Songs from my new album, track by track! Just fun facts and little background bits:

LANGUISH BARRIER
 

Recorded last September, after a long songwriting break. Was meant for a new project called Angela Motorman. Guitars ugly and synthetic to keep certain people out. Gradual fade in of more "real" instruments. Didn't know if I could pull off English lyrics. Featured a big language blunder until the very last moment: "I tried learn their language, the lessons were dearth" instead of "I failed at their language. No lessons, just dearth". Not always is "punching in" months later possible, sometimes you can't recreate a certain mood, or even the same recording situation, but here it worked out quite seamlessly.

 

ANTENNAE

Has the silhouette of a semi-hit, but not quite enough filling. Vocals for second verse were recorded, sounded bad, deleted. Leaving in the middle of a song for a mental toilet break to return for the final chorus. Song came from randomly arranging some REALLY distorted samples recorded with a 12 kHz digital dictaphone, literal sound garbage, which makes the lil' hit vibes very funny to me. Ends very abruptly, I had no juice for an extended end.

 

A MARTIAN APPARATION 

"Maria walks amid the thorns", or "Mary walked through a wood of thorn" ("Maria durch ein Dornwald ging") is a German Christmas song. Marsboy is an anagram of the surname Sombray, from a time where I didn't carry that surname. Marsboy is a mythical figure, but I know them in person. I never had SETI@home running on any PC, but my childhood friend M., who taught me BASIC, did. The loop that opens up the song (with that weird acoustic bass) I recorded while trying to show my dad what my new sampler (Artiphon Chorda, RIP Artiphon) could do.

 

MY LITTLE SERVICE LIGHT

 
In my head sounds like a cross between Gary Numan and t.A.T.u., so, slightly horrible, but also irresistible? I have written *quite* a few songs about being an android, long term listeners will be familiar with the subject matter in my songs, but not the "international audience"...
 

LOW BEAM LULLABY

 
A sort of faux jazz thing, including cheap saxophone, maybe a little bit on the nose, but I'm proud of featuring "diarrhea" and CPAP problems in a song. Rival de Loop is a German store brand cosmetics line pretending to be very glamorous. The original instrumental is from my next game Low Beam Lullabies, which I'm currently stripping of all supernatural content.

 

BEST BEFORE

Just yesterday I deleted an old friend from my Steam contact list, I just can't do this anymore, sitting in the same virtual room nearly every day, never talking. I see him play, he watches me play, but we never interact anymore, I'd rather have true distance, with the chance to catch up for real one day, like ADULTS. In this song I use a technique where I'm sampling myself, or rather an unfinished instrumental that will never be great by itself. Self-sampling is fun!

 

A CLEARING

Literally started as cover of A FOREST by The Cure, same absurd BPM (163!), but then I slowed it way down and the music became something else. One chorus comes without vocals, so one can actually hear the music. Most of this album was recorded after I got fired from my old job, May 2025 to July 2025, even though a lot of musical ideas were older. But the process of truly recording (vocals) and fleshing out songs often is one with great acceleration.

 

GREYED OUT OPTIONS

 
I wanna point out a difference between earlier song ANTENNAE, which is built on typical Omnichord harp glissandi, very artificial, while here on the last song all the glissandi (that God peaks through the clouds Hollywood sound) are "real".

What's next? In typical Vinzenz order of the seasons I'll perhaps return to game making next, with more instrumental music. Do I consider A CLEARING a artistic success? Not sure yet. Maybe a little too tame? Anyway, thanks for listening!