Devin Townsend - The Puzzle (2021)

Townsend: "So what is The Puzzle?.. well, its not technically my new record, it's more a collaborative, multimedia art project that acts as a stopgap between Empath and the next record, Lightwork (due out in March of next year on Inside Out Records). The Puzzle includes two 'soundtracks' of sorts (the highly orchestrated 'Puzzle' and the very chill 'Snuggles') along with a film, graphic novel, novel, and a huge amount of multimedia. It includes many artists (upwards of 50) that participated via Zoom during the pandemic and the experience gave me a chance to purge and be completely creatively free. As such, it is a stream of conscious, and very abstract collection of music that includes a narrative (in the form of a film) and is meant to be a documentation of what the pandemic felt like to me.

I'm very proud of it, and I will be uploading some of Snuggles next. Note: it is *not* meant to be considered a normal album, it is truly a sprawling, complex, multimedia cathartic release that was inspired by the events of the last year and a half. Lightwork is much more in line with what I've done in the past (Transcendence, Empath, Addicted, Ocean Machine, etc) but Puzzle is very near to my heart. It includes so many of my friends and peers, and it has zero limits on it… it's almost like Puzzle and Snuggle are like a modern day Devlab and Hummer (two old albums of mine) but the difference being the levels of complexity this project included. Mixing it alone was a nightmare, let alone the film, the books, the box sets, etc. (the box set is a hand numbered and signed piece of work that is limited to 1000 pieces).

I'm sure this won't be everybody's cup of tea, and I would imagine the listeners who are more interested in 'Kingdom' or 'Deadhead' would be better suited to wait for Lightwork (and I can appreciate that very much…) however, The Puzzle has been my soundtrack for the last year and a half, and in keeping with the idea of making sure that what I am writing is authentic to what Im feeling, The Puzzle is essentially my documentation of the pandemic and the world around it. It has been a very intense time, as I'm sure you'd agree…"
Tracklist
1. Chromatic Ridge (03:43)
2. Life is but a Dream (03:29)
3. Yucky Lung (01:22)
4. Kittenhead (01:13)
5. Shark In the Ice (01:49)
6. Devil In the Details (00:58)
7. Hammerhead Sugarplum (03:47)
8. Me and the Moon (04:12)
9. Anxiety in Pyjamas (03:28)
10. The Yugas (03:01)
11. Albert Hall (03:58)
12. Starchasm (03:59)
13. Perfect Owl (02:17)
14. Maybe Over the Void (02:56)
15. Light Year Whale (04:31)
16. FrogFlowers (01:11)
17. Mother (04:28)
18. Southern Sky Geometry (02:11)
19. The Puzzle (05:22)
20. Monuments of Glitch (07:22)