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May 12th, 2008
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A well-oiled machine

More noise from Germany's premier industrial band
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By Darrell Jónsson
For The Prague Post
April 16th, 2008 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
They're a little older and wiser, but Einstürzende Neubauten has definitely not turned down the volume.
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Einstürzende Neubauten


When: Saturday, April 19 at 8
Where: Divadlo Archa
Tickets: 990 Kč, available through Ticketpro and Ticketportal
Emerging in the 1980s from that potent mythical place bassist Alexander Hacke describes as the “now-vanished island of West Berlin,” Einstürzende Neubauten have taken a vision of noise and mayhem born from jam sessions in abandoned factories to the stages of world-class theatrical productions. Helping them in their deliciously controlled cacophony has been an assortment of electric motors, cement mixers and pneumatic jackhammers that can be heard throughout three decades’ worth of cassettes, LPs, CDs and live performances.  
The group’s claim to fame, though, is not in the novelty of its noisemakers. Instead, it’s been Neubauten’s persistent capacity to drench nearly every project it touches with primal drama and futuristic beauty.
On occasion, things have been known to catch on fire or otherwise go dangerously haywire. In the group’s 1984 Concerto for Voice and Machinery, their performance objective was to dig a hole from London’s Institute of Arts to a tunnel rumored to lead to Buckingham Palace. As jackhammers pounded, the audience began to riot, and the band managed only to rip through the stage flooring and put a small dent in the building’s foundation before security personnel pulled the plug.
The days of such ambitious efforts are over. “The thrill is gone,” Hacke admits. “By now, we know pretty much what we need for certain pieces. If a power drill does the trick, certainly we will use a power drill — but not for the sensation of it.”
Instead, this quintet, composed of at least two high school dropouts, has found high art in a wild montage of influences. As Hacke says, “We embrace art forms like Dada, and are influenced by the first wave of Industrial music. But German terrorism of the ’70s was also certainly an influence, in their way of having a secluded society and preparations. Neubauten as well has a lot to do with guerilla warfare, in how we treat our equipment, tools and instruments. Since we decided we will not base our work on conventional instruments, we did a lot of research into materials. Of course we researched how to build effective, functional instruments. But at the same time, we looked into musical structures, sounds, recording techniques and so on.”  
Over the years, such wide-reaching inquiries have not changed Neubaten’s signature sound. “The root and base of Neubaten is still percussion,” Hacke says. “I play the bass, which is the one harmonic melodic instrument in the group. So it mostly starts with rhythm. And with the objects and percussion instruments, we build the idea of primitive music that we had in the beginning.”
The result, on their 2007 CD Alles Wieder Offen, is as pulsating and glorious as ever. Hacke’s bass throbs and Blixa Bargeld’s word play weaves through a cityscape at once bleak and blooming. Percussionists N.U. Unruh and Rudi Moser pound their timeless bomb-like rhythms to Jochen Arbeit’s unconventional guitar. And if you listen closely, you can hear those ghostly chorus chants, set against a background of machine noise breaks that demonstrate Neubauten are still masters of industrial form.
Alles Wieder Offen is Neubauten’s third CD financed by the band’s supporters, who pay for discs in advance while gaining additional favors such as online webcam access to the band’s recording sessions and concerts. It’s been a successful strategy that Hacke claims saved the band from disbanding in 2000, when, he says, “We were bored and fed up with the ever-repeating cycle of producing a record for a record company, then going on tour to promote it.”
Neubauten has come a long way from the days of having to forage building sites for materials — Hacke recalls “running around at night, entering empty industrial spaces, picking up stuff there, recording in empty rooms and climbing deserted water towers.” There have been quality CD releases, collaborations on postmodern theatrical updates of Hamlet (Die Hamletmaschine, 1991) and Faust (Faustmusik, 1996) and a continuous stream of satisfied concert-goers and critical acclaim.
Topping themselves in 2006, the band gathered a choir of 100 supporters for a performance at the former communist GDR parliament building in Berlin known as Palast der Republik — an event made all the more poignant by the building’s demolition four months later. Those lucky enough to attend their upcoming performance in Prague will have a chance to hear the ongoing lust for musical adventure that continues to make Einstürzende Neubauten the stuff of European industrial musical legend.

Darrell Jónsson can be reached at features@praguepost.com


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