THX 1971 is Thomas Meier-Goldau, from Aalborg, Denmark, who began making music in 2006 after a friend of his gave him a simple music program called Rebirth 338. After a long period of experimentation and other projects like "Drawer One" he has reached the point to start the very serious project "THX 1971" in 2014. The first release was 'Computer' with a special disco-influenced song called "Alone". He found a professional label called Dirty Lane Studios (also from Augsburg) in 2016. In 2020 he started his own Label called Elektro Palast Records and released 3 Vinyl LPs and 10 albums for digital download on Bandcamp.

So THX 1971 (the name being a combination of his birth year and homage to George Lucas' entry into the sci-fi movie genre with "THX 1138") uses only a simple Yamaha- Keyboard and the Fruity Loops music software program and no more than 10 tracks. He then exports it all to Music Maker software, where all songs are arranged the sounds are further refined. The intended result is a sort of minimal electro sort of synthpop, and that it is.

'Minimal ist meine Wahl' is 8 tracks (4 tracks per side, all under four minutes length. My first listen to the album on vinyl was a rather bizarre one. I just opened the record, popped it on the turntable and sat back to listen. The vocals seem to be all sampled spoken word, and it seemed as though the voice was pitch-shifted, sounding a bit unnatural. Then, after looking again at the cover, it said 45rpm. DOH! I was playing at 33rpm and wondering why such a short album was taking so long! (At 33 it does sound kind of weird and a little boring.) Correcting the speed issue it became a much more pleasant experience.

The little melodies are all pleasant and unabashedly simple. After speed correction it was obvious the voice was female, und sprach Deutsche, exclusively. I do not have a great working knowledge of the German language, so some of this was lost on me, but the oft repeated phrases aren't difficult to dissect (if you really what to), and could easily be fed into a simple language translation program if you really need to extract their full meaning. The singular exception to the female voice is on the last track, "Palast Der Republik" where I think the voice is that of Thomas Meier-Goldau. While most of the other tracks sound like they could have been played manually (but weren't) this one definitely has obvious sequencing. (Playing in a synthpop band back in the '80s taught me a thing or three...) It's a refreshing change of pace.

Although the sounds employed are rather synth-basic, the melodies are catchy, with a good beat you can dance to. The rhythm track is all entry-level drum machine, as it should be for a minimal synth EP as this. Not as serious as Kraftwerk, and not as silly as SNL's 'Sprockets', 'Minimal ist meine Wahl' has a charm all its own. A delight for minimal synth enthusiasts with its sunny disposition and cool commercial appeal, it should spawn dozens of Instagram and Tik Tok video snippets. That it was released on vinyl (limited edition of 300) is a big plus.