2025 Stock.  A lot has changed in the way musicians, record labels and publishing houses perceive themselves since record company revenues began their steady decline. With every bankruptcy filed by a label, record shop, distribution company or music magazine comes yet another loss of direction. Music publishers play a special role in this ever-changing landscape—handling rights rather than selling records, positioning themselves at the center of discussions about copyright in the digital age.

Autopilot, founded by Willy Schwenken and Guido Möbius in 1997 and run mainly by Möbius since 2000, came of age with this compilation. Originally a home base for songwriters from all over the world, the publisher's profile has constantly evolved. Möbius doesn't concern himself with the mainstream or chart-worthiness—what matters is the expressiveness of the music and the personal relationship with the artist. Autopilot was conceived from the beginning more as a record label: a label with a broad yet unconventional repertoire and a boss who knows his program inside out.

18 Years is not meant to represent the entire Autopilot catalog - it's a good mixtape, an atmospheric collection of very different kinds of music, combining timeless releases with previously unreleased tracks and exclusives. The compilation spans the label's diverse aesthetic: the dark industrial blues of Air Cushion Finish, Mesak's stoically reserved downtempo take on Möbius, Faust's Lars Paukstat delivering post-Krautrock minimalism, Transformer Di Roboter's complex club hooks, the Berlin partnership of F.S. Blumm and Nils Frahm, Springintgut's equilibrium between complexity and lightness, Sicker Man's captivating cello loops, Mini Pops Junior's dark prophecies, Black To Comm's flowing sound sculptures, The Marble Man's drawn-out feedback, Miwon's friendly bass music featuring Falk Nindel on Rhodes, and Vert (Adam Butler) foreshadowing his shift to melancholic songwriting.