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.
Paape's intermittent use of schlager vocals makes it tempting to suggest that his expansive notion of pop-techno is his greatest skill; the evidence against this is the gimmicky oompah-schaffel of "Ofterschwang", which has little use except as a taster for an imaginary techno rendition of Peter and the Wolf. Paape's real fundamental skill, the one that inheres in almost all of the productions collected here, is his facility for the architecture of grooves, his simple, pared back and grid-like tech-house arrangements effortlessly attaining a sense of build and sweep that feels inevitable, like a slow rush of blood to your head.
It's for this reason that Paape is particularly well-suited to the straight compilation format: Even the collection's most anonymous moments, such as the brooding electro-house of "Nord", deserve to be heard in full. This skill also infects the producer's finest dancefloor cuts with a sense of perpetually building excitement and energy that might surprise the casual fan-- the melancholy, ominous "Fruity Loops #2" and the menacing, bleepy "Take That" are, if you'll forgive the phrase, dancefloor bombs.
Yet for all this, "So Weit Wie Noch Nie" and its two likeminded companions, unofficial sequel "Mit Dir" and the stirring, dramatic "Come Into My Life", stand out like beacons. These are the times when Paape's diverging talents for pop vision and groove precision snap into accord, their largesse and grandeur so undeniable that Paape's attempts at any other style can start to feel like finely wrought distractions. If Kompilation inspires Paape to take stock at all, hopefully he'll resolve to bite the bullet: Even if lightning doesn't strike twice, his noble failures would be hard to resist.
