New Notwist album

* should be a new album from them soon as well, no? If it's half as good as "Kickboard Girl"...

Their previous album, Shrink, sounds more like the Stereolab/jazz thing Marcello mentioned (I think that's the '98 one - Album #4, possibly) - there are bits of electronic hoohah on it as well. It's a fine disc, mixing the horns & the bleeps & the guitars to fine effect.

Of course, Mel can also set us curious folks straight on the various side-projects Notwist folks are involved w/. (I'd dig out that old Puncture article on this very topic, but it's not at my disposal at this time.)

Other albums: S/T, Nook, 12 and Shrink with the last one being the only one remotely similar in sound and texture to Neon Golden.

Side-projects: Tied and Tickled Trio (mainly Johannes Enders' gig, but his role in Notwist seems to have diminished), Village of Savoonga, Lali Puna, Console, Potawatomi and a handful of other small projects, most of them originating mid-90s from the Hausmusik/Kollaps/Payola trio of labels.

Never heard any of their other stuff, but it sounds like I have found them at the right time

I always appreciate the contributions that non-native speakers make to the English language--I don't mean that in any condescending sense either. Some review noted, with prejudice, that "One with the Freaks" was not a title any native English speaker would come up with. But I appreciate it for that very reason. It has a directness, a poetic right-ness, that a native speaker might pass up.

oh yes !

the notwist - notwist-ultras.com - a blog about: the notwist - Blog Archive - new record, release date, track list and more…

some news are public now. last week berlin-pop-journalist walter wacht had the chance to listen to notwist’s new record, which is still untitled and will be released on cityslang on Mai 2, 2008. the new record was mastered at the famous abbey road studios in london, uk (notwist’s 2002 record “neon golden” got also it’s mastering there). the record has 11 tracks, a total playtime of only 42 minutes and the to be confirmed tracklist is looking like that:

The Notwist - “untitled“:

01. Good Lies
02. Where In This World
03. Gloomy Planets
04. Alphabet
05. The Devil, You & Me
06. Gravity
07. Sleep
08. On Planet Off
09. Boneless
10. Hands On Us
11. Gone Gone Gone

finally! (thx!)

Wow, cool! Notwist completely dropped off my radar a few years ago when I finally got sick of Neon Golden. It would be nice if they came out of nowhere to be a highlight of 2008 like they did in 2002.

cool. i lost my copy of neon golden soon after i got it, but love the dudes that are in tied + tickled trio.

neon golden's still sounds pretty solid, listened to it a couple weeks ago. i'll be checking out the new one...

I like this new song:

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/page/forkcast/49102-the-notwist-good-lies-mp3stream

i hope the rest of the album is less indie pop and more banjos + beats.

i can't believe neon golden came out six years ago

Yeah! It's still awesome. Off The Rails + Consequence is such an ultra combo.

I love this record.

The new one, that is. But I love Neon Golden too.

The Notwist - The Devil, You + Me

i just bought this album from Amoeba, still think it's really good.

still can't believe the singer's a dude

I found this odd Notwist soundtrack on emusic that apparently came out last year. Its called "Sturm". Dont know anything at all about it (ie what movie/show/thing is it for?) but it is utterly lovely! Completely ambient with calm little glitchy fiddles, reminds me of a more serene Ryuchi Sakamoto. No singing.

i listened to this for the first time in 10 years today. it's instantly likable, having good tunes and inventive arrangements, but strangely, it's not very compelling and it will probably be another 10 years before I return to it.

http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/the-notwist-neon-golden-round-39-nicks-choice/

A few days ago, Sub Pop posted an intriguing teaser on its website: In a “glorious and career-justifying event,” they’d signed a mysterious new artist, an artist they’d been “HUGE fans of for years.” They also posted a 15-second clip of new music and held a contest asking fans to guess the artist. Most of the serious guesses were some variation on Thom Yorke or Panda Bear, but it turns out to be the Notwist, the German electronic-prog band who hasn’t released an album since 2008.
Depending on where you’re sitting, the news of a new Notwist album on Sub Pop is either a tremendous anticlimax or a badass piece of news — or maybe it’s both. Either way, the label will release Close To The Glass, the first new Notwist album in nearly six years, early in 2014. And below, you can hear the skittery, minimal title track and check out the album’s tracklist.

badass piece of news imo. that console solo album from a couple of years ago was really great.

wow. the new one is really good. much, much better than their last one. "Into Another Tune" is especially nice.

oops, by "their last one" i meant the devil, you+me. i haven't heard Sturm (apparently for the best)

Great, cause I loved The Devil, You + Me!

Has anyone heard the new album?

Only once, but at least half of the record is really solid.

I've heard it a few times. I think it's pretty damn good, and the tracks released so far are some of the weakest on it.

http://www.npr.org/2014/02/17/274773323/first-listen-the-notwist-close-to-the-glass

Oh this is just great. Really good.

Oh, man, this is good!

Love it!

I like some of it but not all...Can't decide whether I like that one song with a real heavy shoegaze MBV feel to it; but others nicely blend motorik and German '80s and Velvets and electronic accents

I liked that song a lot (though I didn't listen too closely). But I don't have any problems with heavy shoegazey vibes.

Yeah, 7-Hour-Drive is straight-up Loveless-pastiche. But they get that sound much more than people normally do, normally people just put on a layer of noise and calls it shoegaze, but this has all the weird bended sounds pat down. I like it.

http://www.spin.com/#reviews/the-notwist-close-to-the-glass/

I only know Neon Golden, but xhchuckxx eddy wants them to go back to their even earlier album approach that he says had more metal

I LOVE that early metal stuff too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhXtN2qP5Ok

That song is probably not the best representation of their metal roots but it's incredible.

Xchuckxx says check the intricate distorto-chug thrashing on 1992's Nook and 1995's 12 if you're skeptical. Those are still their most exciting albums.

Will have to check those out

_Shrink_ was my first, and loved that so much, went online to go back catalog. Found a German fanpage, and a hilarious lofty disavowal of the band, having changed their style from their heavier earlier sound to his dismay. For me, one of those bands that has a quality core, so have enjoyed their evolving style.

I listened to this on my morning commute and I went from "eh okay this is p good" to like "holy shit this is fantastic" over the course of the album. It reminded me of how much I used to listen to Neon Golden when it came out and how important it was to me at that time, and made me consider how skillfully they blended these sounds that are both very organic folksy type stuff and very synthetic IDM type stuff but in a really unified way that doesn't at all feel stark or contrived, and how they kinda pioneered this whole "indietronica" thing but in a way that was not at all precious or cutesy, and how if Neon Golden had come out like 3 years later it probably would have been much, much bigger than it was.

i love u Notwist

I'm still puzzling over this and need to listen to it some more (plus finally discover their catalogue). I continue to like some but not all. Am also curious what those folks disecting the St. Vincent production approach and criticing the rhythm section there, think of this one. I haven't made up my mind on that one either.

Yes, I love the new Notwist. I used to listen to them a lot a really long time ago, so if memory serves, their production seems to be pretty consistent with the rest of their stuff. It has this DIY-electronic sound with more organic vocals, with just some being processed/filtered. It has a small-studio/home-studio production quality to it that I really loved mainly because I was trying to do the same thing at one point.

I've not read everything everyone has said on that St Vincent thread, but re-listening to the new SV album, like someone said on that thread, this has a much more polished, large studio sound to it. Very loud. The drums, the synths. Vocals are a lot more filtered.

To be honest, they sound different to me. The treated sounds on the Notwist album sound like they were mixed with smaller monitors and just to be a quieter album, while the SV album sounds really expansive and big. Notwist sounds 'introverted', while St Vincent is more bombastic, large, extroverted, and forcibly eccentric. SV's album sounds melodramatic/theatrical to be, with a wider vocal dynamic.

But that's just to my ears :)

to be = to me*

love and light

Oh, I should mention I used my Klipsch Image X10s to listen to both of those albums.

When the new album, "Close To The Glass", begins, i'm very engaged and interested; by the end i can't wait for it to end. While not quite in the same vein, the remind me of Miike Snow, which i like quite a bit more.

I still need to listen to this more (if only to more completely decide which cuts I like and which ones I don't), plus 1992's Nook and 1995's 12

The remixes on the Run Run Run E.P. are far superior than those on "Close to the Glass"; especially the Nuel remix of Into Another Tune which turns the base material into an 8+ minute hypnotic groove.

it's weird to say so, but the live album from a couple years ago is actually great

New EP

https://thenotwist.bandcamp.com/album/ship

New album in January. Like this a lot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj2SPhGtL4c

I've been playing this a lot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJEyR0C5Aok

... while wondering if they make a living as musicians or if they work in graphic design or similar?

(It's a very good live show).

New one out today!

First impression is that it lacks the poppy punch of Neon Golden, less hooks, more atmosphere.

Barely listened to them since the '00s, but will give this a whirl. Just saw 'Neon Golden' is not streaming on Apple Music - huh?!

It's sounding good, to me.

This is very nice, feels like a good update on their post-Neon Golden sound with the tasteful collabs and transitions. Some of it feels really familiar - actually, thanks to 'Where You Find Me' I was ambushed with unexpected emotion on the back of my motorcycle taxi home from work. Suddenly it was 2002 again.

The album made me dig up a few songs I loved from previous records, and the comments above re. stilted English hit me in ways I hadn't thought about before. Take the use of 'hell' from 'Boneless' and 'Men of Station':

Boneless
This town is all in hell

We are men of station
We are troubled men just the same
But we're not as hell as you

'sans soleil' is their prettiest song since neon golden. this is all i want from them

I've gone back to that Pop Kultur show posted above and am enjoying immensely with a bottle of red. It's awesome.

Just booked tickets for London shows and a bit giddy.

Mailing list swap years ago turned me onto this song's existence, and stunningly, found the album in a Seattle record store on Broadway that same week. Love Markus' voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjZsH6n_Pt4