“Wir koennen ja Freunde bleiben” is translated to “Let’s Remain Friends” by a review the band use as press material. However, my high school German allows me to point out it actually says “We Can Remain Friends.” Now that we have pedantic translation issues cleared up, maybe you would like to know what this album is about…

Basically, Wir koennen ja Freunde bleiben is some kind of electronic chillout album with live drums. Slow, dark beats, bass, and chords are the uniting factor between the 12 selected works presented by Sankt Otten, with strings, pianos, and guitar making several appearances across the 50 minutes. Maybe this is trip-hop; not being a trip-hop aficionado, I couldn’t say, but there definitely is a similarity to bands like Portishead or Massive Attack in the thick atmosphere of the band’s sound.

As mentioned above, the instruments used are fairly diverse. The band uses different instruments in different tracks, which is a bold move in my opinion, as it risks losing the focus of the album by making it revolve around the ‘guest’ instruments – a classical track here, a funk track there, a piano track on the end, etc. Sankt Otten have avoided this expertly though. Many songs have a different combination of instruments, but they are merged into the album's style instead of bending the style to fit themselves in. The piece that utilizes the most ‘classical’ music, "Wenn die Musik verstummt," is particularly good, and probably a highlight of the album next to the instrumental rock style tremolo guitar work in "Jetzt bist Du heilig." I believe a reason the album is so coherent is the consistent drums and deep bass sounds, so no surprise that Herr Otten himself is the drummer in the group.

That about sums it up:  Wir koennen ja Freunde bleiben is very chilled, but somewhat murky chillout that conjures images of smoke filled clubs full of lonely people cradling their shots. And I may not be a leading expert on the genre, but this is an album I think people from outside the genre could definitely enjoy – hell, if I like it then they have to be doing something right.

-Ian Nicholls