Welcome to GOATopia! In the musical vortex of utopian visions and wishful dream images of a future past! The new album from THE DEVIL & THE UNIVERSE whirls its way inside the ears of their audience, stirs up imaginations and carries you away. Conceptually, GOATopia is based on such great utopians as Thomas Morus. His novel "Utopia" from 1516 is considered to be the starting point of the genre which formulates a possible future way of life or social order. Thomas Morus tells of a fictional island kingdom where new social concepts are lived. TD&TU use ideas like these and create their own goat utopia. In a world out of balance, the Viennese band is reluctant to face dystopian predictions. They unmask the spectre of the future to put the goat mask on it. The result sounds electronically entranced with thundering drums. The goats devour Krautrock, chew it with relish and spit it out again as a tribal sphere with spoken word samples.
THE DEVIL & THE UNIVERSE now look back on nine years of band history. In 2013, Ashley Dayour and David Pfister founded the band, which Stefan Elsbacher complemented to a trio. In the beginning the band focused on musical experimentation with magical systems. It’s still firmly inscribed in the band's DNA. With their mixture of soundtrack-like ambient sounds and driving beats, their goat masks and unmistakable humour, which especially shows in their visual representation, they drummed up a loyal fan base. On GOATopia, TD&TU pick up the psychedelic feeling from the previous album :Endgame 69: and add new musical sounds. In doing so, they remain true to their principle, always finding new ways of expressing and not repeating themselves, even after nine years. Despite all the innovations, fans will recognize the unmistakable goat wave style, for which TD&TU are famous.
With magic, occultism and a healthy dose of self-irony, GOATopia hallucinates the missed opportunities of the past without mourning them. Utopias are created, destroyed and rebuilt again. Utopia is dead. Long live GOATopia. Viva!
Released Late January 2022 by Solar Lodge.
Tracks Listing:
01. Utopia Icognita
02. Eschaton
03. Spleen Cockaigne
04. Viva! Goatopia
05. Amaurotum Sunset
06. News From Nowhere
07. The Great God Pan Is Dead
08. Echotopia
09. Psychogeography
English