As the Notwist worked together on its new album, Close To The Glass (Sub Pop), the trio felt the songs were going in too many directions. Ultimately, the band gave up on finding a center and embraced the diversity. “With this record, there were no rules anymore,” says frontman Markus Acher. This outcome makes perfect sense when considering the band’s history. The Notwist is all about exploring possibilities: of the interface of acoustic and electronic, the planned and the unplanned, collaboration and revision, evolution and experimentation. The group has released only seven albums over the course of a 25-year career, and Close To The Glass is only the second since 2002’s landmark Neon Golden. Acher will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new feature on the band.
Markus Acher: Wallace Berman was a visionary. He invented a visual language that would anticipate independent, punk rock and contemporary electronic cover artwork.. He was an artist who questioned the whole art business and believed in the network more than in promoting his own ouvre. The gallery Boo-Hooray just published a reprint of all of his Semina magazines, a magazine he sent to friends and fellow artist, filled with art and poems. And you can see on the cover artwork of our new album (done by Brian Roettinger), that he was a big inspiration for us, too. And yes: Boo-Hooray, Boo-Hooray, Boo-Hooray! A miracle. If I would live in New York, I’d go to Boo-Hooray every week, I guess.
Video after the jump.
