Type has scored a brilliant coup in its rerelease of German sound artist Thomas Köner’s first three albums, which have been out of print for some time. Now, they are compiled on a three-CD set that firmly supports the claim made by the promo materials—that this trio is simply the zenith of dark ambient music. Listening in 2010, it’s clear also that these are an essential link from the past to any current release that traffics in process or isolation, which is to say, quite a bit of stuff these days.
In the early Nineties, Köner composed these albums using “gongs (recorded in different rooms and underwater) as well as homemade wind instruments.” The result is a menacing, hovering atmosphere like a tundra—a desolate plain occasionally broken by some startling phenomena, whether vocal-like squeals or unexpected instrumental crescendos.  The atmosphere is continuously mesmerizing, immersive, and mysterious.
The clarity of Köner’s vision is extraordinary. The unity and coherence between the three albums is extremely strong, and while each one stands on its own in terms of pacing and depth, each is clearly on the same trajectory. Anyone who’s actually serious about creating affective ambient music probably has heard of this, but for those who haven’t as well, the Köner box set should vault to the top of the “essential listening” pile.
9/10
