Einsturzende Neubauten Has Cooked Mud, Transformed Meat

Since 1980, composer and instigator Bilxa Bargeld's Berlin brainchild Einsturzende Neubauten has blurred the boundaries between industrial, punk, electronica and more. From its early work featuring hand-made instruments of scrap metal to its current embrace of tech and the internet, the noise pioneer has stayed quite busy.

Last year, Einsturzende Neubauten's twelfth original full-length Alles Wieder Offen (All is Open) was released without a backing label, and this summer's Jewels will be released on the band's own Potomak imprint. Listening Post stole a peek at Bargeld's liner notes for Jewels:

You name it, we've done it. We have cooked mud, transformed meat to percussion and recorded 20,000-volt transformer stations. We shot propelled microphones across the Berlin Wall (when it still stood), used helium balloons and guerrilla recording techniques, changed the rhythms, abandoned harmonies (if there ever were any). We knew all that, we've been there before, this is the lot we lay claim to. Yet we needed to be reminded of all this: that it is possible, that there are some things beyond what has been tried, tested, and appreciated. Furthermore: it is necessary to work with these things, and occasionally, if filtered, shaped, and coerced, they will make sense, with immediacy and where least expected. I still believe that if objects are properly instrumentalized they can reveal hidden truths.

Photo: Neubauten.com

• No Age Releases Noise Rock For The Ages
• What Is(n't) Shoegaze?
• My Bloody Valentine To Bruise North America At Last
• Amon Tobin's Homer is a Serious Head Trip