Tim & Puma Mimi say: “Der Die Das”

Tim & Puma Mimi’s hotly anticipated new album “Der Die Das” – English translation: “The The The” – took a long time to complete. But then it had competition in the creation stakes from a real life analogue baby made of flesh and blood. In fact, Miu Lilla Fischer has her very own track on “Der Die Das”, “Intern Interlude”. The album is released worldwide (Believe/Broken Silence) and in all contemporary formats on Mouthwatering Records.

Rarely can the spirit of experimentation and improvisation have been so organically embedded in the development of a “band” as in the case of Tim & Puma Mimi. Christian Fischer, an art student and musician from Zurich, and Japanese singer Michiko Hanawa, met in Utrecht where they were both students. Returning to their respective countries and, in Tim’s case, an extended stay in New York, they were forced to develop radical solutions if they were to continue their fledgling musical and personal relationship. A series of gigs where Tim would be pressing buttons and keyboards in a club somewhere in Europe or North America, with Michiko beaming in her vocals via Skype from Japan, proved to be an unqualified musical as well as technical success, spreading their reputation as purveyors of witty experimental electronica across the globe.

Depending on the way these things are counted, “Der Die Das” is Tim & Puma Mimi’s third or eighth album. Originally planned as two EPs, one containing tracks for the dance floor, the other their quieter songs, the album covers a wide range of moods, all suffused with a spirit of gleeful abandon and emotional openness, with Puma’s largely Japanese lyrics adding – to non-Japanese speakers at least – an intriguing twist of mystery. Recorded variously in a farmhouse on the Balearic island of Menorca, in their tiny studio in Zurich and in a high-rise block of flats in Johannesburg, guests include South African rapper Ngoma Makhosi, Swiss producer IOKOI, and Yello’s Boris Blank.

Tim & Puma Mimi
Believe Digital
Broken Silence
Mouthwatering Records