Vektormenschen
Spielsachen has been a rather long-running project. Since March 2018, there have been dozens of videos of...what exactly? Straschill doing stuff with synth hardware (mostly modular one, and mostly analogue synthesis). Yet while some of the releases since have taken inspiration from those activities, there has never been a proper Spielsachen album.
Until now.
It's not an overview of the project's bandwidth, though. Rather than that, it focuses on specific stylistic elements: more ambient, dub and at times techno, and mostly non-melodic.
Hence, the album is not eponymous. It's called...
Vektormenschen
From the entire period of "almost three years", Vektormenschen is a snapshot of the period from Christmas Day of 2019 to Epiphany of 2021, thus covering a little more than a year.
From a compositional standpoint, you could call it the exact opposite of works like Erlanger Programm or oscillator theory: this time, it's mostly short pattern sequencers running alongside (or against?) each other and the artist observing what happens.
There's beats that range from andante to allegro, and from precise four-on-the-floor to off-kilter things. There's, again, a lot of energy in the low frequency department, and most of it is analogue synthesis.
Production-wise, Vektormenschen follows the approach already seen in the series of MoinSound Studio Sessions albums. The two-track recordings of the performances are used exclusively, there are no over-dubs of any sort.
On the other hand, the right for creative editing was reserved - this time, only in a linear fashion, and only within tracks. Which means everything just may happen a little faster.
Want to know more? The album would say more than a thousand words.
How to get it
The album is available as a digital album download from bandcamp via the player on the left, or directly here.
Download includes a nifty booklet, and lossless versions (FLAC) are in full 24/48 audiophile glory.
The price was set to something nonzero. Most probably it won't stay that way. Not that it changes anything.
Credits & Acknowledgements
The art is, again "alles Straschill".