Go to the website for the Notwist, and there's a short video clip of the multi-talented German band, toying with synthesizers and a computer until an iridescent electronic hum becomes like the rapid purr of airplane propellers. After a now-legendary series of career twists and turns brought the group from heavy metal in the early 1990s to something not far off from indie-rock, then to free-jazzy experimentation-- with many an extracurricular project besides-- the Notwist really took off with 2002's Neon Golden, Pitchfork's #23 album of the early 2000s (and #7 album of 2002). "Neon Golden is the past and the future, electronic music android's inner human awakening," Pitchfork's Brendan Reid wrote. The Notwist have kept busy with remixes and guest appearances since then, collaborating with Anticon rappers Themselves as 13 & God but also teasing us with trifles.

"Good Lies" is the first major official statement we've heard from the Notwist, then, since most people started caring about the Notwist (how many of you heard the band's 2004 German documentary score, really?). That familiar tension between electric guitars and electronic bleeps, between human vulnerability and android perfection, and, here, between truth and fiction is all over the new song, set to appear on forthcoming Notwist full-length The Devil, You + Me. The track opens with bass and drum pounding in unison, ethereal voices beaming in the background amid squeaking electronics. Then all cuts out but droning acoustic guitars, a ticking clock, and Markus Acher's wide-eyed vocal: "Let's just imitate the real, until we find a better one/ Remember, the good lies win." Whether that statement is political, aesthetic, or strictly personal, it's an ever-timely one. And then, the guitars merge into the computers merge into the vocals. A propeller plane can't fly without propellers-- can't fly without a pilot, either.

MP3:> The Notwist: "Good Lies"
[from The Devil, You + Me; due late May 2008 in Europe from City Slang and June 2008 from Domino]