The #secretalbum project
The Moinlabs output had, for more than a decade, been about freely improvised music. All of it (or nearly all of it). So much that there weren’t even general song ideas or similar to start from. This was true for Eclectic Blah, for the MoinSound Studio Sessions, and for all of the releases ever since 2000’s groxis tafelbilder.
Early in 2011, Straschill decided this had to change – and idea that had been in his mind ever since, well, quite some time. Having actually studied to write music on a sheet of paper to have it performed by other people was something he still wanted to go back to – sometime.
The project to make this happen was also one with a completely different goal in mind: reducing the playing time per track. Going through all the official releases, the average playing time per track turned out to be 6:41. This was, of course, helped by the fact that when using live-looping technology things tend to develop a bit slower, but here was the second idea: make shorter music.
So a project (in its early phase dubbed #secretalbum for a corresponding twitter hashtag) was born, with three goals in mind:
A: all music through-composed
B: track length not exceeding 90 seconds
C: as few Straschill performances as possible
Releases
Status and Future
Per March 2025, #secretalbum has somewhat come to a stall, or so it seems: the last release from 2013, and the last article from 2016. So is there still something in the pipeline?
There are, in fact, three potential releases that have seen somewhat relevant amounts of effort: Größenordnungen, Baßtelstube and AENEIS.
For Größenordnungen, all compositions have been done a long time ago, and four out of six tracks have been completely recorded, and another one partially, and there’s a sketch for the cover art. Actually only one person tracking about two minutes is needed. Then it’s mix and master, and completing cover art. This can be considered realistic, without a specific target date.
For Baßtelstube, writing of a total of 16 tracks had completed in June 2016. No progress since then. Not a single note was recorded, and nothing else done. This is considered not realistic.
For AENEIS, about one fourth was completed, and one of those and a further part (out of two) for that was recorded back in 2012. No activities since then. So this is also not realistic.
In summary: maybe one more release.
Info & Resources
Further info available via the secretalbum tag.
The releases can be found on bandcamp on the dedicated site (that’s also where to get the music!).
Credits & Acknowledgements
The list of collaborators for this project is bigger than it was in the past – which is all the more surprising considering it’s a no-budget project.
So here it is – in alphabetical order:
Neil Alexander, Rhys Anslow, Anna Magdalena Bejenke, Raul Bonell, Friedrich Buhl, Christine Caulfield, Matt Davignon, Jeff Duke, Matt Erion, Benedikt Eppelsheim, Filzinho, Firenze Audience, Gaetano Fontenazza, Mark Francombe, Luke Cyrus Götze, Ralf Gruber, Simeon Harris, Mike Hillier, Karen Kirkup, Kevin Kissinger, Jens Krauße, Guido Kremer, Jan Kühner, Michael Kurz, Todd Matthews, Steve Moyes, Linda Palmer, Amy Preece, Lauren Redhead, Russ Sargeant, Andrea Scheib, Wolfi Schlickhorn, Daryl Shawn, Dr. Bruno Sommhammer, Rainer Straschill, Dorothy Taylor, Two Quiet Suns, Alun Vaughan, Andreas Willers.