Einsturzende Neubauten

Change all text on this page to Comic Sans!

I saw the Einstürzende Neubauten last year. it was great. blixa made fun of me and i stood right before the bassplayer who was torturing his bass with a giant, cuccumber sized vibrator at one point of the show

v/x

"kalte sternen" and "thirsty animal" are still great singles, though really (re the latter) you couldn't make something bad when you have lydia lunch and rowland howard in the same place.

i haven't listened to tabula rasa in a long time. i remember "head cleaner" being great. what i heard of ende neu was embarrassing.

So, Sundar, what'd you recommend to a newbie?

Please note - The Ex recorded one of their earlier projects in a local Dutch factory shut down by some unscrupulous bastards. They played the machinery. Sounds a lot like what I'd imagine prime EN would sound like.

Orignially posted by Kris:
Kodanshi is my hero, BTW

xyz: ask him if he knows that EN are all gay. Either he'll cut the homophobia, or chuck out HIS records (and the second way he'll be stouc with a tatt telling him HE'S gay haha). Either way you win.

Kodanshi - what can you do with 'the Breeders'?

-- dave q (scrape100@hotmail.com), July 29, 2001.

I love these dudes' noisier stuff but I think "Silence is Sexy" is my faves album of theirs. Parts of it have this Skip Spence vibe that I really dig.

p.s. I am so glad that orig. button still works!

Have people heard the ANBB record? "Berghain" has that old end-of-the-world feel to it - really nice.

Lost interest in these guys some ten years ago but their new one "Lament" (some sort of WW1 memorial piece) has me intrigued. Anyone?

Looking forward to hearing it, they're worth the effort of checking out what you missed. A different band, more relaxed and elegant. They can still kick out the jams when required mind.

They're still going??!!?

xp yeah, turns I stopped buying on sight their new stuff after Alles Wieder Offen (2008), which I remember to be OK but overall there seemed to be declining returns after Silence and Perpetuum.

yeah i got alles wieder offen too and definitely enjoyed it. only song i can really remember now though is the one about nagorno-karabakh which sounded like blixa covering dire straits' brothers in arms

Strategies Vol 4 is really good, y'all, and has a lot of cool excerpts from the more recent members-only releases

I was also under the impression they were done as a band

I thought Blixa had left the Bad Seeds to focus on Neubauten.

Killed it in London last night, Kriegsmaschinerie was a like a summation of every noise they've ever made on stage since day one.

new album too!

http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10261:einstuerzende-neubauten-qlamentq&catid=13:albums-and-singles&Itemid=133

I managed to squeeze in a couple of listens before the gig, it's really good, not a traditional EN record. More akin to something between their soundtrack work and a 'proper' release.

One positive out of the Nick Cave discussion is that I never got round to neubauten. It reminded me to check them out.

Halver Mensch is so good!

*Halber

It is! A wonderful rabbit hole, the world of EN.

I'm still far more into the first classic line up with Mufti and Mark Chung than the line up that has been together for teh last 20+ years.
Love the first few lps anyway. & the Kalte Sterne collection of early material is pretty great too. That one has the material recorded with Rowland S Howard and Lydia Lunch and the first couple of singles.

I think Jim Thirlwell compiled the first volume of Strategien Gegen Architekturen which covers their most industrial era and is the first in a continuing series.

Kollaps ther first lp has the band not yet fully formed in a photo that is directly influenced by the Pink Floyd equipment on runway shot from Ummagumma. & they're already playing around with some elements taken from classic pop in the shape of a deconstruction of Serge Gainsbourg's Je T'Aime. they go on to explore some of Lee Hazlewood's work with Nancy Sinatra on later work. I first heard of taht pairing from Blixa in the mid 80s but he apparently thought they were an actual romantic item at one point.
Zeichnunger Der Patienten O.T. their 2nd lp captures them when they were calling themselves anti music and is pretty classic. Has some tracks with great momentum and a lot of atmospheric drone. I think they tehn turn to explore the frontiers of noise/symphonic structure which you hear over the next few lps. They pick up on melody and what I hear as folk airs. They were definitely listening to a lot of indigenous folk from around teh world. Blixa appears to have picked up a taste for country too and apparently started learning how to play pedal steel before dropping playing his own customised guitar style live .

They were one of my favourite bands at one point, alongside teh grateful dead and a few others. I don't listen to them as much now. Have had soem tracks turn up on walkman over teh last week which I was listening to a lot prior to me listening to podcasts on my phone a couple of years back. I still love them but don't listen to them as much.
I was getting tehir cds when tehy appeared for a few years, as in getting the release as soon as possible on release but haven't picked up teh last few. Possibly need to remedy that. definitely would recommend all the Potomak versions of the early lps anyway.

Also somewhat intriguing the collaboration lp between one time drummer Mufti and guitarist caspar Brotzmann , son of avant garde saxophonist Peter Brotzmann. Lp is called Merry Christmass.

Five on the open-ended Richter scale is really moody stuff.

They're also incredibly magnetic as individual personalities, it's a shame the 'Liebeslieder' documentary film is no longer on YouTube (it is on Apple TV), but pretty much any documentary about EN is worth checking out.

Generally a fan but find that Blixa followed a pretty similar path to Nick Cave both as a person and as a musician. Namely, (highly) thinking of himself as an intellectual from the mis90s onwards. Music growing equally pompous and affected.

xpost I think I found it here:

https://vk.com/video151174670_162373052

Halver Mensch is so good!

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 4. May 2023 11:14 (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

*Halber

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 4. May 2023 2023 11:14 (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

would have been a much better choice imo

With Blixa being a renowned vegetarian who has appeared on cookery shows , has he ventured into middle eastern cookery and created a manly sweetmeat called halva Mensch yet?

Halfway through Haus der Lüge - its some kind of peak. Junkyards of percussion to a stuttering set of beats and baselines. Blixa has got the 'singing' really down too!

His voice has always been a major stumbling block for me tbh.

Blixa got a role in The Mummy as the voice of the mummy's ghost because of that shriek. Which was why I went to see the film when it came out.

& Michael Mann heard Armenia off Zeichnungen der Patienten O.T. and started using it as a theme.
I've wondered if it was down to Henry Rollins who is in a supporting role in Heat where it appears every time Val Kilmer's character's wife does. Rollins having the Neubauten man prominent on the top of his arm and all.

I did not know about The Mummy. Wow!

I have long wondered about how Michael Mann got into Neubauten - the Rollins theory seems highly plausible. He must have really liked 'Armenia' as he used it again in 'The Insider'

Mann works a lot with Neville Brody I think. If I remember correctly, the graphic designer in Heat has some Brody-related stuff in her office? It's covered here http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2011/09/09/graphic-design-in-heat/ And Brody is Über-industrial person – so many labels and record covers designed by him

cool, wasn't aware of that. Now i need another book. lovely.

i'm a Brody Über fan and have seen Heat several times yet have never spotted the Last Testament or Eight Eyed Spy artwork in it before. Worryingly unobservant!