Polygon ‘Sein Lernen’ cover artwork.

Polygon is the work of Ingo Lindmeier, whose other projects include Mortal Constraint, deltaE and Polyspace. Lindmeier has been silent in recent years. Until now his most recent released track “Acceleration” was under the deltaE moniker, in collaboration with with Jürgen Fahrner, an exclusive track for the hefty 2011 compilation Old School Electrology, Volume One from Electro Aggression Records. I re-listened to “Acceleration” again as a point of comparison: the track holds up nicely, with a maddening repetitive circus-sounding synthline, a bluesy trumpet sample and IDM/glitch accents, contained within a traditional EBM song structure.

Unlike deltaE and Mortal Constraint, however, it seems Polygon is not content to be constrained by labels such as “dark electro” or “EBM”. The result on Sein Lernen, available from Aliens Productions, is a mixture of warm piano interludes, IDM and glitch elements, symphonic soundtrack music, ambient, mostly spoken German dialogue, and yes, of course dark electro. The vocals alone are an intriguing mixture of spoken, spoken with added filters and effects, partially sung and occasionally fully sung. At other times the vocals are so processed and looped that they become simply an extension of the music, just another instrument in the musical tapestry. One of the final tracks “Sein Lassen” features some achingly beautiful guest vocals from Ruth Messmer.

All in all, Sein Lernen is a fascinating listen from beginning to end, a compelling mixture of bleak soundscapes and melancholy beauty. It’s a complex release that I think I’ll be listening to for years in the future. The only drawback for me as an English speaker is that I don’t understand any of the lyrics. But, who knows, maybe in the future I’ll learn some more German. In the meantime, the German lyrics to the album are available here from the band’s official website and one can always use Google Translate.

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