boffo's Full Review: Ende Neu by Einst?rzende Neubauten
Ok I'll start with a little introduction for those of you who are unfamiliar with Einstürzende Neubauten. Neubauten is a german group famous as one of the inventors of the genre called Industrial music. They formed in the early eighties as a group of cultural activists. They where formed by the then 20 year old artist Christan Emmerich. Emmerich adapted the name Blixa Bargeld wich he has used ever since. Bargeld and his fellow band members started creating art with the idea that german culture had been polluted and destroyed by their history and particulary by the Nazis.
Their goal was thus to help create a new culture but to acomplish this first the old one had to be erased. That is also what their band name stands for Einstürzende Neubauten meaning "collapsing new buildings".
At first their music sounded more like an acident in a factory. They used various non musical items as instruments. Glass, Pneumatic drills, sheet metal, burning oil and so on. Over this backing Bargeld howled, chanted and screamed but rarley sang his lyrics. The lyrics have always been opposed to the music very elegant with references to countless old myths and full with riddles and wordplays.
A lot of things changed for Neubauten during the years however. Ende Neu is their second most recent album, their most recent being Silence is Sexy Ende Neu was released in 96. It shows a band somewhat searching for a new identity. This had to do with several line-up changes. Before this album longtime member bassist Mark Chung had left the band and his replacment keyboardist Roland Wolf died in a car acident. Further another longtime member percussionist F M Einheit decided he would leave the group after this album.
This album is far more melodic and restrained than Neubauten's earlier albums. It consists of eight tracks:
Was Ist Ist
Meaning "what is is". Though many of the songs are sung in german the lyrics are helpfully enough printed in the cd-booklet in both german and english. This song is one of the heavier tracks with chaotic guitar noises in the background. The lyric is really cleverly written as sort of a politic propaganda speach. It talks of an utopia however at points in the lyric when the political agenda behind the utopia could be determined a choir of people is used. Each of the persons in the choir where allowed to say any word they thought fitted in the lyric wich means that none of the peoples particular word can be made out. An uplifting song but a bit repetitive.
Stella Maris
One of the most beautiful songs on the album. Really a ballad in the classical sense a nice subdued guitar line and a really pretty string arrangement. You hardly notice the fact that the percussion on this track consists of a metal plate and a chain since they are softly struck in a traditional drum pattern rattern than randomly bashed as in some earlier Neubauten tracks. The song is a duet between Bargeld and german actress Meret Becker. Bargeld and Becker take the part of two lovers searching for each other i a dreamworld but always ending on opposite ends of the world. While the woman stands on K2 the man searches in the Mariana trench, they agree to meet at the pole but end up on different poles, you get the idea...
Die Explosion Im Festspielhaus
"The explosion in the festival hall". A Really cryptic lyric wich describes an explosion or climax of some sort. The only song that keyboardist Roland wolf contributed to before his death. The atmospheric organ along with a really low bass line is the only instruments at first as Bargeld sings in subdued almost whispering voice. Later metallic percussion is included as well. another odd instrument is used: the recorded sound of a pencil drawing on paper. towards the end the percussion and drawing grows louder and more chaotic before suddenly becomming totally silent at wich point female backing vocals are added chanting the songs title. This is an almost sensual song and the female backing vocals are particulary beautiful.
Installation N1
Thsi song sounds almost like a techno song despite the fact that no computers or synthezisers were used to create it. A Bass feedback loop and some plastic canister percussion forms a rhytmic loop. While a electric drill and a tone generator is used for rhytmic variations. The lyric, sung in english this time, consists of a two line paradox:
Disobey,
It's a law
How can one disobey the law if the law is to disobey?
NNNAAAMMM
Neubauten likes to have at least one really long track on each album and this is the long one on this album clocking in at elven minutes. lyrically this is perhaps the only song on this album that deserves to be called "industrial". As it sings about songs resting within the machines and so on. It starts with only a chanting of the line:
New No New Age Advanced Ambient Motor Music Machine
This is an in-joke since all those words have been used by music journalists trying to describe neubauten's music. Then rhytmic handclaps are added then an electric bass wich actually sounds pretty funky. Those are the only real instruments, the rest of the sounds are prerecorded sounds of various vehicles and machines. Those sounds work suprisingly well. I don't know how they do it but they manage to make the rumbling of steam compressors and the like fit in the rhytm, it's sounds really amazing.
The rest of the lyrics are pretty funny and playful as well with Bargeld introducing some of the machines being used such as when he says:
Let's start the utopian side-grinder
before a really loud drill sound makes an apperance.
Interesting stuff really, but perhaps a little overlong.
Ende Neu
"Ending New". Recorded on the bands 16th aniversary. this is pretty much a manifesto of the bands estetics. The end of the old will lead to something new. The songs title is also a short for the bands name EinstürzendeNeubauten. The music is also really beatiful with intetersting rhytms great use of strings. Really hard to describe but really worth listening to.
The Garden
I think this song would make it onto my top ten list of the most beautiful songs ever. The music is really minimal consisting at first only of a bass guitar played with sort of a slide feel to it and a single fender rhodes note being played over and over again. in the background some plastic percussion appears after a while. over this Bargeld sings a single phrase over and over in a sad voice:
You will find me if you want in the garden
unless it's puring down with rain
But it towards the end of the song that the beauty becomes really overwhelming. A beatiful descending string melody begins to play as bargeld sings:
You will find me waiting through spring and summer
you will find me waiting for the fall
you will find me waiting for the apples to ripen
you will find me waiting for them to fall
you will find me by the banks of all four rivers
you will find me at the spring of conciousness
you will find me if you wan't me by the garden
unless it's pouring down with rain.
The strings grow even more beautiful until bargeld ends the song with a long high pitched scream. I guess i haven't told you about that. Bargeld through some weird fluke of genetics is capable of producing some totally inhuman sounding screams. sometimes they can be blood curdling but here it's just beautiful. If you only listen to one track from this album make it this one. It's shear beauty.
Der scacht von Babel
"Shaft of babel an almost gothic piece describing a group of miners who work on digging tunnels while they hear the sound of a party over their heads. musically also fairly minimal with foot stomps providing a steady rhytm. Some guitar noise, bells and whistles are used as well. A pretty impressive song but not as stunning as "the garden".
This is a solid album and I would recommend it as well as their latest silence is sexy as both of these are fairly melodic and approcable. Their earlier stuff is much noisier and dosen't have as wide appeal though it's great for cleaning out your ears once in a while.
So there you have it! I hope I haven't been to long winded music I really like sometimes does that to me...
Peter...
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