nline:

Few bands in pop music history have undergone as profound a
metamorphosis as Weilheim, Germany’s The Notwist. What began
as nothing more than one more German hard core punk band has become
one of the most successful acts to blend electronic music with pop
songwriting.

As one of the leading groups of the nascent lap-pop revolution,
The Notwist fuses a strong pop songwriting sensibility with the
glitches, clicks and hisses of abstract electronica. The group is
composed of brothers Markus and Micha Acher on guitar; bass,
electronic programmer/keyboard player Martin Gretschmann; and
drummer Martin Messerschmidt.

“We never wanted to do the same stuff again,” Markus
Acher said of his group’s stylistic shift. “We were
always curious about different music and how it was
made.”

It was this dissatisfaction with doing the same old thing that
led the group, originally a trio, to seek out Gretschmann’s
contribution.

“Martin was a friend of ours for a very long time,”
said Markus. “He bought a sampler and started doing all this
electronic stuff at the point where we became more and more
interested in electronic music. We recognized that what he does
with his sounds fit perfectly in the music we did at the
moment.”

With Gretschmann enlisted as a full time member, the group began
to explore different directions for their music.

“We always wanted to make a record that we also would like
to listen to,” said Markus. The result was two albums,
“12” and “Shrink,” that pushed the sound of
the band into new territories, expanding the use of electronic
elements and getting away from a pure straight-ahead rock
sound.

Still, it was the heralded 2002 “Neon Golden” that
broke the band into an international audience and thrust them to
the forefront of the independent music world. It was also the
record that most fully realized the collaborative potential of the
band.

“”˜Neon Golden’ was really a studio album,
everybody composing for himself,” Markus said. “We met
and exchanged things and everybody was doing some stuff for all the
songs. It became more and more mixed; with the small electronic
parts you can’t really recognize anymore who did
what.”

The merging of individual elements is even more evident in the
group’s live show, in which there is a strong improvisational
feel.

“We try to leave it very open. (The electronic elements
are) recorded on the laptop, but are not just a playback. There are
many different effects, and (Gretschmann) tries to play it like an
instrument,” Markus said.

However, the group also likes to stay true to its roots with
their live performances.

“We still play old songs and we also play new songs with
more distorted guitars,” Markus said.

Since the release of the record, the band has kept busy with a
vast number of side projects within the highly collaborative
electronic music scene. Markus Acher plays in Lali Puna, and
brother Micha is one half of Ms. John Soda, two groups that are
stylistically similar to The Notwist. Gretschmann, recording under
his solo moniker Console, contributed a track to Bjork’s last
album, “Vespertine,” and has recently released a solo
record.

For the future, the band has plans to continue exploring the
limits of their sound.

“We want to do something not so much song-oriented with
The Notwist,” Markus said. “We did this soundcheck that
was just instrumental and very quiet with lots of electronics, and
now I guess we’re trying to do something else.”