''Neon Golden'' is the fifth

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by German

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

band

The Notwist The Notwist are a German indie rock band. Formed in 1989, the band moved through several musical incarnations, despite maintaining a relatively stable line-up. While their early records moved through heavy metal into dark indie rock, their re ...

. It was released on 14 January 2002 by

City Slang City Slang is an independent record label based in Berlin, Germany. History The label was founded in 1990 by former tour agent Christof Ellinghaus, exclusively to release The Flaming Lips' '' In A Priest Driven Ambulance (With Silver Sunshine S ...

Composition

''Neon Golden'' is rooted in the experimental musical style that The Notwist had moved towards on their previous two studio albums '' 12'' (1995) and '' Shrink'' (1998), which found the band eschewing the abrasive

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

of their early work and delving into

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...

. The songs on ''Neon Golden'' fuse

and electronic elements, taking influence from styles such as

glitch A glitch is a short-lived fault in a system, such as a transient fault that corrects itself, making it difficult to troubleshoot. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, in circuit bending, as well as among ...

and IDM. ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

'' described the album as a "synthesis of dreamy indie-rock balladry and stark electronic underpinnings", while ''

MusicOMH MusicOMH (stylized as musicOMH) is a London-based online music magazine which publishes independent reviews, features and interviews from across all genres including classical, metal, rock and R&B. History MusicOMH was founded and launched by ...

'' critic Dylan Kilby referred to it as a work of "electronic

post-rock Post-rock is a form of experimental rock characterized by a focus on exploring textures and timbre over traditional rock song structures, chords, or riffs. Post-rock artists are often instrumental, typically combining rock instrumentation with ...

Critical reception

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, ''Neon Golden'' received an average score of 89 based on 20 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". The album was acclaimed upon its initial release in Europe in 2002, while in the United States, it was widely hyped well before its official February 2003 release date due to its circulation via import copies and

file sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include r ...

. In ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...

''s 2003

Pazz & Jop Pazz & Jop was an annual poll of top musical releases, compiled by American newspaper ''The Village Voice'' and created by music critic Robert Christgau. It published lists of the year's top releases for 1971 and, after Christgau's two-year abse ...

poll, ''Neon Golden'' was voted by critics as the year's 33rd best album. ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...

'' ranked ''Neon Golden'' at number 131 on its list of the 200 best albums of the 2000s. ''Neon Golden'' has been cited by critics as a landmark album of

indie electronic Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produc ...

, or "indietronica", music; Tristan Gatward of ''

Loud and Quiet ''Loud and Quiet'' is a British bi-monthly music magazine that focuses on new music from underground indie, alternative, electronic and hip hop artists. History and profile The magazine was founded in January 2005 by Stuart Stubbs as a home-print ...

'' remarked in 2019 that the sound of indie electronic music in the 2000s "was dictated" by the record. In 2014, ''

PopMatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, fi ...

'' writer Jose Solis described it as a "truly groundbreaking" album that "set in motion an

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to r ...

-meets-indie rock revolution that

ould Ould is an English surname and an Arabic name ( ar, ولد). In some Arabic dialects, particularly Hassaniya Arabic, ولد‎ (the patronymic, meaning "son of") is transliterated as Ould. Most Mauritanians have patronymic surnames. Notable p ...

define the sound of a decade."

Track listing

Sample credits * "Solitaire" contains elements from ''

Drowning by Numbers ''Drowning by Numbers'' is a 1988 British-Dutch film directed by Peter Greenaway. It won the award for Best Artistic Contribution at the Cannes Film Festival of 1988. Plot The film's plot centres on three married women — a grandmother, her d ...

'', composed by

Michael Nyman Michael Laurence Nyman, Order of the British Empire, CBE (born 23 March 1944) is an English composer, pianist, libretto, librettist, musicologist, and filmmaker. He is known for numerous film soundtrack, scores (many written during his length ...

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes. The Notwist * Markus Acher * Micha Acher *

Martin Gretschmann Console (also known as Acid Pauli) is an electronic music project founded by Martin Gretschmann, the former lead programmer for the German band The Notwist. The band incorporates elements of electronic music. The band consists of Miriam Osterriede ...

* Martin Messerschmid Additional musicians * Biboul F. Darouiche –

conga The conga, also known as tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed drum from Cuba. Congas are staved like barrels and classified into three types: quinto (lead drum, highest), tres dos or tres golpes (middle), and tumba or salidor (lowest). ...

* Roberto Di Gioia – keyboards, piano * Johannes Enders –

tenor saxophone The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while th ...

* Sebastian Hess – cello * Robert Klinger – double bass * Saam –

cajón A cajón (; "box", "crate" or "drawer") is a box-shaped percussion instrument originally from Peru, played by slapping the front or rear faces (generally thin plywood) with the hands, fingers, or sometimes implements such as brushes, mallets, ...

kanjira The kanjira, khanjira, khanjiri or ganjira, a South Indian frame drum, is an instrument of the tambourine family. As a folk and bhajan instrument, it has been used in India for many centuries. The kanjira's emergence in South Indian Carnatic m ...

, zarb * Ulrich Wangenheim –

bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays notes an octave bel ...

alto saxophone The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in E, smaller than the B tenor ...

, tenor saxophone Production * Chris Blair – mastering * Galore –

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

* O.L.A.F. Opal – mixing,

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, ...

* Mario Thaler – mixing, recording Design * Philipp Arnold – cover design * Andreas Gerth – cover design

Charts

References

External links

* {{Authority control 2002 albums The Notwist albums City Slang albums Domino Recording Company albums Virgin Records albums