The Notwist
News From Planet Zombie
MORR MUSIC
Expansion, extension, and elucidation are key to the continued existence of The Notwist. Since 1989 and their (tenuous, but still noteworthy) connection to Munich’s experimental electronic and dark metal scenes, the ensemble has grown both acoustically and compositionally. No longer is Markus Acher their sole songwriter; Micha Acher and Cico Beck—the full core of The Notwist—collaboratively push pens in order to form a happily imperfect, bigger, weirdly balanced union. And with the once-wonky Notwist now pushing country-folk tinges into their newest music, they’ve accomplished the most unbalancing oddity of all.
Uniting Beck’s electronics with two harmonium players and two dulcimers (one regular, one the Japanese taishōgoto), along with brass and woodwind instrumentation, the simmering, folksy iteration of the band heard on their new LP News From Planet Zombie manages to make melodies that yearn and churn with melancholy, yet still manage something celebratory. “Projectors” is the best example of this brassy, fresh-faced Notwist: a bittersweet country-esque cut featuring flat-toned vocalist Enid Valu going on about positivity in the face of the negative now. So radically different is this track (along with the trombone-filled “Red Sun” and “Like This River”), and so evenly keeled is “How the Story Ends,” you’ll actually wonder if this is, indeed, the Acher-led and German-engineered ensemble.
Jangling drone cuts such as “X-Ray” will remind you of how The Notwist once were at their start, all nervously unkempt electronica, kinky rhythms, and hypnotically spare songcraft. Yet once you settle in for the corn-shucked, jazzy hayride of Planet Zombie and its charming sense of conscious uplift (Valu is a real plus when it comes to the new Notwist, an unbeatable verbal force with a tone that’s more of an instrumental layer than vocal line), you may never go back to Nook again.
