Notwist

The new policy on start times for the season's concerts - which finally brings Rome in line with other European capitals - is scrupulously observed even for this hotly anticipated (and, not surprisingly, sold out) show headlined by Germany's Notwist.

So it's ten o'clock on the dot when, walking through the inner door of the Circolo degli Artisti, you're greeted by the opening notes of "Pick Up The Phone" and, in the packed hall, instantly plunged into the heart of the world of a band that has managed better than most to embody the turn-of-the-millennium transition, blending Teutonic electronic legacies and distant punk roots - revisited in the age of post-(indie)-rock - into essentially pop form.

The Archer brothers stand at the centre of the stage, leading the sextet which, from the very start of the set, lays all its cards on the table, producing those elusive melodic weaves - heightened by Markus Acher's dreamy voice - around which roaring guitars and driving rhythms flow on one side, and enveloping synths and keyboards on the other, in an intersection that keeps blurring with no apparent seam.

The blazing start - with one of the most irresistible pop songs of the past decade - is merely the prelude to a first part of the show focused mainly on tracks from the latest "The Devil, You + Me", which live take on far more solid shapes and structures than their studio versions suggested.

The first half of the set is also the one most centred on the songs themselves, or at least on the material with the most immediate impact on a huge, buzzing crowd made up largely of very young fans, who show an almost surprising familiarity with the songs and melodies at a time when everything moves so fast there's barely time to absorb it. And yet this is precisely the measure of the stature Notwist have achieved over the years, and of their ability to permeate the broadly "indie" world with a sound that keeps mutating and yet remains as recognisable and effective as few others around.

Further proof of the naturalness with which the German band manages to shape-shift comes from the countless reference points that flash through the mind over the ninety minutes of the show, ranging from the pioneers of 80s electronica to alt-rock guitar bands of the 80s and 90s such as, remarkably, Jesus & Mary Chain and Smashing Pumpkins. All this happens while, with the same nonchalance, the six men on stage swap positions and instruments, moving from guitars to keyboards, from tracks with an almost purely electric character to electro-pop excursions (the excellent "Where In This World" and "On Placet Off"), all the way to incandescent electronic jams, particularly the one that completely transfigures "Pilot" into an endless dancefloor bender, retaining little more than the original's compelling chorus, drowned in a sea of rhythms and keyboards so overwhelming that the audience, swept up in ecstatic rapture, loses all sense of stylistic and temporal bearings.

The six on stage must have sensed it too, as over the course of an hour and a half they deliver a dense, pulsating set, perhaps conceding little to showmanship but clearly having a great time with consummate skill, and they need little persuading to return to the stage twice more to offer four additional songs. So when the second song of the second encore ("Gone, Gone, Gone") takes on the air of a closing farewell to the evening, the overall feeling among an audience now drained, both emotionally and physically, is of having witnessed the performance of an extremely clever hall of mirrors, one that throws back reflections, lights and sounds no longer classifiable under the simplistic label of indie-tronica. Notwist are here and now, and live they prove it once again through a vivid capacity for self-reinvention that manages to elevate even their most recent songs, which on record inevitably paid a certain price when set against towering works such as "Neon Golden" and the never sufficiently praised "Shrink".

(edited by Raffaello Russo)

On a mild early-spring evening, Notwist celebrate their return to the scene with a European tour that has taken in, and will continue to take in, the whole of Central Europe. The release of "The Devil, You + Me" had shaken out of their torpor the fans who had been waiting a full six years for the follow-up to "Neon Golden"; the announcement of no fewer than four Italian dates further stoked the excitement and piqued the curiosity of anyone who had always wanted to hear the German band's splendid pop embroidery live.

Blending past and future, the band delivers a solid, varied, thrilling show. There's no concession to easy melody, nor a note-for-note rendition of the songs, but rather a personal, disorienting reinterpretation. Sturdy instrumental codas, digressions bordering on cacophony and jarring moments of interlocking guitars reveal the punk origins of a band that started out with two hardcore albums indebted to the essential Hüsker Dü. This choice to strip away the intimate, self-contained appeal of the original songs in favour of an aggressive, brazen approach doesn't betray the essence of their music, but rather sends the concert soaring in a burst of emotion. The expressive force hits with such impact that it lets the listener fall into complete empathy with every single passage.

The line-up consists of six musicians, including of course the founding core: singer and guitarist Markus Acher, electronics wizard Martin Gretschmann and bassist Micha Acher. They're joined by a drummer, a keyboardist and a xylophone player. The mutual chemistry is obvious from the very start, and it's fantastic to sense the rapport and understanding among the members: everything is so well thought out that the precision with which the various roles are carried out feels almost symbiotic. The most amusing anecdote, in purely technical terms, is Martin Gretschmann's method of performing, generating electronic streams by using two Wii Remotes, the controllers from Nintendo's Wii console. This trick is presumably made possible by building an oscillator sensitive to the spatial movements of the two devices, which allows him to draw out sounds of varying tonal quality.

There's room for the thrilling opening track of the latest album, performed with commendable personality ("Good Lies"), one of their best-known songs, perhaps the high point of their career, is sung with hearts in throats ("Pick Up The Phone"), before arriving at the splendid "Chemicals" (taken from "Shrink"), a masterpiece of electronic abstraction and pop sensibility. A cascade of overwhelming emotions unfolds between classics that have since become anthems of an era of disillusionment (the touching lament "Gloomy Planets", the crooked psychedelia of "Neon Golden"), tectonic jolts laced with a schizophrenia bordering on dreamlike dance-rock (the pounding "This Room", the obsessive "On Planet Off", techno-pop hiccups in "Where In This World"), and tender folk caresses reinforced by rhythmic inserts (the drops of intimate melody in "Sleep", the pop gem "Boneless"). These are just details: if in the presence of "Consequence" the emotion is obvious and entirely justified, the final track of "Neon Golden" is also among the last to be performed, an ideal closing note between guitar solfeggios and utterly immaculate electronic hiccups.

The overall feeling during and after the show is of standing before consummate musicians, not the members of some fashionable wave of music destined to last a single season. The solid quality of the comeback record, combined with a live show that borders on perfection in every respect, is proof of the real substance not only of the band, but of the entire wave surrounding the indie-tronica phenomenon (including all the genre-less electronica released in those years) that flooded the independent record market around 2002.

(edited by Alessandro Biancalana)

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