THE NOTWIST INTERVIEW — Interlocutor

On Vertigo Days, the first album in seven years for The Notwist (Markus Acher, Micha Acher, Andi Haberl) one of Germany’s most iconic independent groups are alive to the possibilities of the moment. Their music has long been open-minded and exploratory, but from its engrossing structure, through its combination of melancholy pop, clangorous electronics, hypnotic Krautrock and driftwork ballads, to its international musical guests, Vertigo Days is both a new step for The Notwist, and a reminder of just how singular they’ve always been.

In this interview, founding band member Markus Acher discusses the band’s recent side projects and their influences on the music they’ve made together, the creative and logistical processes of effectively coordinating the many guests musicians on Vertigo Days, the advantages of taking an improvisational approach to songwriting, and much more.

Interview by Tyler Nesler

Over the past seven years since The Notwist released their last album, Close to the Glass, various members of the group have been busy with side projects (according to your press release, these include: "Spirit Fest, Hochzeitskapelle, Alien Ensemble, Joasihno, guest appearances, a record label [Alien Transistor], movie scoring, helping organize the Minna Miteru compilation of Japanese indie-pop and running a festival [Alien Disko])." In what distinct ways do you think these projects directly influenced the creative production of your new album Vertigo Days? Have the side projects taken the album's sound in directions that were surprising or unexpected?

Every other band and side-project has a big influence on what we do with The Notwist. Sometimes the ways that we do things and what we like wouldn’t fit onto a Notwist album at the current moment, but most of the time, we learn new ways of making music, new sounds, new instruments. And we always get new energy and ideas. With Hochzeitskapelle for example — an acoustic instrumental band my brother Micha and me play in — we play cover-songs, but very spontaneous, without fixed structures or arrangements, and we try to play not on a real stage and without a PA system…on the river, in parks, in beer gardens, or during Corona now, we have started to play on roofs for the people sitting on their windows or balconies. We learned a lot about playing together in this band, and this had an impact on this new Notwist album, where a lot of the tracks are played quite spontaneously and without too much editing…in opposite to earlier records, where we edited and looped a lot.

For me personally the recordings and tours with Spirit Fest, which is a band consisting of Saya and Ueno from Tenniscoats, Mat Fowler from Jam Money, Cico and me, were very important and beautiful experiences. The creativity and warmth of this band will always be something very special and create very intimate and personal music. This encouraged me to a lot for new Notwist music. And that’s also why we are very happy that Saya joined us in singing one song on the album, and their brass-band Zayaendo plays with us on another.

You have said that with the new album Vertigo Days, “we wanted to question the concept of a band by adding other voices and ideas, other languages, and also question or blur the idea of national identity.” Since you've had such a stable lineup over the years, do you feel that it was essential to inject some fresh or unusual creative points of view and energy into your project?

Somehow we actually always need those fresh creative points before we start a new album :) But this time — also especially after the very positive experiences we had with the Alien Disko Festival — a festival we curated for four years, we thought it would be a good opportunity to invite musicians whose music we love and had a big impact on us, and let them contribute something to our songs. So we don’t only talk about the influences on our music, but this time they are really here, in the music: the singing, writing the words, composing melodies, playing clarinet, or like Juana Molina, re-arranging and re-structuring the song. This was very liberating, because we could go anywhere and sound like somebody else. And when you are free to be somebody else, you can really be yourself.

Vertigo Days, Morr Music, 2021 — *Vertigo Days*, Morr Music, 2021

There are many guests performers on the new album: the song "Ship" has vocals by Saya of Japanese pop duo Tenniscoats, “Oh Sweet Fire” features vocals and guest lyrics from Ben LaMar Gay, "Into the Ice Age" features American jazz clarinetist and composer Angel Bat Dawid, Argentinian electronica songwriter Juana Molina contributes vocals and electronics to “Al Sur," and the Japanese brass band Zayaendo also guests on the album. What was the creative and logistical process like in terms of effectively coordinating and communicating ideas with this diverse range of artists?

This was actually very easy. We are big fans of all these musicians, and so we gave them the total freedom to do whatever they want. And what we got was always totally great right away.

Saya and Zayaendo we knew before and we had played together very often. So we could imagine how great it would sound like when Saya sings on “Ship,” but in the end it sounded even better. It was the best start and helped us to find a way into the album and finish it. The song with Zayaendo was the only one we really recorded all together in one room, during the Alien Disko-festival in December 2019, when they were all in Munich. We only played them the song and melodies and they came up with the arrangement. They have this very special sound as a band, rich and warm and with a lot of heart, and when we had the idea of making an acoustic brass-version of this song, we always had them in mind.

We had also met Ben LaMar Gay before, and he had also joined us a couple of times in Hochzeitskapelle. He immediately felt like a part of the family…he is very open-minded and interested in so much different music, and such a nice person, so we knew we wanted to ask him to join us for one song. We just sent him the song, and didn’t know what he would do…he could have played trumpet or electronics or read a poem…but in the end he sang these beautiful melodies and wrote these haunting words.

The same with Angel Bat Dawid…her record was a huge inspiration, and we sent one song to her and she improvised clarinet over our Can-style-rhythm, and it gave everything a great twist and it gave us an idea of where it could also go.

We have been big fans of Juana Molina’s music for a very long time, and so we were very honored that she wanted to collaborate with us. We sent her just a few electronic and drum loops and she made this incredible song out of it, that keeps our sound and energy, but also sounds totally like her.

We are very happy about all these collaborations…also because we could stay in contact and communicate with these wonderful people in other parts of the world, and our music could cross borders, when we couldn’t…something that is very important to us, even more now, as all over the world nationalistic and ultra-conservative forces are taking over.

Were group improvisations more of a significant factor in the recording of Vertigo Days than on your other albums? What do you think the advantages are of taking a more improvisational approach to songwriting versus a structured or planned approach? What were some challenges in being more improvisational?

In the beginning, we only improvised. We thought that we could go somewhere together, where we hadn’t been yet, and we also wanted to use the energy, sounds and ideas, we had developed over the years with live-playing…like the live-sampling from records, the electronics, the use of small percussion-instruments…all the noise and sounds we often get stuck on live :). It helped us to get other structures into the songs…so things that happen by chance can start another part or give the idea for a harmony-change or melody.

Later we tried to find songs in the many recordings we had made, and we also composed songs to add to the ones we had. I think the advantage was to be forced to find something new and often to think in another way, play a new instrument you’re not so familiar with, etc…You don’t fall into routines so easily. You still do, but there are moments where something unpredictable and new can happen.

You’ve said that all the lyrics “feel more like one long poem.” While the album was in production, how did the intense world events of this year help to shape the lyrical themes from the personal towards a more "global and political story"? Is this a markedly different approach to lyrical themes compared to previous albums?

Some lyrics that I already had written before Corona and the lockdown like, “Into Love,” which dealt with a more personal crisis, all of a sudden got a totally new meaning and seemed to talk also about the global problems we all had to face. And so my head was very much occupied by all this and it seemed inappropriate to think of stories or characters for each song…something I did on other albums. In these times now everything is connected, our private lives and global problems, and [even] as much as in my head everything was whirling around, we wanted this record to mirror these surreal months. For me these times felt a lot like those dreams when you wake up in the morning and fall asleep again, mixing very real things with absurd twists and settings. And so the lyrics just feel like a scrapbook of feelings and thoughts…love and politics...about the back and forth, and the circles in life. But also about the experience that when you learn to live with the knowledge, nothing is safe, and everything that you thought is fixed can fall apart and change any moment. You will learn that there can be positive things around the corner and good things can happen to you, when you didn’t expect them.

The cover art for Vertigo Days is a striking and expressive image from the Japanese photographer Lieko Shiga. How did Lieko's work come to be chosen for the art design of the album, and why do you think it's a good aesthetic match for the music contained within?

It was actually more like a dialogue between our music and her photographs…When we finished the first songs in lockdown (“Loose Ends” and “Ship”), [while] thinking of them I had her images in mind and from there on, the album became some sort of soundtrack to them. I had found her book Blind Date some time ago, and was very fascinated by it. When I ordered another of her books, I happened to come in direct contact with her and I found out that she is friends with the band yumbo and also knows the Tenniscoats, and so we stayed in contact. As it was a very nice conversation, I asked her if she might be interested in us using some of her photographs for this album, and we are so very happy [that] she agreed. Her images are a very big part and inspiration for this album, as much as any other of our (musical) guests.

It appears there are dates set for live performances this March in Germany. Are these still tentative at this time? Are there any other possible performance dates for fans to be on the lookout for this year?

Oh…this is really impossible to say at the moment…since last March, we’ve organized concerts and tours and then a few months later, we cancel most of them again and look for new possibilities and dates.

There is the Elbjazz-festival in June in Hamburg, where The Notwist, Spirit Fest, Fehler Kuti, and Johannes Enders / Günther Baby Sommer / Micha Acher-Trio are supposed to play…we really really hope this still can happen in some way. After this, there could be some Spirit Fest-dates, hopefully. And for October, there are plans for some Notwist dates in Europe. But well…nobody knows, unfortunately…

Vertigo Days is available January 29

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