St. Nicholas has come early this year. Or is he just very late?It's best not to dwell too long on questions such as these when it pertains to The Notwist and just be thankful when these moments come to pass.
And what, pray tell, are you to be thankful for exactly? The Devil, You + Me, the brand new eleven-track album from the enigmatic German trio, which is released this very day.
The band recorded portions of the album with the ANDROMEDA MEGA EXPRESS ORCHESTRA, a way out, 20+ headed classical orchestra that specializes in exciting and sometimes bizarre avant classic interpretations of modern jazz, which compliments perfectly the album's mood and themes of love, loss, alienation, planetary alignment, the positive side to deception, death, refusal and the titular Devil.
Now, I know what you're thinkin'... what took so long? Well, this is only their sixth album in their two-decade history, so if you're a long time fan, this must not have been a newsflash. If you're one of the many who discovered the band on their breakthrough album, 2002's Neon Golden, then you may or may not have become acquainted with their dizzying array of extracurricular projects such their collaboration with Anticon hip-hoppers Themselves under the moniker 13 & God... Or Markus Acher's work in Lali Puna... or his brother, Michael's contributions to Ms. John Soda... or Martin Gretschmann's electronic-inflected project Console... or the Acher brothers' jazzy Tied And Tickled Trio.
Now, it just sounds like we're bragging... let us display some humility and get down to business with the tracklist:
The Devil, You + Me
Good Lies
Where In The World
Gloomy
Alphabet
The Devil, You + Me
Gravity
Sleep
On Planet Off
Boneless
Hands On Us
Gone Gone Gone