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The Notwist
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Description: | CD on City Slang |
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| Format: | CD | |
| Genre(s): | Experimental Indie | |
| Label: | City Slang | |
| Price: |
£12.49
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| Availability: | Dispatched within 2-5 days (on average). |
...according to our Brian on 05 June 2008.
TRACKLISTING: (1) Good Lies (2) where is this World (3) Gloomy Planets (4) Alphabet (5) The Devil, You + me (6) Gravity (7) Sleep (8) On Planet Off (9) Boneless (10) Hands on Us (11) Gone Gone Gone
Ltd version is in CD Book format with 22 page booklet and additional DVD track which is not on the non ltd format.
OVERVIEW: For the faithful who swooned to The Notwist’s classic, widescreen 2002 album, Neon Golden, it has been a long six years waiting for the famed Weilheim, Bavarian quartet to make a follow up recording. It’s fair enough. Neon Golden is a hard act to follow – ravishing and emotionally powerful, an album of highly original, electronically-infused melancholia that sent the press into raptures, and drew fans from Radiohead, Bjork and beyond.
But return they finally have, with The Devil, You + Me. And it was worth the wait. An even more ambitious and bolder musical adventure than its predecessor, awash with overwhelming tenderness and emotional fragility, the album consists of 11 songs that deal with classic Notwist themes like love, loss, alienation, the alignment of planets, good lies, death, refusal and… the devil.
In the intervening years members of The Notwist - the brothers Markus and Micha Acher, with Martin Gretschmann (aka producer Console) - have been involved with at least six albums from exceptional bands including Lali Puna, Console, MS John Soda, 13 & God and The Tied & Tickled Trio. The Notwist toured the world, started families, pursued interests in a widening circle of musical styles, and acquired the kind of stature and following that belies their origins deep in the woodlands of Bavaria.
On first listen, The Devil, You + Me greets you like an old friend. Markus Acher's singular, aching voice surrounds you with all the comfort of familiarity, and the euphoria of re-acquaintance. This is an album driven by restlessness, as found in both the searching and invention of the sonic ideas and the lyrical narrative. It takes a while for the words and the scale of the musical language to sink in.From the glistening guitars of opener ‘Good Lies’, the cello-infused, haunting ballad ‘Hands on Us’, through to the delicate end-piece ‘Gone Gone Gone’, the lyrics explore a world of uneasy being.
Employing the stellar talents of the Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra – a way-out ensemble of 20-odd classical musicians specialising in a bizarre avant-interpretation of modern jazz, which The Notwist remixed through their many fascinating electronic boxes and gadgets and added their trademark heartfelt sentiment – ‘Where In This World’ is another breathtaking moment, deploying strings and orchestration in a fashion that greatly transcends the usual pomp and circumstance of rock groups with big budgets: this is more like Morton Feldman as filtered through an array of carefully underplayed electronic treatments.
There are very few groups who could make sense of material like ‘Your Alphabet’, a piece which combines droning 20th century dissonance with ear-shattering, electronically hacked percussion – only to somehow produce an actual, coherent song at the end of it all.
For all their inclinations towards the avant-garde, importantly, this is a band who know when to play it simple as well: a little further down the line you find yourself confronted with the sheer eloquence of acoustic rocker ‘Boneless’, a three minute power surge fusing motorik rhythms with restrained yet hugely effective arrangements, quietly weaving strings and harpsichord into the very fabric of the song.
And you're suddenly filled with the hope and promise that although it may take a while,
this isn't the last we'll have heard from him, or this incredible band.
