"Ende Gut Alles Gut is a heady, introspective and self-indulgent meander through a gallery of impeccably produced minimal and ambient leaning artworks, thoughtfully curated and assembled for a listening experience that grows more pleasurable on each foggy loop of these echoing, vaulted halls."
Ah, Giegling. The collective that, whatever your opinion is of them, never fails to get people talking. 25 years and 79 records on from their original release, and their ability to get Reddit forums, Facebook groups and Discogs comments sections erupting with activity shows no sign of slowing.
Around 10 months ago, Giegling fanatics, and there are a lot of them, spotted the addition of Giegling 30 to the label’s website, entitled Ende Gut Alles Gut, essentially translated as ‘all’s well that ends well’. This cryptic enough message, along with the release of the album artwork that showed a piece of cheese in a mousetrap, predictably sent the aforementioned online locales into a spiral of speculation and prophesying.
“Is this the end of Giegling?” – “When will we actually see the record?” – “How many tunes/discs are we getting?” – “What is Nina Kraviz doing on there?” – “Is this the end of Giegling?”
All asked in the midst of dropping €90 on an album that offers no previews or indication of when the customer would actually receive it. The Giegling effect.
The answer to that most burning of questions in the collective mind of the community by the way, is a resounding “no”. And the Nina Kraviz tune is actually pretty nice. And so, after parting with the eye-watering total that shipping costs added to the record, the Giegling community sat back and waited, and waited, and waited for news of the record to arrive. Some more patiently than others.
And now it’s arrived! Within the last week or so, copies have been dropping at homes all over the globe, and house heads have finally got their hands on the 6 pack of records that is Ende Gut Alles Gut. Spanning 29 tracks, it’s a compilation that brings together all the names still associated with the label, with contributions from ubiquitous artists like map.ache, Leafar Legov, Matthias Reiling, Vril, et. al. – as well as a few welcome surprises.
The album kicks off with Vera’s Pain of Thoughts, a sort of brooding, minimal house number, a spooky drawn out pad lurking beneath a slow breakbeat, a little bass stab just offering some bite and groove. It’s a very understated start, a track that evolves slowly, and very much sets the tone and sound for the rest of the album.
This is followed up by the glitchy little skit of Uba from Edward, before Leafar Legov rounds off the A-side with Komorebi, a horizontally laid-back track that begins to inject some melody into proceedings with some warm, lush synth work.
The B-side opens with a personal highlight as Ernst (Kettenkarussell) deliver the hypnotic, clean and clear Dachgeschoss, all brightness and lightness, before a spoken word track Sueno by Otto (presumably he’s talking about a dream), and a kind of guitar-laden piece of electronica from map.ache on New Friends. A track that’s nice, without exactly reaching the heights you know he has in the locker, not that he’s trying to achieve them here clearly.
For all the people who’ve reached this point in the album weeping into a soft pillow, crying out, “where is my deep house?!”, itching for some release and movement and groovement, they are provided with a flood of ecstatic satisfaction, courtesy of the ever-reliable Mountain People. Dranse is everything that whips people into a frothing frenzy over Giegling, and the reason they can get away with, well, everything they get away with.
Simple, effective, transcendent house music here. Just a 4/4, a rolling bassline that could comfortably trundle on into eternity, some toms, crisp hats and vaporous pads and vocals, it’s a track ready made for moments by the lake. And the great thing about this side of the record, is that Dranse is immediately followed by the other great highlight of the album, the tear-jerking, cloud-gazing, bucket of euphoria that is Auffahrt Zürich from Sevensol & Bender.
The pair are followed by bona fide Detroit legend Terrence Dixon, whose contribution is a typically skilled exercise in extracting warmth from coldhearted machinery on Starlight. Amir Alexander rounds off the D side with moody, vocal led Necessary Sanctuary (10 A.M.) before the disc 3 adventure opens with the sounds of Lowtec’s minimal, no-frills house he’s spent years honing and curating over on Workshop.
Nina Kraviz probably attracted the highest volume of online murmuring and the steepest gradient of eyebrow arching amongst the Giegling beard-scratchers, but her track Boogie stays true to the minimal template clearly defined by the album. A trippy, playful little techno track that fiddles pleasurably with pitch, tempo and rhythm to create something very listenable indeed.
Time now for another kind of spoken word interlude on 35 by Nosc, before we’re back to that well-trodden minimal path, led by shining hats and distorted vocal sampling on Oskar Offermann’s Keeper and the warped groove of Cassy’s K.L.B. Tobias. rounds out the F-side (we’re getting there!) with another tripped-out, glitchy thing that splices chaotic electronics with dusty string samples.
This is followed by Noche Pasadas, another personal highlight, as Molly delivers a sultry, dubby house number, a clear hat cutting through the dusty haze of low, drawn out synth lines and breathy vocal samples. A real low-slung slow-burner for early hours and dark corners.
The Ghostbusters appear to channel some P.O.D. vibes on Vom Rand Der Welt, all ringing synths over steady, quietly marching rhythms. If anyone sums up the spirit of this release, it is probably Taksu, alias of Romanian minimal giant Rhadoo. In a fashion typical of his odyssey-length, slowly evolving pieces, he is dedicated an entire side for the 16 minute epic of Din Nou. It is one of the most hypnotic, immersive and absorbing tracks on the album.
In contrast, Matthias Reiling makes do with less than two minutes of spooky drone work and guitar, before we dive back into yet more tripped-out, long, long minimal work and ethereal vocal chants on Ulaanbataar, produced by the unfamiliar name of Disordered Rhythm Metronomy. It feels, for an artist so obscure, like an incredibly accomplished 12 minute workout, the sort of thing only someone with years of experience crafting this kind of – oh wait, it’s Ricardo Villalobos. And now everything makes sense.
Jan Jelinek and Ulla’s live jam at Funkhaus is an exercise in warm, experimental drone and glitch sounds. Lawrence takes this warmth and injects it into a late-night, glittering cityscape house cut, all jazz-inflected drum rattles and little dusty guitar samples over soft pads and synths. This elegant mood is maintained in Margaux Gazur’s End Of Summer, where soft piano chords and a classy little bassline melts into yet more restrained, simple house rhythms.
Into the final disc of the compilation, and we’re confronted with Han, Cosmo and Eduardo De La Calle’s track where a heavy dose of 303 takes it from something head-nodding to actually quite dirty, one of the few tracks that has a good old roll around in the mud, before the minimal groove of Serafin’s Sun In The Fridge.
The final side is opened by household name Vril, who tugs at the heartstrings with gently descending chord-progressions set against the unforgiving crashes of twisting transistors on Four2, followed up by Koreander’s Monday Rain, a breaksy slow thing with the high plink of piano, some crackling synth pulses and vocals from What Becomes of the Broken Hearted that almost seem to have been put through a tape warp.
The epic 29 track compilation comes to a close on Abschied by Birds & Tapes, a simple, slow ending that, again, finds its focus in piano. Contemplative, melancholic, it falters gracefully into silence, leaving me to reflect on a record that’s had punters hanging around for almost a year for its arrival.
The question everyone wants answered, of course, is whether it’s worth the wait (and the cash). The answer to that? It’s complicated.
Taken alone, without the long months of anticipation and the stratospheric expectations that come with every Giegling release, without the general aura of untouchableness that seems to surround the collective, the answer would, objectively, be yes.
Ende Gut Alles Gut is a heady, introspective and self-indulgent meander through a gallery of impeccably produced minimal and ambient leaning artworks, thoughtfully curated and assembled for a listening experience that grows more pleasurable on each foggy loop of these echoing, vaulted halls.
It may lack any immediately obvious, blinding highlights that attract the unhinged levels of attention that tracks like Maybe, Seis, Haus, or [insert virtually any Traumprinz track here] get, but to have come to a point where one might expect this of Giegling is perhaps just an indication that they have become victims of their own success. It also might not be such a bad thing. It might (but probably won’t) keep the resale prices down a bit.
For a collective that prides themselves on their DIY, anti-establishment principles, Giegling haven’t half created a strange dichotomy for themselves whereby they appear at once as purists of the scene and the textbook example of creating a breeding ground of speculators and investors in the electronic music space. If Discogs sharks are real, then Giegling wax is a languid limb dangled seductively over a surfboard, coated in seal fat.
But despite the general huffing and dissatisfaction, this is not their fault. Releasing music in a vinyl-only format is hardly unique to them, and is a stylistic choice I respect. People have to really want the music in order to have it. And boy do some people want it. What happens to those records once they leave the safety of the Giegling office is out of their control. I would rather see time and money put into new productions like this, as opposed to flooding the world with represses of Giegling 2018.
The point being, beyond the wait times, the pops and clicks (only on a couple of my sides), the regrettable slight warping of disc 6, the money up front without previewing model, there is something at the core of all the extraneous stuff that really speaks to people. Music is still at the heart of Giegling, and the label continues to evolve and grow in ways that keep listeners hooked.
A test in faith and patience perhaps, but those who braved the mousetrap have been rewarded with with some ripe old cheese. In the end, if what matters is the music, then yes I suppose all is well that ends well. Not that this is the end by the way.
‘Ende Gut Alles Gut’ is out now via Giegling. Buy a copy from Inverted Audio Record Store.
TRACKLIST
A1. Vera – Pain Of Thoughts
A2. Edward – Uba
B1. Leafar Legov – Komorebi
B2. Ernst – Dachgeschoss
B3. Otto – Sueno
B4. map.ache – New Friends
C1. Mountain People – Dranse
C2. Sevensol & Bender – Auffahrt Zürich
D1. Terrence Dixon – Starlight
D2. Amir Alexander – Necessary Sanctuary (10 A.M.)
E1. Lowtec – No Man Is An Island
E2. Nina Kraviz – Boogie
F1. Nosc – 35
F2. Oscar Offermann – Keeper
F3. Cassy – K.L.B.
F4. Tobias. – Interrupt
G1. Molly – Noche Pasadas
G2. The Ghostbusters – Vom Rand Der Welt
H1. Taksu – Din Nou
I1. Matthias Reiling – Ansiktslos
I2. Disordered Rhythm Metronomy – Ulaanbaatar
I3. Ulla & Jan Jelinek – Live At Funkhaus 29.03.2024
J1. Lawrence – Jamesonite
J2. Margaux Gazur – End Of Summer
K1. Cosmo & Eduardo De La Calle – Han
K2. Serafin – Sun In The Fridge
L1. Vril – Four2
L2. Koreander – Monday Rain
L3. Birds & Tapes – Abschied
