6. DettingerOasis
It doesn’t get talked about that much, which is really weird. I feel like there’s been so much stuff that sounds similar and that owes a debt to that album. I heard he [Olaf Dettinger] was an architect or something, and music was just something he did and he got tired of it. He only made two albums. For us, he was the dude. From all the Kompakt stuff, Dettinger and Wolfgang Voigt defined that sound for us. And there’s been so much music released since then that just remakes those ideas – a lot of that Pop Ambient stuff on Kompakt, which I love, but it all references that Dettinger sound.
I’m sure I’m guilty too of – I hope not copies – but I’ve pushed the sensibilities of that music in my productions. It’s similar to Basic Channel – it looks back to dub music, in a computerised, digital way. It was so unique and such a new sound to me. Every time I meet somebody who is part of the Kompakt family I ask about Dettinger and they’re like, "That guy? Why are you talking about that dude?" And he’s lucky in a way – sometimes too little information can lead people to invent these wild stories. I’m sure the reality isn’t as exciting as the fiction. Certainly in my case!
