Did you see the movie Push? A reality-bending tale of super-powered people that persecute themselves based in a not so successful book. I used to enjoy its mechanics and the story is immersive if you don’t mind having trouble understanding what’s happening and what’s not. Right now, I think it sucks, whatever Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning try to do throughout the film. The reason I bring it up is because when I first saw it, I got out with two results: a severe crush on Camilla Belle (where she’s at, huh?) and encountering with The Notwist’s 5th album Neon Golden, which turns 20 years old today. It is without much doubt, one of the most important records of my 21st century.

In a love scene between Belle’s and Evans’ characters the beautiful closer of the album, ‘Consequence’ starts playing. I was immediately hooked by its mournful beat, Markus Acher’s unattached but still affecting delivery and its unforgettable melody. Despite this, it took me a while to listen to the whole album, and after that, it also took several listens to grasp its melancholic electronic-influenced indie rock. Neon Golden came at a time The Notwist was already evolving, and, at this point in their career, is their abosolute peak. That is not by chance.

The Notwist is a German indie-rock band formed in 1989 near Munich by brothers Markus and Micha Acher. At first, deep influences of metal and punk from the 80s were their particular brand. By the end of the 90s their sound was leaning more into indie-rock, at first dark and subdued, but in the 2000s the influence of the acclaimed German electronic music scene and of course, krautrock, their sound evolved into something less intense in its obscure tendencies and, while more accessible, it also became more complex. Neon Golden is the prime example, a collection of tracks that, for starters, uses synths, beats, drums and guitars evenly, with no effect whatsoever in the potency of its songs.

Markus Acher’s voice is in many ways a propeller. He sounds distant but its inevitable to not get grabbed by the inherent humming of his singing. You really wonder how he’s dealt with the themes the album touches throughout: ‘Pick up the phone, answer me at last/Today, I will step out of your past’, he sings on ‘Pick Up The Phone’ like signaling the need for closure in a failed relationship. His delivery is urgent but not as if he’s desperate for answers, just a kind of resignation fueled by the uncertainty it needs to fulfill. Neon Golden is all the more special because of these ideas, and it helps to maintain itself equally amazing to this day.

In 2014, I was able to see the band live in Guanajuato, as part of the Festival Cervantino. ‘German Electronic Night’ read the ticket. Although true, The Notwist have never been an inherently electronic band but its uncanny how they’ve managed to combine the most fruitful elements of electronic music, with pop and rock melodies, two things they excel at. That day, they extended ‘Pick Up The Phone’ with noisey synths and racuous drums. They added a lenghty intro to ‘Pilot’ which never signaled what song it would turn out to be. The Neon Golden title track was a krautrock experience without a doubt. Along with songs from Neon Golden‘s two follow-ups at the time, the innocuous concert with only a few hundreds of people in the Alhóndiga, was one of the most special concerts I’ve been to. To cap it all up, they closed with ‘Consequence’. (I may or may not have shouted the song’s title wanting for them to play it).

The Notwist most likely doesn’t want people considering Neon Golden as their best album. But it definitley is. ‘The crowning achievement’. After the aforementioned concert, my friends and I talked a little with the band’s drummer (who had been with them for a short time) and said that the band liked Hüsked Du a lot in their beginnings. That right there is proof that The Notwist are in constant movement, tyring to evolve and transform their sound. However, Neon Golden is inevitably their greatest effort. It is even evident in 2008’s The Devil, You + Me and 2014’s Close To The Glass (these songs are great live), because the best tracks in those records are more similar to Neon Golden‘s sound. That’s also the case for last year’s Vertigo Days. While it show the band leaning into more jazzy rhythms with several collabs with jazz musicians and a latin electronic artist, I still felt that the band sounded more crisp and interesting when a certain song leaned into what made Neon Golden an outstanding record.

In the end, The Notwist is a band that, it seems, will never stop exploring. And whether that yields uneven results or ends in another excellent album, that would probably be less meaningful for them than we would think. They are deeply in touch with their home country’s music scene, collaborating and immersing themselves in Berlin’s electronic scene, and with jazz and rock artists alike. Their discography is interesting to say the least, and there is not a bad record anywhere, but it has always been discreet, the work of a band that means so much to some people but very little for most. For a brief moment in 2002, Neon Golden showcased what the Acher brothers and company were able to conjure when intentionally breaking out. A pop-bending record of magnitude, complexity and emotional intention, that somehow never actually explodes. Well, maybe only in the guitar break of single and climax of the album ‘One With The Freaks’, which turns into a forceful doubt-drenched reflection: ‘Have you ever been all messed up?’. I guess we’ve all have been but at least we have this record to invite us in, surrounding us with a foggy atmosphere that only highlights its colorful melodic ideas. Push got something right, Neon Golden‘s songs could soundtrack any meaningful moment in life.

Leave me paralyzed, love
Leave me hypnotized, love