The Notwist will release their new album News from Planet Zombie, wil arrive on March 13th via Morr Music. The LP was recorded in their home base of Munich, it reconnects with the security of the local to explore the troubles of the global: a guiding impulse writ large across this album’s eleven songs. It’s also the first studio album since 1995’s 12 that the band recorded together in the studio in its expanded live formation.

Planet Zombie was recorded over one week at Import Export, a non-profit space for arts and music. You can tell, too; there are some pleasingly rough edges here, as though The Notwist’s striving for hazy perfection means they’re also confident enough to let the songs breathe and mutate between our ears. That openness to chance also takes in guest turns from friends both local and international, reflective of a cosmopolitan Munich: Enid Valu joins in on vocals, while Haruka Yoshizawa guests on taishōgoto and harmonium, Tianping Christoph Xiao on clarinet, and Mathias Götz on trombone.

The Notwist aren’t best known for cover versions, but News from Planet Zombie features two: a version of Neil Young’s “Red Sun” (from 2000’s Silver & Gold), which the group originally developed for a theatre play directed by Jette Steckel, and a take on Athens, Georgia folk-pop gang Lovers’ “How the Story Ends.”

Planet Zombie acknowledges the distress of our current geopolitical impasse, while reminding us there are collective ways forward. Fed through the figure of the zombie, Markus Acher explores our anxieties: In the title and some lyrics I reference B- and horror-movies, which is a reference to the crazy world at the moment, which seems to be like a really bad and unrealistic B-movie. But there’s a reminder here not to lose the thread entirely, that these things, too, will pass.

“The river here in Munich I often go to has been there forever and will be there long after us,” Acher reflects, pinpointing an important source of succor for him. “Always the same but always changing. Very calming, but also always reminding me that like this river time only flows into one direction and you can’t go back. Every moment is very precious.”

The Notwist
News from Planet Zombie
Morr Music
Tracklisting

1. Teeth
2. X-Ray
3. Propeller_
4. Red Sun
5. The Turning
6. Snow
7. Silver Lines
8. Who We Used to Be
9. How the Story Ends
10. Projectors
11. Like This River

pre-order News From Planet Zombie HERE