einstuerzende neubauten: classic or dud?

i interviewed blixa two weeks ago -- he's a really nice guy!

??!!!!?? - are you insane?

It didn't work when he was 20 either, I think this proves I'm not insane. He's weedy alright, almost as weedy William Bennett, ha ha.

I cannot agree with no. 3.

Even better that Blixa would also be a Bad Seed.

I honestly haven't listened to them in years. Within some time of the initial infatuation, I more or less found them to be inconsistent and often dull. I mostly just haven't been in the mood to listen to that clunky, lugubrious sound in ages. If I was to pick a track to put on now it would be "Kalte Sternen" (it's pretty and catchy) or "Headcleaner".

Classic, classic, classic.

Maybe not weedy so much as aiming for intensity and power and falling well short of it and sounding like someone throwing a tantrum instead (see William Bennett)

nagel mein herz an ein fensterkreuz (nail my heart onto the crossbar)

Half Man from 1984 is the album I will treasure; the late-'90s stuff was interesting but not as exciting, and haven't seen/heard them since...

Ende Neu.

Can understand why 12-15 year-olds would say "classic", but it's harder to comprehend the notion of adults (17 and up) giving this codswollop the time of day (at least not without extreme embarrassment).

Then again, arrested development is the coin of the realm, ain't it?

The music of, say, "Vanadium I-Ching" is the product of a quite focused and disciplined attention to objects and sounds, and the structure of the piece is pretty far removed from any kind of childish tantrum. The entrance of musical lines was determined by a temporal map of cracks in a piece of metal; this kind of conceptual compositional strategy seems pretty coolly analytic and controlled to me.

On February 20th, the ICA will stage a Re-enactment of the now-legendary ICA performance, Einstürzende Neubauten’s ‘Concerto for voice and machine.’ The original event took place in 1984 when it was seen as a reaction against music as an easily and readily commodifiable package and industry in post-punk conservative Britain. The event comprised of cacophonous but orchestrated noise and destruction with industrial machinery and tools being used to drill holes in the stage of the ICA and was called to a halt after 21 minutes when ICA technicians turned off the power! On February 20th, emerging young artist Jo Mitchell will direct the re-enactment of this seminal event in an attempt to highlight the gap between the real and the represented and to question notions of expectation, consensus and the conventions of (the different) times.

Okay, seriously the last minute or so of Yu Gung: Classickerist or Classicumilingus?

What's their new album like? I sorta tuned out after 'Perpetuum Mobile'

I like the new album. Posted this on another thread in September:

Most (okay, probably only) country song on the new Einsturzende Neubuaten album Alles Weideroffen is "Nagorny Karabach, which has a very recognizable Lee Hazelwood (R.I.P.) clippity-clop to it. Lots of repetitive electronic factory clang to the rest of the album, often building gradually into something tangibly if Teutonically identifiable as a groove, with repeatedly chanted harangues on top, which slow-building sometimes makes me more impatient than other times. Faves are opener "Die Wellen" (reminds me of Faust), humorlessly titled and minimally starting "Let's Do It Dada," nine-minute "Unvollstandigkeit," and "Ich Warte" (maybe their most danceable track since Adrian Sherwood produced "Yu Gung" for them 22 years ago.) Part that sounds like "bacon bacon bacon bacon" in "Von Wegen" is also neat. Didn't know they still had it in 'em.

Classic, but more for the quiet drony bits than the shrieking clanging bits.

Eyethengyew.

wow, is that available through normal channels or is this another website/supporter release?

I also have not heard anything past Perpetuum. Somebody on another thread was extolling their supporter's club deal, it seemed interesting.

http://www.juno.co.uk/ppps/products/281460-02.htm&highlight=neubauten

Lol "Genre: downtempo"

I've never heard these guys but they sound like something I like. How are they, compared to like, early Cabaret Voltaire or Throbbing Gristle?

more visceral, you need this stuff.

Apropos of sod-all, Dingsaller is bloody fantastic.

Please tell me you posted that to a rolling country thread, xhuxk.

Turns out this album hasn't reconciled me with them. Impressive but ultimately a bit boring.

okay this is pretty cool and then at 4:30 AW YEAH

stick around for blixa's covergirl moment

US leg of 30th anniversary tour cancelled

It is with great regret that Einstürzende Neubauten announce the cancellation of their planned thirtieth anniversary appearances in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto and New York. While the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did issue approvals for the band’s visas, it was not done in time to secure the appointments at the overseas embassies and consulates that represent the necessary final step in the process.

The band members are tremendously disappointed by this turn of events and wish to thank all those fans who purchased tickets for these performances for their support. The band would have loved to do the tour and meet their overseas fans. Because this tour was a time-sensitive production, it will not be rescheduled. Ticket holders can obtain refunds from their point of purchase.

poop! i was really looking forward to seeing them. i'm especially miffed that it won't even be rescheduled.

may as well mention how great the ANBB album Blixa has done with Alva Noto is, its probably my favourite album at the moment

I've been listening to the recordings of the latest tour (they are doing the Grateful Dead recording every show and selling soundboard USBs at the end of the night) and they are so so so so tight and the setlists are so so so so amazing right now. The world's best live band. Whoever said Blixa needs to stop the inhale scream and wearing suits upthread 15 years ago is a fucking idiot.

jesus christ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxyWStLB0z0

<3 <3 <3 bookmarking for later

Ende Neu tour I saw in 1998 remains one of my top ten concert experiences

I saw them four times over the years: in 1989 in a tiny club in L.A., in 1990 at the (new) Ritz on 54th Street, in 1993 at Roseland, and in 2000 (I think) at Irving Plaza. Always fantastic, but the 1989 and 1993 shows were the life-changing ones.

And thanks to this thread's revival reminding me of their existence, I just bought a very rare (so rare it's not even listed on Discogs) Japanese 3CD set that contains Strategies Against Architecture Vols. I and II on eBay.

Saw them for the first time on the Ende Neu tour in London, it was incredible and have tried to see them every time they've rolled around since, that YouTube concert is fantastic but man, the illuminated perimeter of the stage is like some Trypohobic nightmare.

So despite having invented crowdfunding 20 years ago, they're now doing the next Supporter's Project on Patreon:

https://supporter.neubauten.org/

Yes, yes, grumble moan about Patreon being terrible if you're outside the US, but there are some wonderful perks. The usual webcasts and online shenanigans (TIL that German guitarists use Vah-Vah pedals, which is what I will always call them from now on!) - a proper album in April 2020, but also downloads and 7"s of spontaneous 'Jewels' and Dave projects.

And this is the kicker - they're digitising Blixa's enormous collection of 80s cassettes, rarities, rough mixes, live soundboard recordings from the early days, source material tapes, field recordings - and they will be making downloads of that material available to supporters. Some of the tracklists they've teased are just o_0 amazing.

Anyway, I've seen almost nothing about this floating about online - so if you know anyone who would be salivating over this sort of thing, please pass it on? Cheers!

Weedy scream, why I oughta... saw them only last year, and at 60, Blixavoice is still powerful enough to shake building foundations. So there.

http://www.drinkswithtony.com/ep-16-hackedepicciotto-and-blixa-bargeld/
THis was interesting Alex hacke and partner talking for an hour about various things including her 2 books. Followed by a 2007 interview with Blixa.

there is a breathing, pulsing quality to silence is sexy that is deeply satisfying

i saw them in 1987 at the olof palme festival near munich. they were drilling and making other not so funny sounds. they were better than the awful toten hosen. i was pissed out of my head at that festival. but i must say that i never became a fan. later on i bought "das haus der lüge" which was less abrasive and i kind of loved it. blixa bargeld is a strange guy. my fave lyrics by him:"nagel mein herz ans fensterkreuz", ie "nail my heart at the crossbar of the window". it says a lot about him.

I wouldn't call Blixa strange particularly. Perhaps the strangest thing about him is his career trajectory from emaciated, hollow-cheeked metal-basher into portly, three-piece-suit-wearing respected literary figure about whose writing conference papers are now given. He's a highly intelligent, cultured and charming man but he doesn't suffer fools gladly.

xxp I once saw Blixa do an amazing solo set based entirely around his voice and a loop pedal, I am really feeling that description

also, Neubauten on the Tabula Rasa tour was one of the best shows I have ever seen in my life

I spent an hour with him for Alternative Press in 2002 or so and he was like a cross between Bryan Ferry and Hannibal Lecter. One of the most fun interviews I've ever done.

i put them on one time and was about to go in the dressing room but overheard him shouting at the other members about (i presume) how badly they had played (i hadn't noticed anything amiss and had thought they had been wonderful). he is very scary when angry.

Blixa can, in a good mood, be very sweet and thoughtful? He recently sat down and patiently explained all of his favourite Kraftwerk albums to me, which was really quite above and beyond. I'm vaguely terrified of him, but he's actually lovely?

One of the things I've noticed about him is that he is just naturally an incredibly LOUD human being, even in his default mode, he seems like he's shouting. So if he's irritated, the irritation seems much more magnified by the volume. But him refusing to suffer fools is often when he is at his wittiest. (So long as you're not the target.) There's no putdown quite like a Blixa putdown.

I'm quite sad that the current supporter's project isn't getting any attention at all. They're still doing some really wonderful and pleasing work - funnily enough, the almost-throwaway "Dave" experiments have been resulting in some of the most enjoyable and playful, freeform, almost surreal tracks.

That is very interest8nbg.

That is very interesting. Perhaps when I encoutered him then he wasn't actually angry at all.

No, I mean, he also can be scarily, incandescently angry - and the volume combined with the rapier-sharp wit makes that terrifying.

But he's also kind of weirdly (almost childishly) excitable. Which is unexpected in someone with a reputation for being so icy uber-cool. So I do think that sometimes "Blixa shouting loudly in German" is read as him being angry, when he's just begeistert and laut?

But he really, really does not suffer fools gladly. (Which is why I'm so terrified of him - I'm 110% fool.)

I don't know when I became such a Captain Save-A-Prussian. I just love him, OK?

Go on then, I'm curious – how come you sat down with Blixa for a chat?

I'm a massive EN fan but I don't care much for this supporter thing, I just want to buy the finished record. The earlier supporter projects weren't very interesting to me either as they seemed to include the possibility of creative input to the album from supporters, whereas I thought they should have been making the record free from that kind of influence. Interestingly, they seem to have dropped that aspect from the current supporter project.

It's interesting that you didn't consider, that perhaps the very thing you're disparaging as totally "not your thing" in the second paragraph, is the exact answer to your question in the first.

So what are his favorites Kraftwerk albums?

Well, I assumed that your conversation with him was face-to-face, and face-to-face meetings are not part of the supporter rewards, but maybe it was via video.

xp

He said he was a huge fan, growing up, loved them from the first 2 albums all the way through to Die Mensch Maschine (after that he said they lost him). But the two releases he particularly singled out were Ralf und Florian and the Kometenmelodie single (with a cute story about combing all of West Berlin to find it! Sign of a true Kraftwerk nerd, tracking down that one.)

Love taht Kometnenmelodie traclk. Wish I hadn't lost the Exceller 8 lp which was my introduction to the early years, probably lost it at the same time as the Van Der Graaf generator cover double lp of the first 2 lps which I picked up several years later come to think of things.
Exceller 8 was an amalagam of the first 3 or 4 lps . I think a couple of things were edited.

Think you can hear some echoes of that early stuff in early EN longside Pink Floyd. Kollaps has a backcover that seems to be a tribute to the back sleeve of Ummagumma

ha, I never thought about that cover connection!

Hahaha, I had not noticed that, but yeah. Dude clearly had a Floyd stage. For a Punque Rocke Icon (tm) he has such dirty dronerock boy taste in music. He loves him some NEU! too.

Kollaps has a backcover that seems to be a tribute to the back sleeve of Ummagumma

That was the first thing I thought when I saw it!

it's funny because the one time I met Blixa he was just sitting placidly noodling at a piano, and I had come into the rehearsal studio to unlock a cabinet for another member of the ensemble (not neubauten, an experimental classical thing)

also since this thread is active -- here's a link to a new(ish) documentary featuring neubauten

https://www.desolationcenter.com/

So apparently during their Musterhaus phase, they attempted to entirely cover Ummagumma from memory, or play along with the record, or something stupid and ridiculous like that?

It's been really really edifying, watching them work, because you can see that they are experimental, in the sense of trying out all kinda of wild and wacky shit just to see what happens. And some of it really, really works and sounds amazing (they had a day where all of them decided to play metal springs of various shapes and sizes, which sounded fantasic, like really wild dub) and some of it just patently doesn't work - but you can't tell in advance which is going to be which?

They manage to keep a sense of playfulness and spontaneity - sometimes they're like goofy, excitable children in the studio as often as they're Serious Prussian Musicians Playing With Precision - where so many bands of their generation or type just became so po-faced and tedious and wank. Which, unfortunately, doesn't always come across on the Official Finished Records, but is much more apparent in the webcasts, the Daves (which turned up in compilation on The Jewels - the re-release of which really rekindled my interest in the band) and the supporter-only stuff. Which is why it's worth it for me, being a supporter, because the random stuff they produce when they're not working to produce The Official Album is a lot more fun and a lot more interesting.

Blixa has been playing guitar again, which is... a treat.

He was really cute about it, too. They said he bought a guitar - which surprised him as much as it surprised us - and we were all very disbelieving. We kept being told about this guitar Blixa was buying, and I kept going "I don't believe you, pics or it didn't happen" and then 24 hours later this picture mysteriously appeared:

https://66.media.tumblr.com/e2b635f2f189da499f08fd8632a75963/tumblr_ps6fi6l9Ly1rjw8sqo1_1280.pnj

He is such an adorkable cutie, LOOKIT MY KOOL SPACEROCK GUITAR then he went in the studio and ran it through 8000 wibbling delay pedals and I was in heaven.

Did he get anywhere with learning pedal steel guitar? I heard he was trying to learn back around the mid 00ies.

I really want a CD of The Jewels, thanks for the reminder

So apparently during their Musterhaus phase, they attempted to entirely cover Ummagumma from memory, or play along with the record, or something stupid and ridiculous like that?

So someone somewhere must have a recording of them doing "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict"?

JUst seen this for the first time, is it well known?
https://neubautenshrimpscampi.tumblr.com/image/115381123404
are EN well know bronies?

https://neubautenshrimpscampi.tumblr.com/image/115381123404
is what i was trying to post

New album is called Alles in Allem. It's out, I think in May?

I'm still mad that they left the two best songs off the album (the lollopping Mother Sky-like spacerock epic, and the Bubblewrap Song) but the album that it is going to be is still going to be incredibly good. Some rather unexpected, but incredibly beautiful textures coming from the Prussians. (I think this might be their ~Psychedelic Album~?) And very personal, very Berlinny lyrics.

Also harp. The harp was quite divisive among the fans, but it sounds absolutely freaking amazing. A duet between carefully tuned ballistic shell casings, and harp.

Very excited now, for reasons that will soon be clear!

I draw myself anew
non-binary I: forever new

So, absolutely freaking CLASSIC, obviously.

Seeing them in June. It's good that they have a new album to tour, they need to change up the live show a bit. The last couple of times I've seen them it's been more or less the Greatest Hits comp played live, which was great of course but did leave me wanting to hear something new.

I felt they got a bit stale after... 'Silence is Sexy', maybe? Or maybe its just me who lost curiosity for what they were doing

Well, yes, they have a whole (possibly two?) new album's worth of material to tour now, so the shows will be quite different. Also, they had a supporter vote on what songs to play live, with interesting results.

I think what happened after Silence Is Sexy is that they became way more excited about producing 'Stuff For Supporters' than they did about 'Producing Stuff For Proper Albums'? To my mind, the more experimental stuff that turned up on The Jewels was more interesting, to me, than the songs on the Offical Album, Alles Wieder Offen. (But that said, I really really love Perpetuum Mobile, which was a mixture of stuff intended for general release, and stuff intended for supporters.)

I think, after the long, long break (though I don't know why no one counts Lament) they are actually enjoying it again, they're a lot more playful with new material.

I first saw them around Ende Neu and have tried to see them whenever they play London ever since.

Perhaps there was a period of adjustment, post-Mufti, when they refined their sound and stage dynamics and it got quite calm and more poised, but I love the later albums so it was no bad thing.

I would like to have been able to see them around 84-86, I remember that weekend thing they did at the Garage 10 years ago, they included Seelebrennt in the set and it was so fantastic to hear, so potent.

The Lament performance at Koko was blinding too.

xp to Branwell: the problem with that approach is that hardcore fans and Supporters are not necessarily the same group of people. I've been a massive EN fan for many years and have all the Proper Albums but, as mentioned upthread, I have no desire to take part in their supporter projects (that's not a diss on those like you who do, different strokes for different folks). I infinitely prefer the curated, polished final work to the raw, provisional, open-ended Supporter releases; I found both Grundstück and Jewels to be really heavy going and have no desire to ever hear them again.

We can spend all day arguing about who is a 'hardcore fan' versus who is a 'supporter' because, come on.

But at the end of the day, you might be surprised to find that a band with such a rich DIY history are simply more interested in meeting the needs of the fans who *are* willing to engage with them, and support them, and come along for the ride, and participate in the experience, than they are in so-called 'hardcore fans'... who will not.

And I'm grateful for that.

ok

I wasn't aware that spending significant amounts of money on EN records, CDs, concert tickets and merch over the years doesn't count as engagement, support and participation, while not taking part in supporter projects renders null my claim to be a hardcore fan, but whatever.

maybe next time you sit down for a chat with Blixa you can ask him where I stand in the hierarchy of EN fandom

I have dipped into their catalog over the years but feel like I haven't found the right starting point(s). And I love lots of 80s industrial! Suggestions?

Halber Mensch and Drawings of O.T. were my gateway drugs

already got tickets, very excited, and I didn't actually know there was a new album coming so that's just a cherry on top. glad to hear they are having more fun with the work. saw them on the Ende Neu tour a little over 20 years ago and it was just fantastic, all time concert experience.

The Strategies Against Architecture series of compilation albums gives you a pretty good overview of the earlier years, while the ironically titled Greatest Hits set from a few years ago is a useful round-up of the later years.

Cosign, Strategies I & II are excellent.

Yeah Strategies II was my entry point. Plenty of classics not really available elsewhere too

I was a Phase III supporter but felt like the retail release of Jewels was a bit of a kick in the teeth.

I think I knew about this, then forgot about it. Kind of ambivalent about missing out.

In lieu of a general Berlin-based music thread, I thought this was the next best place to park this -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjqu59mF7Cc

So the first digital single will be out at the start of April. (Probably Ten Grand Goldie - which will be very interesting, as that's the one that the supporters had the most input into (quite literally.))

I've also heard that they're going to be doing a deal to get their entire back catalogue onto Spotify, which will be grand - half of it is under the Stevo Curse, half of it is just missing, and bits and bobs have turned up piecemeal over the years - so getting the whole thing in one place will quite an accomplishment.

Yes, there will be a box set for the collectors. With vinyl and CDs and a full colour glossy book and a film and bits and bobs (and LOL @ who they let do the liner notes!)

Might be going into Neubauten overload for the next few months, but I'm really excited! It's been such a surprise to discover how playful Blixa is.

::tosses a glitterbomb into thread:: HURRAH!

Are the Potomak cds still available. & did they cover all of the first major lineup's material?
Not sure if they needed to go beyond chung and mufti leaving cos I think they may have had more control of their catalogue beyond there.

Glittery make-up, flower crowns and the return of SHOPPING TROLLEY in the new video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Nz9t_4XLcc

^^^probably one of the most evocative and salient songs of the album, but gives a general idea of the hauntingly elegant and elegiac mood.

Album is out on the 15th. I know distribution is... tricky at the moment, but they've finally come round to digital streaming, and it will be on all the major streaming platforms, too. (I'm just hoping the whole postal system holds together long enough for the box set to get here!)

It's a nice song, but it's made me realize that I don't want to grow old with Einstürzende Neubauten. Their elegiac phase does not speak to me. I miss the EN of roughly 1980-1992, even knowing that I came to them relatively late (didn't see them live until 1989, but saw them four times in four years - 1989, twice in 1990, and again in 1992). That's the group I love - the manic, junk-smashing, power-drill-shrieking, dropping-an-anvil-through-a-concert-hall-stage EN. I'm glad they're still out there, still making work that speaks to them and to others, but I'm never gonna feel about anything after Tabula Rasa the way I feel about the stuff from their first dozen years.

"Ten Grand Goldie," the other new song released so far, is much closer to what I was hoping for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIjTHkN21Zo

I quite like 10 Grand Goldie, more than most of what I've heard from them over the last 20 years, but nothing really new to be honest.

So this has leaked and is sounding pretty great so far. "Zivilisatorisches Missgeschick" is amazing.

Yeah, I've heard the whole thing now and it's really good. Probably gonna review it somewhere.

Re-homing this, from an inappropriate thread on ILE:

Neubauten just released a newer live version of Sehnsucht where Blixa (still currently at 'punch myself in the face' levels of crush) very deliberately sings the untranslateable punning German part of the lyrics in English, going into a chant of "addicted to desire, addicted to desire" which is very much where I'm at regarding crushes. Crushes are a huge source of energy - (I no longer believe they are the only source of energy, but I don't think B does, either any more) - but they are also an addiction. Addictions can both sap and feed one's energy.

Also, Neubauten are in the process of setting up a Bandcamp. They're undecided if they're going to concentrate on older stuff, newer stuff, weirder unavailable stuff (e.g. the Musterhaus era experiments), live stuff (they are sitting on a powderkeg of amazing, well-recorded live material that blows some of the 'official' versions out of the water) or what they're going to do with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8OSBMy-940

Or lord, a baby Prussian, hasn't changed at all in some ways. Still just a big overenthusiastic puppy! Blixa and their ~album of love songs~ bless your little rubber wellies.

I was hoping to see some more reactions to Alles In Allem. Like, I feel like I almost know *too much* about this album, at this point, and I was really hoping to read some more reactions of people coming to it with fresher ears?

It's a funny thing but I feel a time-lag of appreciation with Neubauten's music, some of their records have taken years to sink in, those ones often tend to end up as my favourites.

Lament, for instance, still feels really fresh and detailed and in need of more listening time, which is a bit ridiculous as it's like, 6 years old?

I know it's silly as the music isn't as complex and demanding, especially these days, I think it might just be that they're so significant, culturally speaking, that the longer they roll the more my brain tells me that they need proper attention and not just cursory listening in the car or while reading.

Lament didn't really fully click for me, until I saw it live and understood it as ~the soundtrack to a theatre piece~ as much as a complete album. I was listening to it as a complete album around the time of all the 1914-1918 WWI centenery stuff, as a very necessary corrective to all the jingoism in my own country, and it worked for that perfectly.

There's a thing with Neubauten albums, where they are often working on multiple levels at once. There's an immediate hit of how the music and mood hits you because they are super talented musicians who communicate emotion through noise really effectively. There's a deeper level as you spend more time with the lyrics (often there's translation involved, and not just translation from German, but understanding Blixa's complex allusions and symbolism). Then there's a whole nother level that takes place on a cultural context level. Levels 2 and 3 can take years!

But that doesn't mean that the enjoyment of listening on level 1 is cursory or invalid or ~bad fandom~. They are still amazing on an "I listened to this and it hit me in my hips and my heart" level. If they *weren't* amazing on that level, no one would ever bother pushing through to the deeper levels.

I like that they're just a little less graceful and more turbulent these days, around the time of 'Silence is Sexy' and 'Perpetuum Mobile' it came across quite poised and low-key. Although I do really enjoy those records nowadays

It felt like at the gigs I saw around 'Alles Wieder Offen' they came back to life a bit more.

Did you go to the weekend thing they did in 2010-ish? Oh my lord, that Garage gig was so amazing.

It is to my great regret that I never got to see them before the Lament shows! I know so many people who have had such great experiences at their ~event weekends~ and the like. I wish I had gone to the Garage thing.

The thing is, I actually like Perpetuum Mobile as an album, more than Alles Wieder Offen. It has more of what I like in music - that Perpetuum was really their 'let's do Krautrock' album, musically. But the clue to their attitude was really in the name - Alles Wieder Offen was where they *felt* more open as a band again, where they felt more connected, more engaged, more happy to be ~doing Neubauten~ again? (And The Jewels, the supporters-only album that was the weirder, even more freeform and 'experimental' companion to AWO, is one of my favourite things they have ever done.) They sounded like they were more "back to life" because they were feeling more back to life.

And I know the parallel in the album names is not deliberate (they actually wanted to avoid it) but Alles in Allem is also very much a "back to life" and an opening-up record. I cannot believe how open and how personal Blixa was willing to get on the record. (And Blixa being Blixa, of course people, including myself, were looking for 8 layers of meaning, when on some songs - no, really, it was exactly what they were saying it was.)

Anyway, boom tish, it's just gone live:

https://neubauten.bandcamp.com/releases

I must get Alles in Allem. I haven't been very good at following Neubauten more recently; it's time to jump in again.

I mentioned upthread that I was going to review Alles In Allem, but I never posted the link. Here it is. Now off to Bandcamp I go...

25th anniversary concert in Gijon, Spain on April 13, 2005.
credits
released April 13, 2005

bless them for doing this, seriously, but lol this is not how it works

(I'm biased cuz I need release dates to log radio play)

How should they be doing it, then?

(This is a serious question, please be gentle with them - they are a bunch of middle-aged Germans who are a bit perplexed by Bandcamp.)

All of their shows got released as CDRs, memory sticks, etc. about 10 minutes after the end of the set, so that they could be sold at the merch table. So that's what they mean by "released" - it was literally available for commercial sale at the merch stand, and on their web store as soon as the show was over.

haha I just mean the "release date" should be the day it was uploaded/"released"

if you could actually let someone know, that would be awesome. totally not a big deal, I was just amused, but I really do use the release dates to log "new" plays for licensing $. I want them to get their fractions of pennies!

and again, it's really cool that they are doing this, I will keep my eye on it. would love a lossless copy of The Jewels, for example.

(uploaded to Bandcamp, I mean, although yeah if they were available aftershow then it does muddy those waters a bit but afaict Bandcamp treats reissues as having the release date of the reissue not the original)

Thanks for the clarification! It's useful information, and I'll pass it on.

Gonna give the new one a proper listen over the weekend, might dig out The Jewels too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQoBph_FTFI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNR1nGolZVA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEyaGBSDpiA

Halber Mensch time. yes this is my industrial week because there are limits to how much metal I can consume a year even for me.

this is my very first listen.

Ohhhh nice, that's a great record.

the intro track I coulda listened to for a half hour, if my mother wouldn't have run in screaming

my EN favourite.

so many greats; the title track, der tod ist ein dandy, seele brennt, yu gung, sehnsucht....

the intro track I coulda listened to for a half hour, if my mother wouldn't have run in screaming

amazing!

yeah this fucking ruuules. anything percussive and mechanical works for me and this has that in droves.

How much of their other music have you heard N?

somewhere between 0 and none

Oh nice, what a journey!

This may be worth your time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=posxMfqdgIM

And if you can track down the Liebeslieder documentary also, it's some story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VsIW3M5p1o

hell fucking ya

please sir, can we have some more...

<3 N.U. Unruh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxDriPLyBqo

New single!

Just got the new one. Sort of in vein of Alles In Allem, but less accessible on first two listens. I'm sure it'll sink in.

Per an announcement on the official forum, Alex Hacke has left the band. Sad to see him go, he'd been a member almost as long as the two remaining founder members Blixa and Unruh, but the last two albums haven't done much for me.

I am sad it's come to this. But I also feel that Neubauten is very much Blixa and Andrew and whoever plays with them. I wish good luck to Alex with his other projects, but I'm also glad that Andrew and Blixa are committed to carrying on in whatever form they continue.

Their supporters show of almost entirely improvised work in Berlin last year was one of the best concerts I've seen in a long time. I hope that they release it as a live album!

But I say that as someone who really loves the freeform Kosmische jams of Rampen / Alien Pop Music!

In case you missed the livestream of the 46th anniversary show today, someone uploaded it to archive.org here:
https://archive.org/details/einsturzende-neubauten-46th-anniversary-concert-2026-04-01-berlin

ty!

They have a lady bassist now! Cool!