Last Night You Saw This Band - (Double Vinyl + Download Code)

Limited edition vinyl issue.

Minuit present their 4th studio album, 'Last Night You Saw This Band' - a smart and fresh recording, which offers another bright and enigmatic musical ride.

Having toured their synths and samplers from Hanoi to Helsinki on the live circuit for over a decade, this trio has crafted their own refreshingly different sound - it's not what you'd expect from an electronic act.

'Last Night You Saw This Band' is much more stripped-back than we're used to from Minuit, allowing crisp and percussive songs to shine through. Along with the mandatory lo-end, the album includes gypsy brass, rhythmic island beats, swampy slide guitar, and even some kids from an orphanage in Haiti.

The birth place for many of the songs was Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, close to their home country, New Zealand, as Ruth took a sabbatical in a scuba dive shop. As she sang ideas into her dictaphone you can hear rain on the corrugated iron roof; some were sung from the back of a motorbike; others with water lapping on the side of the boat as she waited between dives.

If this sounds more like skiving off than hard work you may be right - but Ruth still manages to mix sinister with salvation on an album that is uplifting, charged and thought provoking.

The title track taps into those moments when friends remind you what life is all about - "you say that nothing matters, there's only grace and disgrace" - all to the background of a surprisingly, mariachi-style house party.

Islands references the Cook Islands, Kupe and the movie Marathon Man in a salute to adventure.

The brooding Ghost taunts: "You say stars align, ha! Can't you see these stars are blind", while the luscious Good Ol' Days counters with bravery in the face of slim chance: "Who would have thought it'd be us two, who ended up scraping through".

Warheads is classic Minuit, mixing the darkest of subject matter with heartfelt, human honesty - "I think of you my darling, as the warheads start to fall".

'Last Night You Saw This Band' shows that Minuit has heart. And it beats loud. Real loud!