Naomi – Swim (2017)

The Berlin-based duo NAOMI is back with its sixth album Swim. The creative pause has generated space for fresh ideas and the record sounds calmer, more reduced and more optimistic while maintaining a melancholy note. Electro, alternative pop – Nico Tobias and Bernd Lechler don’t care much for genre definitions. Their focus is on great melodies, from the casual and mysterious opener Almost Talking via the almost sacral Melt The Key, the vocoder road movie Life Or Death or the nicely cheerful Get Up, Get Out Into The Rain to the final synthesizer riffs of the title track. You can excellently let yourself sink into these eleven songs, or, as required, laugh, cry, dance and spill beer, or just waste the day.

The S?ddeutsche Zeitung wrote about Naomi’s last album The Big Shapes (2010) that the band, “in a fair world, would have to scramble with Lady Gaga for the top positions in the summer charts”; and also Rolling Stone and FAZ are already convinced. With its elegant and mature sound, Swim is a true enrichment for Germany’s pop landscape.