A Moon Colony
Covered in Space Dust

01 Limits of Imagination / Experience - 6:04
02 Outset - 4:00
03 Boarding Sequence - 4:06
04 Anticipation (Interlude) - 0:52
05 Hyperspeed - 4:46
06 Continuum (Remaster 2024) - 4:22
07 Catharsis (Remaster 2024) - 5:17
08 Biome - 3:18
09 Life Form - 4:49
10 A Moon Colony - 4:04
11 Covered in Space Dust - 4:20
12 Kanterino (Memoire) - 13:25

My second big album release features twelve tracks as individual as you can imagine. Dive into an epic sonic adventure, a tale that tells the story of a young traveller setting out onto a journey into the unknown.

ALBUM / Cinematic / Storytelling / Art

A Moon Colony Covered in Space Dust is a milestone for me. It is both my most sophisticated and my most experimental album yet, blurring the boundaries between genres more than I ever did before. The songs are arranged in a way that seemed fitting in both a musical and a logical sense. This album tells a story. Let me explain both the images I had in my head when arranging the songs, and some of the production techniques I used for them.

Limits of Imagination / Experience

“Have you ever thought about the widths of the universe? Have you ever thought whether ideas in our heads are confined by anything? Isn’t your head a universe on its own, with limits only given by your physical ability to remember and process? If you think far enough into one direction, will you ever reach an end? Will you reach the Limit of Imagination?

I want you to think big. Did you have any goals in your life you have always wanted to pursue but didn’t, believing in boundaries others had set you? You could dream. In your dream, you could fly. But where do you want to fly?”

This atmospherical song starts off with field recordings of various elements of my daily life, using inversion and other tricks to create otherworldly sound scapes. After a while it transforms into a choral, telling the one true story true for everyone’s personal journey: “If you want to become wise, you’ll need to make experiences. Some are great, some hideous.”

Outset

“So you’ve found your idea. You’ve dreamt big. You’ve been obsessed with following that one call, knowing it can get you to your next part of your life. So you set out. You begin your journey, together with so many other travellers, all looking for their destination. Board the train. We’re off.”

My hometown Karlsruhe’s main train station features the soundscape that opens this song. Advanced reverb techniques like convolution mimic the station’s main hall, with my own whistling starting the repetitive motive of this song. Once the middle section with great analog synth sounds gives the motive energy, the song starts truly picking up its pace.

Boarding Sequence

“You knew your destination. Once the train came to a stop, you left it, feeling mildly unsure about whether what you are doing right now genuinely is a good idea. You are standing right in front of a tall grey building, sheets of glass interchanging with blocks of grey, brushed concrete. A modern style you are not totally in love with, but still you appreciate the effort the architects took. ‘Kanterino’, your key card in your pocket reads. Everyone is given one, only few dare actually using it ever. It means commitment. You only get one, and you are the one to decide which doors it will open up for you.

At the modernist building’s entrance, you check in using the thin sheet of plastic. Walking through the entrance hall, you are impressed by the amount of screens on the wall, giving detailed information about many travellers, all with their separate destinations and - your heart jumps - expedition rockets. The launching pad is closer than ever.

[…]

You are in the lift. It goes upward, at speeds not imaginable to you. There is no going back. The Boarding Sequence has started. As the doors open, bright sunlight reflects off the brushed metal railings of the launching pad’s ramp. You squint your eyes. Nervously following the path thousands have treaded before you, you cross the metal bridge and set foot onto the piece of tech that will be your trusted companion into outer space.”

Anticipation (Interlude)

“It’s all quiet now. Your noise cancelling headphones have stayed in your backpack, stowed away in the luggage area, safely secured for the unearthly forces the inbound rocket launch will inevitable bring along. Metallic clicks announce the doors locking. The cabin pressure will change. Your heart is beating. Your shoulders have been tense for over an hour, your jaw feels locked. A nasty crack echoes in your head as you move your lower jaw. Stressed out.”

Hyperspeed

The ground is shaking. The seconds till takeoff are ticking down slowly. You face the stars out of the front of my cabin. There is no visor, as in your journey you do not need to protect yourself. You will take it all in. But you need to take the step. You are waiting for the launch. They are counting down "three, two, one, takeoff".

The forces are unimaginable. You are accelerated to Hyperspeed. The stars have become a blur of white stripes, the relativistic lens effect is distorting your vision. On your HUD, your destination galaxy, the one you've been set out to reach in the beginning, has been marked with a green square. It is yet far away. Yet.

There is no time for thinking. Using techniques you know from some inner voice, you constrain your muscles in order to keep the blood flowing. You are protected from G-Forces, but not entirely.

Continuum (Remaster)

Have you ever wondered how it feels, floating through the empty space you have created with your choices? The infinite freedom, but at the same time the burning feeling of anxiety that asks "are you able to manage this"?

While not written with this mindset, I believe Continuum fits the journey of our young traveller perfectly. With its spacey and vast intro, its repetitive harmonic cycle and still aggressive and driving beat, Continuum is an all-time favourite of mine. For this release, with the knowledge I have gained from mastering several tracks for other bands, I could improve the mix quality to the original recording and make it more haunting, especially the bass explosion at the end.

Catharsis (Remaster)

Catharsis wonderfully captures the anxiety I have mentioned in the last section. While Continuum goes a more vast route describing infinite surroundings, Catharsis deals with the inner questions we are asking ourselves in times of trouble. I wrote this song at a time where I felt betrayed by multiple people in my surroundings.

"I better take back the key to me" was my response to dealing with such situations. I will close myself off, talking to less people, opening up to fewer. This is not the healthy approach though. Writing this text several years after the release of Catharsis, I can say that being honest and open about your feelings is worth WAY MORE than short-term pain that comes from being so honest.

Biome

This song fits our story again. I imagine a vast planet with multiple areas of different biodiversity - maybe a place where I could land? Is this where I want to settle for the next part of my life? Is this where my journey lead me to?

Biome was once called "Evolve" as a project name, and I still think the name fits it quite well. It evolves multiple times, starting totally new ideas and still not completely giving up the ones from the previous section. It even starts off with a synth that is similar to the end of Catharsis. Evolution, changing environments, also musically, is something I love about Prog music.

Life Form

In our story, this song represents the complexity of life on a distant planet. But it can also metaphorically describe the complexity of the surroundings our traveller will be subjected to once their journey comes to an inevitable end - in order to start erecting something, you need to figure out the complexities of the environment you're in. Every place, every surrounding is different - even alive, somehow.

Life Form was the first song I produced with an actually well-working recording setup for my violin. I do have an acoustic one as well, and while still recorded in my small flat in Karlsruhe, I sound-treated the room beforehand with some mattresses that I put vertically along the walls in order to minimise echoes. That way I could record an idea I had used for warming up for performances on my violin and turn it into some acoustic-electric mix that is inspired by some of the songs that Islandic producer Ólafur Arnalds has written. The piano in the end was more of a spontaneous idea. Together with the synth in the background, it beautifully captures the ambiance. Maybe the song is even a bit cheesy in the end. A cliché, even?

A Moon Colony ... Covered in Space Dust

The title track of my album is split in two. It does not quite go along with my story to be honest. I was thinking about a colony on the moon, not in a distant galaxy. But everyone wants to go to the moon. So we go to a different galaxy in my story. Anyway.

The first part of the track starts with atmospheric ambiances that are cut through by aggressive synths bass lines at some point. We are moving to a highly Tech-House-reminiscent part that might even go a bit in the Acid direction. I like that style, and in best Polylight fashion, I wanted to mix it with atmospheric pianos, and an electric guitar.

The second part then features my first all-piano recording. Though I did not find a proper piano to record this on, I used an electrical one with sophisticated software synths and microphones on the keyboard to still mimic a real piano. And because the melody itself is not too complex, once we were recording the drums for Hyperspeed and Boarding Sequence, I asked Chris from EVIA to do some improv on the piano part of Covered in Space Dust for me. That's what you get.

Kanterino (Memoire)

The album closes on a song that is meditative. It seemed right to keep it as repetitive and non-edited as I did, as I wanted to convey the organ's sound it was recorded on. Built in the mid-19th century and working entirely with air (also the signals are processed through air pipes), this instrument has an organic and unique sound that makes it feel alive unlike anything else I have ever recorded. No electronics could do it justice. It is the ultimate acoustic song. Still, I edited some singing, violin and guitar recordings over it.

The pattern was improvised initially by Paul, a long-term friend of mine and excellent organist. He made all of it possible, and I am deeply grateful for being able to jam with him till today.

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