full-bodied production ethic to striking effect. The mix's other standout moment comes with Culoe de Song's "The Bright Forest", a lush bit of almost-downtempo that ratchets up the drama with syrupy strings and a meandering piano lead. Since the only signature piece missing by this point is some suspiciously earnest Europop, enter Kinky Justice's "New Day" to close things out.
There's an abundance of rhythmic texture and eddying female vocals and broody strings and disco accents, all of it wrapped up in a familiarly understated presentation that prizes atmosphere and accent above force and momentum. It's heady and subtle and stylish and worryingly comforting in that it doesn't sound massively different from anything Mayer was doing in 2002. In fact, by the brute force of his own persistence, he's managed to give this sound the sort of longevity-- and by extension validity-- that a lot of early-Kompakt skeptics never thought it would enjoy. Maybe it even explains the title: Immer means "always."
