With Christmas swiftly approaching, Minuit is set to release their 4th studio album Last Night You Saw this Band. This smart and fresh album offers an invigorating ride through a range of heartfelt experiences and bright movement. Having toured their synths and samplers from Hanoi to Helsinki on the live circuit for over a decade, this trio has crafted their own energetic sound – and it's refreshingly different and not what you'd expect from an electronic act. Last Night... is a much more stripped-back outing than we're used to from Minuit, allowing some stellar songs to shine through, crisp and percussive. Along with the mandatory lo-end, there is even harmonica, gypsy brass, rhythmic island beats, swampy slide guitar, and 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. In the demos vocalist Ruth Carr said you could hear rain on the corrugated iron roof as she sang ideas into her dictaphone. 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 than hardwork you may be right – but Ruth still manages to mix sinister with salvation on an album that is uplifting, charged and thought provoking. Title track Last Night You Saw this Band taps into those grounding 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 lucious 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”. Set for release on the 21st of December Last Night You Saw this Band shows that Minuit has heart. And it beats loud. Real loud.