Pop Ambient 2012 begins in an unusually new but nevertheless somehow familiar fashion. Mohn with "Manifesto" is the opening act. A manifest of slowness. A slowness that Jörg Burger and Wolfgang Voigt have taken up as a new mission. Mohn is their new ambient-grunge-downbeat project, scheduled to depart on its official musical journey to Middle Earth early 2012. What follows is equally surprising: the old Kompakt swashbuckler Superpitcher is taking part for the very first time. His piece "Jackson" is borne by a slightly uncanny, spherical voice floating above a jazzy pop accord coolness and faintly '70s sequencer aesthetics. It is followed by a familiar face from past times who is making an anonymous return on Kompakt under his new pseudonym Morek. "Pan" is a textbook example of a classical piece of pop ambient music. Timeless elegance. Magazine, the "Krauty" electronic guerrilla from Cologne-Deutz, has tailored the piece "The Visitors Bureau" we all know from Magazine 4 into a measure-made ambient frock. Then comes Jörg "Triola" Burger with a solo appearance. His multi-faceted, intricately-woven Arabian Nights-style sounds, with effectively placed harmonic shifts reminiscent of Pink Floyd in the best of their phases, indicate why the piece "Richmodis" was named after an old Cologne saga. Enter the Pope of Ambient: Wolfgang Voigt masterfully continues his impressive creative ambient frenzy in "Rückverzauberung 5," not by stagnating on the usual planes but by further developing his new concept into a novel direction of abstract jazz. Bvdub is taking part for the third time, leaving nothing to be desired with his sensitive musical signature. Likewise, Marsen Jules constantly refines his bizarre, flickering sound constructions and even adds percussion drums that are atypical for ambient. Simon Scott is a newcomer to Pop Ambient but certainly no unknown face. The Englishman already impressed the scene a while ago on the Miasmah label. His contribution "For Martha" is a particularly good piece of classical pop ambient music. A relaxing final appearance is provided by a good friend of the house: Axel "The Field" Willner alias Loops Of Your Heart charms us with a light-footed, pleasantly-filled guitar loop tempting us to press the Start button at the end of the CD/record.