No one ever quotes the lyrics of an Einstürzende Neubauten album. However, when Blixa Bargeld intones, "I fell into the pit of language and I couldn't get myself out" the phrase stuck in my head. Plaintive, and playful too, the words suggest a justification for the long-running group's preference for noise over song. It's not that there's not melody here, but that Neubauten have always veered into their own lane, favoring mood and confrontation over conventional song structure.
Some 44 years after their start, Einstürzende Neubauten will release a new album this week. Rampen (apm: alien pop music) is adventurous, and subversive in sonic terms both big and small. Those looking for the noisy power tool symphonies of earlier records -- at least that's how I remember earlier writers pitching this band's music -- will likely be disappointed as this is a sprawling, broad offering full of complexity and surprising tenderness. "The Pit of Language", for example, offers up a clattering rhythm under Bargeld's voice, and it eases directly into the epic "Planet Umbra", one of the more lyrical numbers here. The juxtaposition between rhythm and melody, between samples and mechanical percussion plays out over these two numbers in a kind of summary of the band's enduring strengths here in 2024.
Lead single "Ist Ist" rasps and whirrs its way forward before collapsing in a clatter. Parallel number "Isso Isso" is more sinister still, slinky and hypnotic, while the pulsing "Aus den Zeiten" is nearly catchy in spots. "Gesundbrunnen" marries that sense of the melodic with shrieking as the tune unspools in the sun. It's spacious and expansive in a way that Neubauten's material is typically not. Still, Rampen is a long journey of a record.
Of the players here -- Blixa Bargeld, N. U. Unruh, Alexander Hacke, Jochen Arbeit, Rudolph Moser, and Felix Gebhard -- Bargeld and Unruh have been here since the start, with Hacke a part since 1981. Moser and Gebhard are the new members of the group but they've been here since 1997. That consistency gives this some heft in terms of presentation. Where parts of this feel ruminative, and even contemplative, others feel confrontational. The terms have changed, but the players remain.
No longer tearing apart and punishing industrial devices and equipment on stage, Einstürzende Neubauten use electronics, samples, and percussion to drag us to the brink of the void. They stare in with focus. "Before I Go" even seems elegiac. I am just conjecturing here, but if this was the last Neubauten record, it would be an extraordinary way to leave us. However, I'm hopeful it's not. The vibe here is rich, complicated, and so thoroughly realized that those attuned to the material may find themselves lost in the sounds, oddly content that this group of players can still produce something like this.
Rampen (apm: alien pop music) by Einstürzende Neubauten will be out on Friday. Details via the band's official site: Neubauten.org.
[Photo: Thomas Rabsch]