01-08-2006 Bachelorthesis - Universiteit van Amsterdam – Departement of Musicology

Melle Kromhout studentnr: 0216887

Herenmarkt 3 1013 EC Amsterdam

T: 06 - 14414894 E: mjkromhout@hotmail.com

03-08-2006

‘This was made to end all parties’

An investigation of the work

of Einstürzende Neubauten

between 1980 and 1990

2

‘This was made to end all parties’1 An investigation of the work of Einstürzende Neubauten between 1980 and 1990

1. Introduction...3

PERFORMING

2. Background and influences...7

2.1 Short Biography 1980-Present...7

2.2 West-Berlin...8

2.3 Geniale Dilletanten...9

2.4 Industrial Music...11

3. Performance...13

3.1 Performance art...13

3.2 Ritual...16

3.3 Bodies...18

3.4 Places...19

4. Music...22

4.1 Improvisation...22

4.2 Chaos...24

4.3 Noise...25

4.4 Repetition...29

4.5 The Einstürzende Neubauten-performance...31

RECORDING

5. Recording as representation...32

6. The performance represented...35

6.1 Improvisation vs. soundstudy...35

6.2 Ritual...36

6.3 Bodies...37

6.4 Places...39

6.5 The Einstürzende Neubauten-recordings...40

7. Conclusion...42

8. Bibliography, Audiography and Videography...47

9. Example-CD content

Photograph: © Fritz Brinckmann, 1984

1 The title of this paper is the last sentence, sung in English, of the song ‘Der tod ist ein Dandy’ on the 1/2

Mensch-album. ‘Der Tod ist ein Dandy. Bye, Bye! This was made to end all parties, bye-bye...’ Bargeld, 1997: 30. In case of lyrics I refer to the published version in Bargeld, 1997. In case of songs I refer to the last release of the record the song appears on as mentioned in the audiography.

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1. Introduction

In 1983 ‘sounds’-magazine published an article by Dave Henderson with the title ‘Wild

Planet!’2 It was a list of over 150 names that were in one way or another important in what

was called ‘industrial music.’ Looking at this list now, most of the names are completely

forgotten, some may ring a vague bell, but only a few are still wellknown. Among the names

in this last category is that of the band Einstürzende Neubauten, nowdays, together with a

handfull of other groups and artists, considered pioneer of industrial music.

However, when Einstürzende Neubauten first went on stage, April first 1980, nobody

could foresee that from this strange, chaotic concert onwards the band would continue to exist

and produce music that would become influential and highly respected, nor suspect

Einstürzende Neubauten to still be performing and recording twenty six years later, in 2006.

Nevertheless, this is exactly what happened.

Einstürzende Neubauten is one of the few internationally acclaimed bands to come from

Germany after 1945. In her book about the band, Kirstin Borchardt writes ‘was die Kölner

Avantgarde-Rockgruppe Can für die Sechzigerjahre und die Hightech-Tüftler Kraftwerk für

die Siebzigerjahre waren, das waren die Einstürzende Neubauten für die Achtzigerjahre:

einfach zehn Jahren weiter und die einzige deutsche Band mit internationaler Wirkung.’ This

fame can be ascribed to the fact that, as friend and famous musician Nick Cave said: ‘[...] they

have attained a sound that is first authentic, and utterly their own... They are a group that has

developed its own special language [...].’3

The ‘allmusic guide’ describes this ‘sound’ as ‘an avant-garde mix of white-noise guitar

drones, vocals verging on the unlistenable at times, and a clanging, rhythmic din produced by

a percussion section consisting of construction materials, hand and power tools, and various

metal objects.’4 Combined with extremely energetic, aggresive, transgressive and chaotic

performances unpreceded in the landscape of 1980’s popular music, their uncompromising

use of noise and ungoing experiments with new soundsources drew the attention of people

outside their small scene in Berlin, and, after two or three years, also in England and the rest

of Europe. In 1984, Einstürzende Neubauten toured the United States for the first time, and in

1985 they became larger-than-live famous in Japan.

An early American review of their work shows the interest and fascination people had

with this strange, compelling and utterly noisy band: ‘“Steel Version” is a ritual delight, a

2 Henderson, 1983 3 Nick Cave cited in Kopf, 2000: 38 4 Huey, 2006

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stout hymn on the possibilities of industrial-era noise, modernistically largo at 60 beats to the

minute.’5 And, as Biba Kopf writes in an article on Einstürzende Neubauten in The Wire:

‘The resulting noises anticipated much of what has followed, be they the screaming

overloaded circuits of Japanese noisemakers, the jarring tonalities resulting from HipHop

sampler collisions, or the cuts, clicks and glitches of the Powerbook legions.’6

Nevertheless, for almost the entire 1980’s, their music and shows remained far removed

from anything mainstream. Although more and more critically acclaimed, the recordings they

made in the first five to ten years of their production remain a hard listen. The harsh sounds,

unusual to downright weird instrumentation, screaming and whispering, strange German

lyrics and chaotic structure of the music acquires quite some effort to get familiar with and

appreciate.

Most of the ideas, elements and methods used in the music of Einstürzende Neubauten are

not at all new or groundbreaking, just maybe only within the field of popular music, but as

Johannes Ullmaier acknowledges in an article considering the history of the band ‘wer sich

die drei ersten Stücke der Debüt-LP “Kollaps” von 1981 in angemessener – das heisst

extremer - Lautstärke und mit offenen Ohren anhört, dürfte sich [...] schwertun in der

Musikhistorie irgendetwas Vergleichbares zu finden.’7

These first ten years of Einstürzende Neubauten, from 1980 to 1990, are without doubt the

most important, influential and artistically challenging period of their career. Kollaps,

although their most difficult release, probably because it was recorded in only two weeks,

without any knowledge of recording techniques and very little about music, but also without

pressure of audiences and industry, is reprinted and sold over and over again, even to the

suprise of singer Blixa Bargeld himself: ‘und gerade die Platte, “Kollaps,” wird immer noch

verkauft. Es scheint als habe sich das musikalische Umfeld so verschoben, dass das

allmählich hörbar geworden ist.’8

Therefore I will focus only on the first ten years of Einstürzende Neubauten.

The question I want to raise is: why did a group with such a radical and difficult sound

that put forth a very extreme and compelling musical statement, gained a large popularity and

recognition in Europe, North and South America and Japan, up to the point that many later

artists name them as a major influence? Apparently, Einstürzende Neubauten were different

5 Spielmann, 1984: 13 6 Kopf, 2000: 38 7 Ullmaier, 1997: 23 8 Bargeld, 1997: 156

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from the contemporaries lost in oblivion listed in Dave Hendersons article; therefore, to

answer the abovestated questions one has to discover what elements are specific for

Einstürzende Neubauten, how their work developed and how it takes shape. What is the work

of Einstürzende Neubauten made of and how does it appeal to a public?

The argumentation to answer this question is divided into two parts: ‘performing’ and

‘recording.’ In the first part I deal with Einstürzende Neubautens work as a liveband. Every

investigation of their early work should start with the analysis of their stageperformance,

following the opinion that they were initially not strictly a musical act and the idea that their

work is better understood in the tradition of performance-art.

In trying to explain the early work of Einstürzende Neubauten strictly musically, it is

difficult to understand the effect their work had and still has on an audience of listeners. As a

significant number of musical elements they use were not unique or groundbreaking as such,

they do not point to what it is that did make Einstürzende Neubauten a unique entity with such

a very distinct and recognizable sound.

The field of performance art, on the other hand, offers a theoretical framework that fits

Einstürzende Neubauten much better. In understanding their work as performance art, I can

explain the performance as a whole, as a combination of all the elements present at one place

in one moment that together make up the artistic result. I use performance art as an entrance

to come closer to the music of Einstürzende Neubauten.

To do this, I start with a description of the biography, background and artistical influences

of the band in chapter two. Next, in chapter three, I offer a short introduction in performance

art followed by an investigation of the main performative elements in the work of

Einstürzende Neubauten: ritual, bodies and place.

In the fourth chapter, then, I deal with the specific musical means by which this

performance takes shape and the question how these musical elements fit in the framework of

this performance. These elements are improvisation, chaos, noise, and repetition.

The second part deals with “recording.” Based on the theory on representation in

rockrecordings of Theodor Grazyck, which I explain in chapter five, I take a look at the

process of building an auditive representation of the initial performance of Einstürzende

Neubauten in chapter six. In this process of adapting their liveperformance to be suitable for

soundrecording and being able to offer the same, or a similar, experience to the listener,

Einstürzende Neubauten had to find ways to translate the specifics of the performance into a

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purely auditive experience. This demanded carefull and specific choices, far greater

craftsmanship than the raw power displayed on stage and a completely different view of their

own music.

In my conclusion I combine the findings of both parts, to make clear why Einstürzende

Neubauten gained the appeal they had, became as influential as they did and what makes them

as unique as they were in these first ten years. Finally, in a last remark, I explain how in my

view the findings of this paper explain why the Einstürzende Neubauten of later days, from

1993 onwards, may be interesting and experimental, but lacks the unique appeal they had

during their first decade.

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PERFORMING

2. Background and influences

To form a clear view of who Einstürzende Neubauten are and where they came from I

start my argument with an overview of the bands biography, its geographical and artistical

roots and influences and a description of similar developments around the same time, to

sketch the breedingground from which they stem and the context in which they came into

being.

2.1 SHORT BIOGRAPHY 1980-PRESENT

Einstürzende Neubauten was formed in 1980 by twenty year old school-dropout Christian

Emmerich, who started calling himself Blixa Bargeld when he was seventeen (“Blixa” being a

ballpointbrand and “Bargeld” German for “small change” and a reference to the german

Dadaist ‘Baargeld’)9 and his schoolfriend Andrew Chudy, who went by the name of ‘Andi,’

‘Endruh’ or ‘N.U. Unruh.’

There was a large turnover of bandmembers in the early days of the band. Gudrun Gut10

and Beate Bartel, who played at the first concert, quited after three or four gigs, being

replaced by Chrislo Haas11 for one or two performances. Later fulltime member Alexander

Hacke (who, in those days, was called Alexander von Borsig), only thirteen years old in

198012, joined the band occasionally, sometimes onstage and sometimes behind the

mixingtable (from 1985 onwards he played guitar, turning to bass in 1997). Only when

percussionist Frank Martin Strauss, “F.M. Einheit,” from the Hamburgian band “Abwärts”

joined Einstürzende Neubauten for their first L.P. Kollaps in 1981 and invited “Abwärts”

bassplayer Mark Chung, the only member without a pseudonym, to join them shortly after the

recording of that album, the line-up stayed fixed for over little more than a decade.

Between 1981 and 2006 Einstürzende Neubauten released nine regular albums, next to

several compilations, two live-records and two albums with theatremusic. The

abovementioned debutalbum Kollaps is generally considered to be the most inaccesible and

radical output of this oeuvre and the purest expression of their ideas. From as early as their

second LP Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T. of 1983, they started incorporating more

9 He describes how he turned himself from Christian Emmerich into Blixa Bargeld in the first chapter of ‘No

Beauty without Danger:’ a biography in interviews published for the 25th birtday of the band. Dax, 2005: 7-13. 10 Gudrun Gut went on to form several bands, among which are “Mania D.” and “Malaria!” and is now a DJ. 11 Chrislo Haas was also a short-time member of ‘der Deutsch-Amerikanischen Freundschaft,’ better known as

D.A.F. and formed the band ‘Liaisons Dangereuses’ together with Beate Bartel later on. 12 When he was fourteen Alexander Hacke already scored a minor hit with his solorecording ‘Hiroshima.’

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conventional structures and less radical (but still far removed from mainstream) sounds.

1985’s 1/2 Mensch is probably their artistically most accomplished achievement.13

After the commercial succes of Haus der Lüge in 1989, which already contained a for the

band unpreceded structured and tight sound, an artistical shift took place, resulting in the

departure of Mark Chung in 1994 and key-figure F.M. Einheit in 1995. The 1996 album Ende

Neu showed a renewed band that sounded less noisy, harsh and energetic. This less extreme,

more subtle sound came above all in favour of Blixa Bargelds more and more intellectual

lyrics. Their 2000 twentieth-anniversary record Silence is Sexy (recorded with new members

Jochen Arbeit and Rudolf Moser, who joined in 1997) is the culmination of the development

of this style, with which they keep experimenting to the present day in an interactive

internetprogramme called the “supporters-project.”14

2.2 WEST-BERLIN

Einstürzende Neubauten is a Berlin-band and more specific a West-Berlin-band. The

situation in West-Berlin at the end of the seventies and the beginning of the eighties has been

a crucial element in the development of the group.

Blixa Bargeld describes Berlin in 1980 as ‘a kind of sociotope, you might say [...] it was

not able to function by itself.’15 The results of the war were still omnipresent and because of

the wall West-Berlin was almost completely shut-off from the rest of the world. Politically the

city was tightly attached to West-Germany, but it was not an official part of the BRD and

remained under allied supervision. Its representatives were not allowed to vote in the

Bundestag.

Because inhabitants of the city were excused for military service, many young people

moved to West-Berlin. In her book about Einstürzende Neubauten Kirsten Borchardt writes:

‘Viele, die sich nicht der herrschenden Denkmustern anschlossen und für die selbst die

Kriegsdienstverweigerung und der Ersatzdienst Anpassung an das System bedeuteten, zogen

nach Berlin um.’16

Because restaurations from World-War II damage on a large scale did not start until the

eighties,17 houses were extremely cheap (but also very badly, if at all maintained) and the

squadscene was bigger than anywere else in the world. Beate Bartel, short-time Einstürzende

13 See a.o. Schütte, 2004: 64-66 14 http://supporter.neubauten.org 15 Blixa Bargeld in Whitney, 2004 16 Borchardt. 2003: 11 17 Blixa Bargeld in Whitney, 2004

9

Neubauten-member, says that ‘during the eighties Berlin still looked very bombed out. It

hadn’t yet been rebuilt or modernized. It was full of holes and brittle.’18

Alfred Hilsberg, owner of the ZickZack label, which released the first Einstürzende

Neubauten-recordings, recognizes, fully correct, that ‘it was a time when West-Berlin was

essentially completely isolated from West-Germany. This external situation was a

precondition for a band like Einstürzende Neubauten to be able to develop.’ This was because

in West-Berlin anything seemed possible. The combination of the isolation, the decay and

rubble, the absence of economic possibilities and the symbolic function as “last outpost of the

free world” made the city an ideal place for independent artists and other outsiders to bloom.

It was this ‘fake city’19 that was the breedingground for the scene in which Einstürzende

Neubauten developed, the “Geniale Dilletanten”.

2.3 GENIALE DILLETANTEN

Geniale Dilletanten was a small group of artists rooted in West-Berlin. ‘The scene

consisted of maybe fifty people. There might have been more who were some sort of artist,

who made Super-8 films or were graphic designers. Or they just partied with us,’20 describes

Gudrun Gut, who played in the first Einstürzende Neubauten line-up. ‘Geniale Dilletanten’

was a group of musicians who ‘didn’t have interest in music at all.’21 Rather than being in a

regular band, all the members performed together under several bandnames with ever-

changing lineups: ‘Die Tödliche Doris,’ ‘Sprung aus dem Wolken,’ ‘Malaria,’ ‘Die

Sentimentale Jugend,’22 ‘Einstürzende Neubauten’ and many more.

The hight-point of the Geniale Dilletanten came in 1981. On September 4th of that year,

Blixa Bargeld organised together with Wolfgang Müller, frontman of “Die Tödliche Doris” a

“Geniale Dilletanten festival” with the name “die grosse Untergangsshow.” At the festival

Einstürzende Neubauten performed among many others, with a sixties-like sense of

absurdism and staged insanity. This resemblance to the 1968-generation is also recognized by

Gudrun Gut: ‘Everything was a bit ‘68-like, but,’ she adds ‘we wanted to distance ourselves

from the real ‘68ers. They were our class enemy.’23 Berlin 1981 was like 1968, but without

the idealism and with a deep-seated sense of downfall and decay.

18 Dax, 2005: 16 19 Gudrun Gut in Dax, 2005: 16 20 Dax, 2005: 17 21 Alexander Hacke in Dax, 2005: 18 22 ‘Sentimentale Jugend’ was Christiane F., famous for the childprostitution-and-drugaddiction-book ‘Wir

Kinder von Bahnhoff Zoo,’ and her boyfriend Alexander Hacke, who was also an Einstürzende Neubauten member.

23 Dax, 2005:

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The aesthetic program of the early Einstürzende Neubauten was a direct outcome of

Geniale Dilletanten. In 1982 Wolfgang Müller, keyfigure in the scene, edited a “Geniale

Dillentanten”-book with texts from members of the movement. ‘Ernsthafte Musiker,’ he

writes in the article ‘Die Wahre Dilletanten’, ‘verbissen, stur und freiwillig komisch, können

keine lustigen Geräusche erzeugen, denn um Unbekanntes zu finden, muss man Freude am

Spielen haben, am lustvollen Spiel, das durchaus mit heftigen Schmerzen gepaart sein kann.

Wer den Gedanken des Dilletantismus richtig verstanden hat, kann niemals ein ernsthafter

Musiker werdem, das wäre der Tod selbst.’ 24

The members presented themselves as musicians in the knowledge of having nomusical

skills at all. They wanted to stretch the definition of music to the point were it no longer

matters whether it is music or not. ‘Wenn alles Musik geworden ist dann gibt’s keine Musik

mehr,’ explains Alexander Hacke.25 Therefore, they made music out of everything, but also

movies, paintings, performances, photographs and many hybrid artforms. Thus, even though

it seemed like a group of musicians, Geniale Dilletanten performed a manifest, a reflection of

the circumstances in Berlin at the time, a comment on the strange and dangerous situation

they, and with them the Western world, was in and of which the people of West-Berlin were

more aware than anybody else.

What the book shows best is that, although its main concern is music, musical structures

or anti-musical concepts, Geniale Dilletanten was not about music at all. Music was their way

to attack the esthablished structures. It is this spririt that speaks out of everything Geniale

Dilletanten and its individual members, including Einstürzende Neubauten, did in the early

eighties. Therefore Karin Borchardt writes ‘die Performance als Kunstform hatte sie

[Einstürzende Neubauten. MK] seit den Tagen der Genialen Dillitanten interessiert,’26

However, this combination of different arts under the pretext of a musical “band,” with an

emphasis on the performative was not unique. As I already mentioned, other groups explored

more or less the same territory at more or less the same time. And although none of these

groups wanted to be identified with the label and all of them were striving for independence

in some way, similarities can be traced in the bands that formed the early “industrial”

movement.

24 Müller, 1982: 12-13. 25 Alexander Hacke in Beetz, 2000 26 Borchardt, 2003: 27

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2.4 INDUSTRIAL MUSIC

Beate Bartel recognizes the similarities between the West-Berlin-scene and other

developments that resembled the same spritit: ‘The Neubauten weren’t the only ones who

worked with such stylistic devices. [...] It was in the air. There was a certain mood. Throbbing

Gristle had already done something vaguely similar since 1975 (it was in fact 1976. MK).

That was great! If you lasted longer than ten minutes on one of their gigs you were already

special. The band experimented with very extreme sounds that nearly made you puke. Not

very nice concerts, but they conjured up a physicality. That’s what it was about.’27

The names most often mentioned as founders of industrial music are those of the bands

Throbbing Gristle, who founded the independent record label “Industrial,” Cabaret Voltaire,

who were less aggressive and more into electronic soundexperiments, and Einstürzende

Neubauten. Other early industrial bands are the political leftwing Einstürzende Neubauten-

peers Test Departement and shocking performer Monte Cazazza. Some famous later-day

industrial bands, who took the genre to its limits, but at the same time commercialised it, are

the American Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, the Belgium Front 242 and Germany’s

Rammstein, who are, together with Marilyn Manson, the living proof of the succesfull

marketing and entrance in the mainstream of industrial music during the nineties.

In his article “Industrial culture,” 28 published on the authors website, Brian Duiguid,

founder of the EST-magazine for underground music, distinguises five charecteristics of

“industrial music,” two of which are very relevant: ‘shock tactics’ and ‘synthesisers and anti-

music.’29

In case of the most obvious element, ‘synthesisers and anti-music,’ industrial groups can

be divided into two parts: those who drew heavily on electronics and synthesizers, such as

Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, and those who used metal, waste and “found-objects”

to produce music: Einstürzende Neubauten and Test Departement, among others. All the

groups, however, use noise as one of the main elements of their music, in a way that was not

unpreceded in theory and practice (both rockmusic and “serious”-music used noise from the

beginning of the century onwards), but wàs unique in its extend and lack of compromise.

The remarks on ‘Shock tactics,’ are more interesting. ‘The main source of industrial

music’s ideas’ Duguid writes, ‘may have been the radical literary tradition, but a great debt

was also owed to the avant-garde performance art tradition, dating back to at least as far as

27 Dax, 2005: 54 28 Duguid, 1995 29 Duguid bases this on the introduction by Jon Savage of the “Industrial Culture Handbook.” (Vale, V., A. Juno.

Industrial Culture Handbook. San Francisco: V/Search, 1983). The other three elements Savage and Duguid

12

Futurism at the turn of the century. Here was a tradition from which industrial music drew not

just the rhetorics but also the tactics and methods.’30 Duguid bases most of his description of

this tradition on Roselee Goldbergs book “Performance Art. From Futurism to the Present.”

First he draws exstensively on the successive movements Futurism, Dadaism and

Surrealism. Industrial Culture used Futurisms focus on machines, noise and war, but not in

their optimistic and idealizing way. More likely they stand in the tradition of Dada’s cynism,

iconoclasm and chaotic protests against the banality of society. Surrealism was less

influential, but its “primitivism,” also present in Futurism and Dada, can be traced in some

industrial music.

The second, and more direct, link between industrial music and performance art is present

in the developments of the sixties and seventies. The trangressive, ritualised and more and

more physical and personal performance art of that period resulted directly in the taboo-

breaking, transgressive tendencies of industrial culture. The most obvious example of this

development is Throbbing Gristle, which initially was a performance-art duo called ‘COUM

Transmissions,’ 31 consisting of Genesis-P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti, labeled the

‘wreckers of civilization’ by the British Press in 1976.32

Most industrial groups were influenced by Throbbing Girstles roots in performance art,

because of its influence and pioneering work.

In this context Einstürzende Neubauten came into being. The situation in West-Berlin

gave rise to the Geniale Dilletanten-movement, where the main aesthetic premises of the

Einstürzende Neubauten developed and from which their interest in performance-art and

avant-garde (anti-)music stems. This scene, on its part, was influenced by the larger

development of industrial music, especcially through the work of Throbbing Gristle.

In the next chapter, I will take a closer look on performance art and the why the work of

Einstürzende Neubauten bares resemblance to that discipline.

mention are ‘access to information,’ ‘organisational autonomy,’ and ‘extra-musical elements.’ See also: http://music.hyperreal.org/epsilon/info/industrial_principles.html

30 Duguid, 1995 31 An interesting description of the work of COUM-transmissions can be found here:

http://www.brainwashed.com/tg/coum.html

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3. Performance

3.1 PERFORMANCE ART

Before I go into the specific aspects of the performance of Einstürzende Neubauten, I will

present a short introduction into performance art to define the context I am working with and

to introduce those aspects of the discipline that are essential for the understanding of it.

In the foreword to the third edition of her authorative book “Performance art, from

Futurism to the Present” RoseLee Goldberg states that ‘by its very nature, performance defies

precise or easy definition beyond the simple declaration that it is live art by artists.’ Crucial in

this definition is the fact that Goldberg emphazises on the fact that performance art happens

“live,” hereby restricting the field of performance art to the here and now. This is why three

crucial elements of performance art are time, space and bodies. Although all three are also

present in the other performing arts (music, theater etc.), in performance art they shift from

basic-terms, which allow the performance to take place, to the centre and focuspoint of the

work. Time, place and bodies are used by the peformance-artist as the main material for their

artwork. To do this, the artist and the audience have to be present in the same room and create

an interactive relationship with each other. The audience plays an integral part. The audience-

as-observers becomes an audience-as-participants.33 The performance can not be executed

without a) the presence of the audience (and their bodies present in space), and b) an

interaction between this audience and the performance-artist.

Performance art, then, is live art by artists, taking place in the here and now, consisting of

bodies in space and time and relying on an interactive relation between artist and audience.

But, to distiguish performance art definitely from other forms of art, the immediacy of the

performance is crucial. Performance art is always, ether completely improvised or

exstensively rehearsed, a product of the specific circumstances. With time, space, bodies, the

audience, the artist(s) and the interactive relationships that exists and comes into being

between these elements, a work of art is created which does only exist here and now and with

these specific, unique circumstances.

Simon Frith distinguises two basic results of this approach. On the one hand what he calls

an objectifying process, in which ‘the term [performance art. MK] describes fine artists using

their bodies, themselves, as the material of their art.’ On the other hand a subjectifying process

in which ‘performance art described stage performers who now took themselves and their

32 Goldberg, 2001: 182 33 Dreher, 2001

14

bodies as the objects or sites of narrative and feeling,’ For Frith performance art is a form of

rethorics with the body as its central point, in which ‘the performance artist depends on an

audience’ and stages the everyday.34

The artform finds its roots, as Goldbergs subtitle suggests, in the avant-garde movements

of pre-war Europe. Starting with Futurist-happenings, through Dada, Surrealism and Bauhaus

into the post-war work of such figures as John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Alan Kaprow and

the work of Jackson Pollock among many others. It eventually blossomed from the 1960’s

onwards.

The faces of performance art are diverse and ever changing, but the overall tendencies are

quite clear. Closely linked to conceptual art, it deals with abstract ideas and concepts. In this,

it raises questions concerning bodies, embodiment, gender and identity. Besides that it is very

“environmental,” bound to and inspirated by the actual place and time in which the

performance happens. It is a “personal,” “individual” way of expression, which, says Frith,

causes a nervous tension among the audience, that does not know what will happen and how

this will affect the artist and themselves.35

A last important remark is about the transgressive nature of many performances. Because

it is staged within the everyday and keeps close links to current events, performance art is

often engaged with (the dismanteling of) taboo’s, either social, sexual or personal. Because of

its focus on embodiment and the human body in general, performance art can be a very

physical experience, up to the level of transgressive physical acts that are either violent,

sexual or both, such as the work of the 'Viennese Actionists,' a performance art movement in

the late sixties involved with ritualistic performances of a bloody and perverted nature of

which Hermann Nitsch’s ‘Orgien Mysterien Theater’ are a famous example.36 In his book

“De Opstand van het lichaam. Over verzet en zelfervaring bij Foucault en Bataille” Henk

Oosterling states that ‘deze fixatie op geweld en op de dood […] ongetwijfeld voort[komt] uit

een gevoeligheid voor het sacrale,’37 which he links with Batailles theory of the subversive

and the sacral. Because of this, sometimes, says Oosterling ‘wordt de performance bewust tot

ritueel getransformeerd,’38 styling death and violence in a formal and sacral way to make the

audience share in the experience of trangression. Performance-artists strive for an interaction

34 Frith, 1996: 204-205 35 ibdem: 206 36 Goldberg, 2001: 163-165 37 Oosterling, 1989: 153 38 ibdem: 159

15

between performance and spectator, desiring reactions and aiming at a strong emotional

(maybe cathartic) experience. In this, feelings of repulsion and physical attachement that lead

to abjection, of which we come to speak later, play a large role.

Why do I consider Einstürzende Neubauten performance art? In 1985 Blixa Bargeld told a

reporter from the ZigZag-magazine the following: ‘what we’re doing is pretty coded I think. I

think the key to that code is the live situation. It doesn’t matter where it is so long as the

attitude is there. I wouldn’t say we give any clear messages, it’s so far coded. But you start

understanding what we are doing in a live situation,’ 39 hereby endorsing the point of view

that any analysis of the work of Einstürzende Neubauten should start with their live-activities

and not, as with most ‘normal’ rockartists, their recordings.40 In their concerts the immediacy

of their performance, the way they interact with environment and audience and the effect their

work has on listeners form a tight unit and a crucial aspect of their art.

Keeping this in mind, the similarities between the performances of Einstürzende

Neubauten and performance art become clearer. As with all performing arts, the liveshows of

Einstürzende Neubauten is ‘live art by artists,’ but, different from a “normal” rock or

popshow, the concerts of Einstürzende Neubauten show a special sensitivity to the specific

environment, the “here and now,” of the performance. For the first five to ten years they never

played the same show and always played in close interaction with place, time and audience.

Their music developed in this free approach, Blixa Bargeld even said in 1982 that he could,

up to that point ‘nichteinmal wiederholen, was ich einmal gespielt habe.’41

Besides that, Einstürzende Neubauten was a highly physicalised act. The importance of

bodies, those of the performers and those of the audience, and the way these are used in the

performance reveals a strong link to the practices of performance art. An Einstürzende

Neubauten-concert was not only an experience of the ear, or music made for dancing, but

something that is experienced unavoidably with the whole body.

The trangressive aspect of performance art is represented both in Einstürzende

Neubautens use of noise in, the aggression of their liveshows and the way this is represented

in sound and attitude. And, as Sue Broadhurst, editor of the ‘Body, Space and technology

journal’ mentions in het article ‘Liminal Aesthetics’: ‘Einstürzende Neubauten's early

performances were highly evocative of the ritualistic aspects of the 'Viennese Actionist'

39 Vague, 1985: 57 40 Theodor Gracyk, of whom I come to speak in chapter five, defends in “Noise and Rhythm” the idea that in

rockmusic the record is the main work of art, instead of the rockperformance, which tends to just copy the recording.

41 Bargeld, 1987: 101

16

movement. [...] Neubauten’ says Broadhurst, ‘claim to have been heavily influenced by this

particular hardcore art group and traces can be seen in the disruption and destruction

demonstrated [in] their performances.’42

I will specify all this in the following paragraphs and the next chapter. To go short, in

Einstürzende Neubautens liveact three elements point to the fact that they are better

understood as performances art, rather than focussing chiefly on the musical parameters such

as melody, harmony, rhythm, structure, form etc. Not to say these musical elements are either

absent or unimportant, just to point out that the performative aspect of their work comes, in

the livecontext, first. These three elements are ‘ritual,’ ‘bodies’ and ‘place.’

3.2 RITUAL

In 1990 Blixa Bargeld told an interviewer he interpreted his own performance as a ritual:

‘I want something to happen with myself. It’s a ritual. I’m not doing it for the audience. I’m

not doing it for a reason to sell records. I want something like I’m trying to lose control.’43 A

similar approach takes Uwe Schütte by giving the following definition of Einstürzende

Neubauten in his “Basis-Diskothek Rock und Pop.” 44: ‘Egal ob durch kakophone Industrial-

Klanggewitter oder akustische Liebeslieder: die Einstürzende Neubauten haben in der Theorie

wie in der Praxis eine wegweisende Klangästhetik entwickelt, die Musik primär als post-

religiöses Ritual versteht. [Musik und Tekst] zielen darauf ab, die Musik zu einer quasi-

traumatischen Erfahrung zu machen, die den aufnahmenbereiten Hörer als Ganzes erfasst, um

eine verschüttete, atavistische Energie freizusetzen.’

But no matter how correct it is to call Einstürzende Neubauten a ‘post-religious ritual,’

this observation alone does not at all make clear whàt this ritual is. So, to start with the first

important aspect of this definition: what does this ‘attavistic energy’ mean?

Einstürzende Neubauten wanted to destroy musical structures. ‘Wir mussten mal zuerst

alles wegschaffen; das ist so weit gegangen das wir auch keine normale Instrumenten mehr

benutzt haben, das musst mal erst alles zum Einstürzen um Platz zu schaffen um unsere eigen

Musik machen zu können.,’45 explains F.M. Einheit. ‘Platz schaffen,’ to make room, is a key

element for the early Einstürzende Neubauten: they were trying to go back to the beginning,

to start over. The ‘attavistic energy’ can therefore be understood as something primitive, a

42 Broadhurst mentions the track ‘Durstiges Tier’ (Einstürzende Neubauten, 2004: track 13), where the punching on Bargeld's chest is amplified and looped, and the use of pork bones, hearts and meat as percussion instruments on another track.’ Broadhurst, 2000 citing ‘Maeck, Klaus. ‘Einstürzende Neubauten, Hör mit Schmerzen, Listen with pain.’ Bonn, EME, 1989: 87’ 43 Sarko, 1990: 108 44 Schütte, 2004: 64-66 45 F.M. Einheit in Beetz, 2000

17

return to a supposed less rational and more direct emotional understanding of music through

fierce rythms and harsh sounds.

Jacques Attali starts the argument of his book “Noise, the political economy of music” by

claiming musics first social function was sacrificial. ‘Music is not only a modern substitute

for myth; it was present in myths in their time, revealing through them its primary

operationality as a simulacrum of the ritual sacrifice and as an affirmation of the possibility of

social order.’46 In his complex argument Attali explains this initial sacrificial function of

music was a substitute for earlier human sacrifices. In a process of ritualisation music became

a simulacrum for ritual murder. ‘Noise is violence: it disturbs. To make noise is to interrupt a

transmission, to disconnect, to kill.’47 Music, in this sense is a ‘channelization of noise’48

After music got trapped in commodity and was incorporated in the system, it stopped being

ritualistic. The code which understood music as ritual was lost as soon as a new simulacrum,

which Attali recognizes as money, came into play. ‘A sign: music has always been one. But it

has been a deritualized, autonomous, commercial sign [...]’49

Understood like this, the ‘post-religious’ ritual of Einstürzende Neubauten may be a “pre-

religious” ritual, trying to recover the primitive, old immediacy of the ritual sacrifice that has

been lost long ago.

A more literal way to “make place” is using fire, burning things down. Einstürzende

Neubauten is probably the only band who, concert after concert, for years in a row, set their

stage on fire. Most of the time controlled, but occasionally dangerously and sometimes with

downright destructive results.50 ‘Fire has a ritualising effect,’ says Blixa Bargeld, ‘it is an

element of transformation. Fire as an element of our lyrics51 and as a part of the Einstürzende

Neubauten stage show, accompanied us for quite a while,’ and ‘we had always tried to capture

the sound of burning fire and record it with a microphone. You could say we actually wanted

to play with fire like you’d play with a guitar.’52 The fire-ritual concentrated on the song

‘Abfackeln!’53 (Example-CD #1) one of the most compelling and extreme songs the band has

ever produced. N.U. Unruh states that he wanted to make the songtitle ‘Abfackeln!’ visual

46 Attali, 2003 (1978): 29 47 ibdem: 26 48 Attali, 2003 (1978): 26 49 ibdem: 24 50 In 1984 the band was banned from an American venue for destructing the stage and creating a dangerous

situation. 51 The lyrics of 'Vanadium-I-Ching,’ ‘Hospitalische Kinder/Engel der Vernichtung,’ ‘Abfackeln!,’ ‘Falschgeld,’

‘Armenia,’ ‘Seele Brennt’ and ‘Feurio!’ all deal with fire in some way or another. Bargeld, 1997: 102-118 52 Dax, 2005: 77-78 53 ‘Abfackeln!’ Einstürzende Neubauten, 2002 (1983): track 3

18

and decided to set the stage on fire. ‘The fire became part of the song as a dramatic

interlude.’54

3.3 BODIES

The extend of the Einstürzende Neubauten ritual, however, is not a mere theoretical one.

Schüttes observation that their music understands ‘den aufnahmenbereiten Hörer als Ganzes,’

has to do with the role the bodies of the band and the audience play in the performance.

The physicality of the performance manifests itself in three ways. First, the simple

presence of bodies on stage. Besides the obvious, but fully justifiable, remark that bodies are

on stage and important in every performance (otherwise it would not be one), for Einstürzende

Neubauten, as Borchardt writes, ‘die Körperlichkeit ihrer Performance war ein wesentlicher

Teil iher Appeals.’55 The skinny, gaunted, drug-tormented Blixa Bargeld ‘verköperte das

Gegenteil der herrschenden Ästhetik: ausgemergelt, ungegammt, schwitzend.’56 This

however, doesn’t strive much further than the genuine punk-aesthetic, which is important, but

not very distinctive. A more important side of ‘[...] the physical aspect of what Neubauten

were doing at that stage,’ says Bargeld ‘was very much manifested in F.M. Einheits presence

on stage.’57 He and N.U. Unruh manifested ‘eine Körperlichkeit, die im krassen Gegensatz

zum Ausgemergelten Blixa Bargeld stand.’58 This ‘sheer physicality of what they endure to

attain their result’ is according to Biba Kopf, ‘what differentiates Einstürzende Neubauten

from other such connaiseurs of dissonance.’59 With these ‘others’ Kopf especially means the

other industrial bands. According to Kopf this physicality is one of the unique and

differentiating aspects of Einstürzende Neubauten.

Further, with this “hard-work”-aspect of their live-performance comes the danger of

physical injury. Blixa Bargeld explains that ‘I have scars, anybody in the band has scars. [...]

and all the scars are from different Neubauten shows.’60 They always performed with a risk of

being injured. Setting the stage on fire, threwing large metal objects across the stage, smashig

things into each other and suffering from exhaustion and drug-abuse.

This risk not only affected the band, the audience was also in danger. ‘In Oslo, Norway’

F.M. Einheit recalls, ‘we played in a gallery and chased people around with Molotov

54 Dax, 2005: 78 55 Borchardt, 2003: 30 56 Borchardt, 2003: 30 57 Blixa Bargeld in Whitney, 2004 58 Borchardt, 2003: 26 59 Kopf, 2000: 38 60 Blixa Bargeld in Whitney, 2004

19

cocktails. They also defended themselves: for instance, by trying to attack us with a ship

turbine, which was actually one of our instruments.’61 Although this is an extreme example,

during the first five to ten years of Einstürzende Neubauten concerts, the closer you were to

the stage, the bigger was the risk of getting hit by something. A fact which was undeniable

and contributed without doubt to the experience of an Einsturzende Neubauten-concert.

But however important this kind of physicality is for their appeal, their show, their way of

making music and their music itself, there is another way in which the physicality of

Einstürzende Neubauten can be understood, which has to do with what Schütte calls a ‘quasi-

traumatischen Erfahrung.’ The full extent and importance of this issue will be adressed in the

following chapter, because it is strongly attached to the musical elements they use, for now I

will sketch the outlines of the issue.

In relation to the song ‘Hör mit Schmerzen’ (Example-CD #2)62 on their debut-album

Kollaps, Bargeld mentions: ‘Die Ohren sind Löcher im Kopf und so gesehen auch Wunden,

was man hört, dringt in den kopf ein und das kann ein schmerzhafter Prozess sein.’63 This

very meaningfull quotation shows that Einstürzende Neubauten were aware of the effect they

wanted to arouse in their listeners. Large parts of their music show a desire to reach the public

in the most physical way possible. The idea of ‘the ear as wound in the head’ is attached to

the awareness of the physical aspects of sound, which has to do with the physicality of the

listeners, the audience. In the next chapter I will explain how loud volumes, noise, chaos and

repetition have their effect on the human body and mind, extending the awareness the

audience has of its own body and thereby making the concert a highly embodied experience.

‘Something happens within us when we play’ said Bargeld in 1983, ‘- someone could be

influenced by the pain in us, they could be a part of it.’ 64

A last remark I on the importance of the body in the work of Einstürzende Neubauten is

less urgent, but not unimportant: as with fire, the body and especially the “own body” is often

subject of Blixa Bargelds lyrics. Sometimes literally and more often methaphorically, such as

‘meine Ohren sind Wünden’ or ‘Stimme frisst Feuer.’ Many “body-lyrics” are exaggeration

(Yü-Gung: ‘ich bin zwölf Meter gross und Alles ist unvorstellbar’65) or deal with an

oversensitivity for bodily processes, such as ‘Z.N.S’ (Zentral-Nervensystem) or DNS-

61 Dax, 2005: 78 62 ‘Hör mit Schmerzen.’ Einstürzende Neubauten, 2001 (1981): track 6 63 Bargeld, 1997: 156 64 ibdem: 109 65 ibdem: 187

20

Wasserturm, which tells of a dream in which Bargeld sees his own DNA and gets asked how

one can listen to it (‘Das kann man sich nicht anhörn, das ist meine DNS.’66) The band,

especcially Bargeld, knew what their music was about and what they wanted to accomplish

with it, because music and lyrics in this cases almost always form a tight unit.67

4.4 PLACES

Finally, I want to sketch the importance of “place” in the Einstürzende Neubauten-ritual.

Besides from playing in “regular” concertvenues, the band often performed in

“unconventional” places, using, as in a performance-art piece, the environment as an integral

part of the show.

These so-called “site-specific-concerts,” a term they use themself, began as early as one of

their first performances in 1980, where Blixa Bargeld and N.U. Unruh played in a space under

a motorwaycrossing: one-and-a-half meter in hight, four meters wide and fifty meters long.

They used batteries to provide both the guitar and a cassetterecorder with power and recorded

for several hours. A short time later, Bargeld arranged a local televisioncrew to film the event,

which resulted in a rather curious images of two skinny, unhealthy looking guys, one of

whom (N.U. Unruh) wore a Hitler-moustache and banged with everything on everything else

and the other (Blixa Bargeld) smashed on his guitar and screamed inarticulate lyrics. Kirsten

Borchardt mentions the influence of the location on the performance: ‘Da war [...] die

komplett aus Stahl und Beton geschaffene Umgebung, die zum Ausleben der eigene

Bedürfnisse nur begrenzt Platz bot und den Menschen buchstäblich in die Knie zwang.’68 The

result of the whole expedition was one of their first, home-made, releases called Stahlmusik.69

Throughout their career, numerous “site-specific” performances took place, such as a

show in the Mojave-desert in 1984 and two shows in 1986 in the ‘Goldener Saal’ in

Nürnberg, the place were in the 1930’s the great Nazi-conferences were held. Bargeld

describes these last concerts as a form of “exorsism,” to free the place of the bad spirits of the

66 ibdem: 129 67 ‘Meine Ohren sind Wünden’ (‘Die Genaue Zeit.’ Einstürzende Neubauten, 2002 (1983), track 12) , ‘Stimme

frist Feuer’ (Live 1984. Einstürzende Neubauten, 2004(a): track 1), ‘DNS-Wasserturm’ (Einstürzende Neubauten, 2002 (1983), track 13) ‘Yu-güng’ and ‘Z.N.S.’ (Einstürzende Neubauten, 2002 (1985), track 2, 4) other examples are ‘Zuckendes Fleisch’ (Einstürzende Neubauten, 2004(b): track 3), ‘Hirnsaga’ and ‘Schiess euch ins Blut’ (Einstürzende Neubauten, 2001 (1981), track 11, 15), ‘Finger und Zahne,’ ‘Neun Arme’ and ‘Blutvergiftung’ (Einstürzende Neubauten, 2002 (1983), track 4, 8, …), ‘Fleisch 'Blut-Haut' Knochen’ and ‘Krach der schlagenden Herzen’ (Einstürzende Neubauten, 1997 (1984), track...), ‘1/2 Mensch’ (Einstürzende Neubauten, 2002 (1985), track1), Hirnlego (Einstürzende Neubauten, 1991: track 18) and even as late as 2000 in the song ‘Redukt’ (Einstürzende Neubauten, 2000, track 12).

68 Borchardt, 2003: 15 69 Stahlmusik, sold on Cassette in Blixa Bargelds own “shop” Eisengrau in the Goldstrasse in Berlin-Schöneberg.

Einstürzende Neubauten, 1980(b)

21

past. ‘Wenn dieser Raum irgendwas nötig hatte, so gross er auch sein mag, dann war das Platz

schaffen, ideellen Platz.’ 70 It was an exoristic ritual to make place. 71

But they not only used the room as an instrument at these site-specific concerts. At a

notorious concert in Berlin’s famous punk-venue “SO36” in Kreuzberg, N.U. Unruh started

drilling in the wall, almost hitting a high-voltagewire and at the “Concert for Machinery &

Voice,” at the Londen Institute for Contemporary Art, they started to dig into the floor to

reach a secret tunnel hidden under the building. For Einstürzende Neubauten a venue was

never just another place to perform. The environment had an immediate effect on the

performance, forming an instrument in itself.

To go short, the performance of Einstürzende Neubauten, thus, is a ritual consisting of the

interactment between bodies and bodies, bodies and places, sound and bodies and sound and

places. The question remains how Einstürzende Neubauten shaped this performance?

Ultimately Einstürzende Neubauten is not a performance art group, but a band. Therefore, the

largest part of the abovementioned performative aspects is realized in music, the specifics of

which I explain in the next chapter.

70 Borchardt, 2003: 38

22

4. Music

What does Einstürzende Neubauten do on stage to shape their performance? Music is the

main element of their performance. The most important musical technique and elements they

use, are: improvisation, chaos, noise, and repetition.

4.1 IMPROVISATION

“Improvisation” is the odd man out of this four. Where “Chaos,” “Noise” and

“Repetition” are all sounding results, “improvisation” refers to the way the music made. But

because the improvisational nature of the music results in chaos, noise and repetition, it

should come first.

The initial attitude of Einstürzende Neubauten towards musicianship can be described by

their own catchphrase ‘wir können nicht spielen.’72 Although this is more likely a rethorical

than an aesthetical approach, fact is that when they started, most members of Einstürzende

Neubauten really could not play, or at least not very well. Even though most of the time they

wished to stay as far as possible form the punk-scene and certainly did not wanted to be

affiliated with it, this love and demand for amateurism is strongly reminiscent of the punk-

aesthetic of the second half of the seventies. The difference however is that in punk this

resulted in the typical “three-chords-four-to-four and go”-attitude. With Einstürzende

Neubauten and their fellow “Geniale Dilletanten” the focus lied on a completely structureless

and “anything-goes” attitude, which often resulted in complete chaos (and was in fact not at

all appreciated by most hardcore-punk fans, as they experienced at an early concert in

Hamburg).

Amateurism ofcourse was an integral part of the Geniale Dilletanten movement, who,

already by the very name of their movement, wanted to get rid of known structures and free

music from the straitjacket of musicianship. ‘Wertvolle Zeit geht verloren,’ writes Wolfgang

Müller, ‘wenn Profi-Musiker plötzelich mitten im Konzert innenhalten, um ihre verstimmten

Instrumenten zu “stimmen”. Wechselseitig kontrollieren sie die Klangmuster ihrer

instrumente, mit dem Wunsch, sie aufeinander abzustimmen, so als ob es nichts Schöneres

gäbe als harmonische Gleichschaltung.’73

71 Other examples of site-specific performances are the show on top of a former Fiat factory in Italy in 1989 and

their performance ‘das Auge des Taifun”’ conceived by Erich Wonder and Heiner Müller for the 300th anniversary of the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna 1992, among many others.

72 Name of a song of which an excerpt is showed in Maeck, 1993 73 Müller, 1982: 45

23

The result of this attitude was initially choas and almost (but, notable, not entirely)

structureless noise, as can be heard on the recording of their very first concert on April first

1980 in club Moon in Berlin. All four songs sound like they are played by a bunch of children

who just had their first musiclessons and decided to jam together. The song ‘Atomarer walzer

– sprachlos’74 (Example-CD #3) does begin in a three-fourth waltz-rhythm, which lasts

through the entire song, but is besides that a random assemblance of noises, out-of tune

instruments and the screaming of Blixa Bargeld. In all its prematurity, reckless selfcontent

and nihilistic sarcasm, however, this recording does in fact already contain the elements

which would accompany and shape Einstürzende Neubauten and its music for almost the

entire decade: noise, chaos and the repetition of a basic rhythm and vocalline.

Whether ‘wir können nicht spielen’ was entirely the case or not, when for some reason

you start to play more often, sometimes maybe weeks or months in a row, like Einstürzende

Neubauten did, you do learn certain things. This, ofcourse, is exactly what happened. When

their final line-up of five took shape and especially after they completed their first recordings,

their liveperformances began to develop in more fixed ways. On the one hand because they

developed songs wich carried certain fixed structures, on the other hand because, as all

musicians, they were more and more playing on the same wavelength, starting to react on

certain signals and know what the others might be doing next. In 1982 Bargeld expressed

their method as follows: ‘Es sind immer nur Spannungsbögen festgelegt. Wir suchen uns ein

Startbahn. Was dann passiert, hängt vom Raum, vom Publikum oder dem Aufbau ab.’ The

music that eventually came out of this process is unmistakenly shaped by it, not because they

could not, as Blixa continued ‘einmal wiederholen, was ich einmal gespielt habe,’75 but just

because they repeated the most basic patterns and structures of their pieces.

A lot of Einstürzende Neubauten pieces evolved like this, sometimes over the course of

many years (the other half of their work was fully constructed in the studio and therefore

never performed live before recorded). Initiated as a completely free and structureless jam,

these pieces took shape and started to get more fixed everytime they were performed,

sometimes eventually ending up on a record. But also after it was recorded the song evolved

further.76 Only towards the end of the eighties they started more and more to play exactly as

they sounded on record.

74 ‘Atomarer walzer – sprachlos.’ Einstürzende Neubauten, 1980(a): track 3 75 See note 40. 76 The song ‘Sehnsucht’ is a fine example of this: recorded for the first time as a short piece on Kollaps in 1980

(Einstürzende Neubauten, 2001 (1981), track 9), released in two versions on the live album 2x4 in 1985 (Einstürzende Neubauten, 1997 (1984), track 2 and 7) and finally recorded in a studio the second time on 1/2 Mensch in 1985 (Einstürzende Neubauten, 2002 (1985), track 6). “Kein Bestandteil sein” makes it first appearance on the early Stahlmusik recording in 1980 (Einstürzende Neubauten, 1980(b); track 7) and

24

4.2 CHAOS

As said, the improvisational nature of Einstürzende Neubauten brought about two of the

most characterictic elements of their music, which, in a way, balance each other: chaos and

repetition. With repetition I will deal in the last paragraph of this chapter, first I focus on the

chaotic aspect.

Although it may appear different, Einstürzende Neubauten, leaving few exceptions aside,

never fell into complete chaos. Even the recordings of the abovementioned first concert in the

Moon-club shows the group had a basic grip on what happened onstage. ‘Before that first gig

in the Moon,’ says Beate Bartel, ‘we only rehearsed once, maybe twice, and determined the

rough marching route of the songs. ‘77 This ‘rough marching route’ was exactly what

prevented the thing from completely falling apart. Nevertheless, until far into the eighties they

used chaos as a way to distort the performance, to break-up songs, to create anarchy and

confuse the audience. ‘Anytime at a Neubauten performance that an improvisation evolved

into some kind of music that you can dance to, we’d immediately stop the song. As soon as

we noticed that people started dancing, we’d stop playing that groove and do something else,’

recalls F.M. Einheit and for Alexander Hacke this had to do with the fact that ‘back then,

everything that somehow rocked, that was fast and rhythmic, was automatically understood as

a reference to rock music, so you wanted to have as little to do with this as possible.’78

Chaos is used to distort the other, more conventional, elements in the music and as fade-in

and –out: the song comes up out of chaos in the beginning and goes under in it at the end.

Chaos is used to maintain the flow of the concert, to keep it streamlined and to make the

performance appear more fluently. Besides that chaos functions as a way to create a tension, it

keeps the audience awake, because the unexpected can happen at any moment, the piece can

emerge from and fall back into chaos at any moment. This on-the-edge tension is an important

way to illustrate the urgency of the performance: the feeling that things are happening right

here, right now calls in mind the necessity of realtime tension in performance art.

The most important remark about chaos in music however, is the fact that chaos causes

noise. But noise does not at all equal chaos and because it is such an important and

complicated element, I will deal with it in the following paragraph.

mutated into an completely different song with the same title on 1987’s Fünf auf der nach oben offenen Richterskala (Einstürzende Neubauten, 2002 (1987), track 7)

77 Dax, 2005: 44

25

4.3 NOISE

In his article “The aesthetics of noise” Torben Sangild recognizes three basic definitions

of what noise is: An acoustic one, which defines “noise” as ‘sounds that are impure and

irregular, neither tones nor rhythm.’ Second a communicative definition, in which noise is

‘that which distorts the signal on its way from transmitter to recipient.’ The last, subjective

and least defined, definition describes noise as just unpleasant or unwanted sound.79

For ‘noisemusic’ all three definitions are right. First, noisemusic uses sounds that are

‘irregular and impure’ in music. Second, these noises are used to distort, block or blur other

musical components, in order to confuse or overwhelm the listener and diffuse the actual

songstructure. And third, noisemusic has a tendency to deliberately offend listeners either just

by the fact it is noise, or through the extremely loud volume it is produced at.

But by defining what noise is (or can be) we do not come much closer to understanding

what it means (or can mean). Sangild offers three basic possibilities to answer this question:

first, noise understood as (musics) ‘abject,’ second, noise as a way to approach the ‘sublime’

and third, noise as ‘multiplicity.’ Keeping these three approaches in mind I will explain the

use of noise of Einstürzende Neubauten.

Julia Kristeva’s (willingly vague) definition of abjection states that in a physical sense ‘the

abjects are the rejections from the body: stool, sperm, spittle, snot, nail clippings etc,’80 which

translates psycho-analytically into ‘that which disturbes identity, system, order. What does not

respect borders, positions, rules.’81 Because the abject is part of the subject and is expelled by

it at the same time, it stands between subject and object. The subject is repulsed, disgusted

and frightened by the abject, but feels, on the other hand, a very strong, almost irresistable,

attraction to it. This attraction hides in the subconsious, just beneath the surface of

consciousceness, hereby threatening the subject’s individuality. ‘The unconscious contents

remain here excluded but in a strange fashion: not radically enough to allow for a secure

differentiation between subject and object, and yet clearly enough for a defensive position to

be established – one that implies a refusal but also a sublimating elaboration.’82

Abjection has to do with borders and the transgression of these borders; it finds, according

to psycho-analysis, its origin in the young childs (oedipal) relation to his mother and father

and the restrictions it had to deal with. Abjects are forbidden desires, an attraction that is not

78 Ibdem: 81 79 Sangild, 2002 80 ibdem 81 Kristeva, 1982 (1980): 4 82 Kristeva, 1982 (1980) : 7

26

allowed. The frightening experience of abjection is caused by the thread of loosing our

individuality, our ego, if we let the abjects (back) in. Nevertheless it is unclear where the

subject ends and the abject begins, it always lies in ambush. It is therefore not surprising that

according to Kristeva the most powerfull abject is death.83

Noise is abject in two ways. First noise is musics abject. Beacuse it is impure and non-

musical, it is excluded from music. When music takes noise back in, it is confronted with its

abject. Through this, Einstürzende Neubauten wants to destroy musics structure. The goal of

stretching the definition of music to the point where ‘it does not matter anymore whether

something is music or not,’ is realized by incorporating just that into their music which denies

it: noise.

The second way in which noise is abject is of greater importance and relates to the ‘quasi-

traumatischen Erfahrung’ of Schüttes Einstürzende Neubauten-definition I mentioned in the

previous chapter. Sangild writes that ‘to confront ourselfs with the abject is strongly

ambivalent, a combination of pleasure and fear, reminding us at the same of the pre-oedipal

symbiosis with the mother and of death, the end of individuality.’ This is the experience of

abjection upon hearing noise. The listener does not experience the abovementioned

threatening of musics indentity, he experiences the fear that his own identity, his own

subjectivity will be destroyed by giving in to noise.84 By saying ‘this is not music, this is

noise,’ he admits contradictionally that what he hears is music, only a kind of music he does

not want to hear, because he is afraid of it. This ‘combination of pleasure and fear’ causes the

involvement of the audience by the performance desired in performance art and the conscious

interaction between band and audience, who both experience the same ambivalancy, who are

both in danger, but do enjoy this at the same time.

Pain, the possibility of pain or the pain of others can become an abject experience.

Therefore, the above stated is most apparent in music where the noise causes (or may cause)

physical pain. Although, high volume is in no way a necessary condition to produce noise,

most noise-music is played very loud, because the effects of it on the listener, the experience

of the abject, is best and most easily reached in combination with an (extremely) loud volume.

When confronted with very loud noise, people experience not only head- and earache but also

nausea (a word that stems ethymologically, not coincidentally, from the same ancient-Greek

83 ibdem : 4 84 See a.o.: Russo, 2004: 48-50, Reynolds, 2004: 55-57, Kristeva, 1982 (1980) and Appelbaum, 1990.

27

root as the word “noise”85) among possible other physical reactions. We only need to think of

what Blixa Bargeld said, ‘was man hört, dringt in den kopf ein und das kann ein

schmerzhafter Prozess sein,’ to realize that the experience of very loud noise is the sonical

translation of the need of the performer to focus on the physicality of himself and the

audience, to make the audience aware of their body. ‘Für mich’ acknowledges Bargeld ‘hat

das immer was mit Drück zu tun. [...] Ich meine nicht den Schaldrück, den aus ein

Lautsprecher kommt, sondern eigentlich das psychische und fysische ereigniss das die Musik

verursacht.’86 What he forgets is that the soundpressure that comes from the speakers causes

the physical and psychological pressure. This pressure however, also leads to the second

interpretation of noise, namely the possibility of an experience of the sublime.

The sublime is as difficult, or rather impossible, to define as the abject, but can in broad

terms be desribed as an experience of such violent beauty that it goes beyond comprehension.

In nineteenth-century Romantisicm the term was most often used in relation to the

indescribable experience of nature. According to Schopenhauer the fullest feeling of

sumblime can be reached by experiencing the ‘immensity of universe's extent or duration.’

Sangild calls it ‘that which exceeds the limits of the senses, perceived as chaos or vastness.’87

Experiences of the sublime are attached to the risk for the observer of being destroyed

by it himself; it has a violent and aggressive nature, a destructive beauty. For Sangild this is

Nietzsche’s Dionysian chaotic bliss, the high of the Dionysian ritual. In this sense, noise goes

beyond comprehension and meaning. It is Dionysian ecstasy, only restrained by, again

following Nietzsche, Apollonian order. Interpreted like this, the chaos of Einstürzende

Neubautens noise is restrained by the order of their repetition

The possibility of reaching the sublime through loud sound was already examined in the

sixties by Fluxus-artists88 in “The Theatre of Eternal Music.” Inspired by John Cages ideas of

the emancipation of all sounds, they experimented with ‘loud sounds:’ extremely high

volumelevels, that numb all thinking, thereby forcing the listeners to surrender completely to

the physical pressure the sound brings to bear.89 This way of expression, which Blixa Bargeld

desribed as a certain ‘Brachialität,’90 aims at a feeling of togetherness, of unity and ritual

trance: a shared experience of numbed meaning, as Douglas Kahn puts it: ‘The irony,

85 Sangild, 2002 86 Blixa Bargeld in Maeck, 1993 87 Sangild, 2002 88 In 2004 Blixa Bargeld said in a radiointerview: “[in] 1970 [...] I saw one of those Fluxus concert events on

television. And I recorded the Fluxus event on my first casetterecorder. You know microphone to speaker on television, the whole Fluxus event.” Blixa Bargeld in Goodstein, 2004

89 Kahn, 1999: 228

28

ofcourse, is that loudness, by exerting pressure on the whole body, might better quell the

thinking that exerts pressure on the preferred areferentiality of musical listening, just as it had

proven to drown out that type of sound so readily inhabited by meaning: speech. And would

not loudness serve well as one of the emphatic sounds in modernism that begged the end of

representation?’91 Noise, thus, is meaningless and, as Simon Reynolds puts it ‘the only

response is wordless – to scream.’92 The combination of Einstürzende Neubautens noise and

Blixa Bargelds unprecedented screaming, express the same message: that of a deep and silent

meaninglessness. Einstürzende Neubauten never wanted to fit an ideology or express an

affinity to a certain movement. They resisted clear messages and their music accompanies this

attitude.

Although the outcome may not be very different to “noise beyond meaning,” the last

explanation of noise, as “multiplicity,” lies exactly at the other end of the spectrum. ‘Noise as

multiplicity’ points at the contrary, namely the immense complexity of the world, drawing,

writes Sangild ‘on [philosopher. MK] Michel Serres idea of a immense complexity behind the

phenomenological “perceived” world, noise, when perceived, points towards this conflicting,

complex, incomprehensable “noisy” world.’93 Again, noise resists clear definition.

For me, this idea of noise as a representation of the complex structure of the world, bears

ressemblance to the ideas Jacques Attali expresses in “Noise, the political economy of music,”

which I mentioned earlier. For Attali, the conflict which is inherent in any noise (being, in this

sense, any sound, because any sound is a disturbance of silence) and the struggle between the

systematics of music and its social, political function and the disturbance of this system

through noise, through the breaking of rules, makes the use of noise (that which is considered

as being “noise” as oppossed to the, by political an economical power defined, definition of

not-noise/music) an act of resistance against authority. To use noise is to defy the powers that

be and to bring into music the complex chaos of the real world. The left-wing anarchistic

background of Einstürzende Neubauten is an excellent breeding ground for this kind of

thought. Their wish to ‘be no part of it,’ ‘Kein Bestandteil sein’94 is expressed in their use of

noise as an act of political resistance. Ofcourse, this resistance became commodity after a

while, when noise became a part of countless forms of popular music, most notably succefull:

90 Blixa Bargeld in Maeck, 1993 91 Kahn, 1999: 236 92 Reynolds, 2005: 57 93 Sangild, 2002 94 see note 68

29

hip-hop. In this sense, but this is also exactly what Attali describes, they did “became a part of

it.”

Thus, the common factor seems to be that noise defies clear definition, either striving

beyond meaning, or being too complex to put into words. Noise is resistant to meaning, noise

is resistance. Besides that, both in the sublime and as abjection, noise is experience. The only

way to comprehend noise is not through theory, but through living it. For Simon Reynolds

‘noise resents being asked to have meaning, it refuses simple explanations and it is at its best

when it just exists: deep and meaningless.’95 Noise is located on the edge of reason, where the

abject and the sublime also are. In this, we do not have the posibillity to fully grasp it, because

it is both too far from and too close from us. We can say noise is nonsense, noise is pain,

noise is resistance or noise is sublime, but eventually we can not talk about noise, we can only

experience it.

The use of noise, for that matter, strengthens the physicality of the audience, makes it

aware of its body, and numbs its mind. It establishes a feeling of shared experience between

the members of the audience and between the audience and the band. Through this, the

performance becomes some kind of sacred ritual: a process which all persons that are present

go through. It establises exactly that what performance artists want: a shared experience in

present time and space.

4.4 REPETITION

As I already hinted at: repetition may be the counterbalance of chaos and noise, but we

have to make a very strict distinction between the reason why it is used in the music and the

effect it has on it. To begin with the first: the most obvious reason for the repetitive element in

the music of Einstürzende Neubauten is the fact that it prevents it from falling apart. As is

already the case on the earlier mentioned first-concert-recording of ‘Atomarer Waltz,’ the

only element that gives the pieces its structure is its repetitive rhythm, combined with the

sometimes chant-like repeated strophes of Bargeld. As their music evolved and the absolute

necessity for such a grip was no longer there, the repetition functioned no longer as a

counterbalance for chaos and noise for the bandmembers, who were trained enough to react

on eachother without a steady beat, but for the listener, thus still being the element holding the

music together. A lot of songs drive on one rhythm, which is either present during the whole

song, or appears throughout the piece (forming, for instance, a “refrain-like” element).

95 Duguid, 1995

30

The repetitive element is mainly present in two ways: as a repetition of rhythmic patterns

and as a repetition of vocal-lines. The use of the first I described earlier. The repetition, most

often with variations, of vocallines stems from the fact Blixa Bargeld only started to write

down lyrics after several years of performing. Normally, during the first four or five years, he

used to take a basic idea or vocal line (such as ‘wir können nicht spielen’ or ‘Kein Bestandteil

sein’) and varied on it throughout the song. The same goes for melodies, which most often

exist of variations of a basic melodic line, containing a pretty limited number of notes.

Of all this, the song ‘Kein Bestandteil sein,’96 (Example-CD #4) recorded under the

famous motorwayoverpass in 1980, is a good example: the largest part is based on a strong,

omnipresent pulse for more than nine minutes, combined with a lyrical and melodical

repetitive vocalline.

The way this repetition served their improvisational skills is nicely illustrated by the

recording of ‘Leid und Elend’97 (Example-CD #5) seven years later in 1987. The repeated

words ‘Leid und Elend’ and looping guitarriff build up to the inevitable climax, which could

only be realized because the groupmembers feel the pulse of the guitar and the build-up in

Blixa Bargelds vocals.

On a non-practical level, this repetition examines a trance-like effect that was to become

one of the cornerstones of housemusic not much later.98 The idea of trance, ofcourse inbedded

in a ritualistic context, is not new in popular music. Many scholars tend to believe that the use

of African external rhythmsections in western popular music, brought the focus on repetitve

rhythms, sometimes intended to stimulate trance, to a western public. As said, Einstürzende

Neubauten uses this effect frequently, which results in yet another awareness of the body. Or,

better put, a dissolvement into a non-rational sphere, an overwhelming experience in a very

direct way.

The contrasts Einstürzende Neubauten uses ofcourse, the abrupt changes between

repetitive pulse and chaos, puts the audience in a confusing position between this trancelike

effect and a sudden disruption of it by chaotic noise, which is exactly the discomforting

dichotomy the band aims at.

96 ‘Kein Bestandteil sein.’ Einstürzende Neubauten, 1980(b): track 7 As Borchardt mentions, as late as 2000

Einstürzende Neubauten issued an even more radical example with the eighteen minute long mantra ‘Pelikanol’ on the two-disc version of Silence is sexy (Einstürzende Neubauten, 2000, track 15)

97 ‘Leid und Elend.’ Einstürzende Neubauten, 1991: track 13

31

5.5 THE EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN-PERFORMANCE

Now then, before I shift to recording, I summarize what has been said about the

Einstürzende Neubauten as a performance act.

First: it makes more sense to look upon the liveperformance of Einstürzende Neubauten as

performance art, than as a purily musical act Performance art is a performing art in which

time, place, bodies and interaction between audience and performer are the central focuspoint.

Second: the performance of Einstürzende Neubauten is ritualized. This ritual consists of a

combination of the focus on the bodies of both musicians and listeners, a focus on the

interaction between performer and the place where the performance takes place: physicality

and locality, and an interaction between these and sound. It is a ritual of bodies and places and

sounds.

Third: this specific performance is translated into several musical elements.

Improvisation, which is an outcome of their involvement with the rethorical aesthetic of

the Geniale Dilletanten, who propagated amateurism and anti-musical statements, resulting in

chaos and repetition.

Chaos is used to distort, disturb and counteract expectation, establishing a nervous tension

amongst listeners. Besides that, the result of chaos is noise.

Noise means embodiment through the experience of abjection and sublimation, which,

combined with loud volume, causes an increased awareness of the own body for the listener.

Secondly, noise resists structure, meaning and established political power, which again is a

translation of the manifest of Geniale Dilletanten.

Repetition functions as a counterbalance to noise, keeping the music together. Besides that

repetition suggests a musical trancelike ritual and again focuses through this trance element

on the physicality of the listener.

Place is not established in a musical sense. However, contrary to a “normal” musical

show, the location of performance takes a central role in the show of Einstürzende Neubauten,

hereby forming a crucial element in the shaping of the music, because the musicians are

involved in a constant exchange between music and place, using it as a musical instrument.

98 Some members Geniale Dilletanten became, not surprisingly, involved with the Berlin house and techno scene

during the eighties.

32

RECORDING

5. Recording as representation

For this last step I concentrate on the studiorecordings Einstürzende Neubauten made

between 1981 and 1989. The basis for my argumentation forms chapter two of Theodor

Gracyks book “Rhythm and Noise:” ‘I’ll be your mirror: recording and representing.’99 Here

Gracyk disputes what he calls the “recording realism” that is based on the writings of people

like Barthes, Sontag and Scruton.100 Recording realism states that a soundrecording is not and

can not be more than a reproduction of a performance. Therefore, what is valued as the

genuine work of art is not the recording, which does not do anything else than transmitting the

actual work of art; the performance is valued. This, says Gracyk, was and still is the case with

many musics (such as the recording of most classical music and jazz), but not with rock.

For the recording realist, the ideal recording is virtually “invisible” (or “inhearable”): it

should not draw any attention to itself in favour of the recorded performance, which is the

momentum where the artistic act takes place. The counterargument that techniques like

overdubbing and cut-and-past undermine the idea that a recording is a reproduction of a

performance that actually happened (a reproduction of an historic event, such as a snapshot

capturing a birthday party), is countered by the recording realist by pointing to the fact that

‘each fragment takes the identity from its generating performance. Such techniques do not

alter the essential “reproductive” nature of recording [...] editing and overdubbing techniques

introduce no special “human intention” between the music and its appearance in the

reproduction.’101

Theodor Gracyk however holds the opinion that the studiorecording in rockmusic does not

reproduce performances. In rockmusic, he argues, the primary momentum of the artisticic act

shifted from the performance to the recording. In rockmusic the recording is the prime work

of art. ‘The identity of the musical work is not determined by reference to the recordings

underlying performance. As such, the recordings represent performances, rather than trasmit

them.’102

To strengthen this stake, Gracyk offers countless examples of the way most rockalbums

(and it should be noted that the term “rock” is used the broadest definition of the genre, not

restricted by distinctions between specific subgenres and styles) come into being: by means of

a process of layering different “takes” on top of each other. Sometimes takes who initially

99 Gracyk, 1996: 36-67 100 ibdem: 39 101 ibdem: 41

33

were not meant to be used together. Examples of vocallines put on top of the instrumentation

of another “song” or the carefull construction of a backingtrack, to which only in a later stage

vocals and other keyelements are added, are legion, up to the point where there is no basic

recordingplan at all and a song is pieced together in the end.

In this practice the musical “work” only appears after all elements are in place, which is at

the very end of the recording process. The performances that produce the eventual song,

where not directed to that specific piece of work; they remain, as Gracyk calls it, ‘ambigues’

until the song is finished. The finished song is a representation, but not the representation of

the initial performances that produced it. ‘The musicians were making music at various times

in the recording process, but their music making did not count as performance of any specific

work at that time.’103

For Gracyk this means that it is the recording which independently represents the musical

work; it does not serve as a mediator between a performance representing a work and a

listener.104 Records are a way to compose new musical work and anounce them to a public

(the way the classical score contains a composition and the announcement that a new “work”

has come into being).105 In this sense the recording does not reproduce a real performance of

any kind, instead ‘the recording creates a “virtual” space and time in which a performance is

represented as taking place,’106 hereby making it the central work of art in rockmusic, instead

of the traditional stageperformance.

In rockmusic, Gracyk said, recording comes before performance in case of where the

musical work is created. Einstürzende Neubauten, it appears, does the contrary: they

formulated their aesthetical framework in their performance. Even more, the music is firmly

embedded in this performance, it is the performance. So what happened when they started to

record this?

A studiorecording in rockmusic is according to Gracyk a representation from a “virtual

performance.” As strong a performance Einstürzende Neubauten delivered, they had to find

ways to represent their stage-performance in the form of an audio-recording. Just recording

such a performance, either in the context of a live-concert, or performed “live” in one take in

a studio, does not do this job, because the language of an audiorecording is completely

different from the language they use in their on-stage performance. This means that when they

102 Gracyk, 1996:43 103 ibdem: 48 104 ibdem: 51 105 ibdem: 52 106 ibdem: 53

34

started to make studio-recordings, Einstürzende Neubauten had to find ways to translate their

performance into a representation through sound. They tried to create the same experience

their live-performances had, but because of the differences in nature between the two media

they were forced to approach their material in a completely new, and substantially different

way. Their records are by no means the same as their performances were, but both do (or try

to) represent the same

In the next chapter I describe how they represented their, unique and complex

performance on their studioalbums and what the consquences of this translation were for the

band and the music.

35

6. The performance represented

On 17 September 1983 Blixa Bargeld wrote the following: ‘Guerrilla-Taktik als

Aufnahme-strategie/Ist effektiver als jede klangtreuere/Audioentwicklung der

Technologie.’107 In reality, this guerilla-tactic was less revolutionary as this quote suggests,

but it does, in a way, illustrate the way Einstürzende Neubauten recorded: a process of trial

and error, of pushing the boundaries of the possibilities a studio offers and always looking for

new ways to create and record sound.

To uncover the way their records take shape, I shall discuss all elements described in

chapter three and four as charecteristic for Einstürzende Neubauten, and explain how they are

used in the recordings.

6.1 IMPROVISATION VS. SOUNDSTUDY

Quiet logically, the improvisational aspect of Einstürzende Neubautens music disappears

almost completely in the recordingprocess. An improvisation can only be recorded as a one-

take recording of one specific performance; a process often used for free-jazz records, but not

with Einstürzende Neubauten. From Kollaps onwards they experimented exstensively with

the possibilities of soundrecording and the use of specific, non-conventional sounds. It may be

that some takes were completed in an improvisational manner (just “press record” and play...),

but when it did not serve the piece right, such a recording was probably thrown away or

repeated until it suited., hereby loosing its unique “one-take” character.

In the recordingprocess improvisation was replaced by almost the contrary:

‘Klangforschungen,’ soundstudies.108 Instead of an immediate, spontaneous act, this is a

gradual process of trial-and-error, which requires very concious decisions on what is good and

useable and what does not work. Einstürzende Neubauten took a completely different

approach when they recorded: a shift from “nothing matters” to “every detail matters.”

The improvisational element is only present as remnant of the way they performed on

stage. Because a) some of the music took shape in this improvisational process and b) specific

ways of making music, chaos and repetition, developed through it, improvisation is audible in

the structure and development of the song. In this sense, the on-stage improvisation is

represented by the specific structure and build-up of a piece.

107 Bargeld, 1987: 98 108 ‘Ihre Labore sind die Plattenstudios in dem sie Monatenlang experimentieren und Klangforschungen

betreiben.’ Voiceover in Beetz, 2001

36

This, ofcourse, only concerns the songs that developed on stage at all. As early as the first

record, some pieces developed entirely in the recording process. Gradually, this way became

more and more important and the improvisational aspect faded to the background.109

6.2 RITUAL

As I explained, the performance of Einstürzende Neubauten is a ritualistic performance. I

will deal with the very important ritual elements of bodies and place later, first I explain some

other elements which represent the ritual in a sonical way.

The tension caused by the use of chaos esthablishes a sense of significance and urgency

within the audience. Because the unexpected can happen and can affect me-as-audience, the

performance becomes more urgent and thrilling. When it is recorded, chaos becomes fixed

and looses this tension. The urgency may be there on first listening, but already weakens the

second time. Besides that, recorded chaos in a way is “fake-chaos,” because it is carefully

constructed in a studio. The chaos, therefore, is this specific chaos and no other, because the

artist chose to make it sound exactly like it does. Therefore, the use of the chaotic element is

restricted to those places where it serves as a disruption of the constant flow, a fade-in or out,

or as a constrasting colourising element. The records of Einstürzende Neubauten were from

the start not as chaotic as their performances, and became less and less chaotic during the

years, because of this.

Secondly, as I argued, noise is experience when it arouses feelings of abjection and/or

sublimination. It can therefore be used to represent this feeling of a right here, right now

experience that is actually absent on records (because it is neither right here, or right now).

The only thing which is right here and now is sound. When this sound is noise and therefore

arouses an experience of abjection and sublimation, the idea, the representatation of

experience is esthablished.

Third, the ritualising quality of repetition is maintained on record. The presence of a

strong pulse, which causes a trance-like effect, as in housemusic, is even emphazised in the

recordings of Einstürzende Neubauten, where bass and rhythm are often mixed in very strong,

to make them the focuspoint and binding element of the music.

109 From their 1997 tour onwards, the latest line-up of Einstürzende Neubauten plays in every concert a so-called “Rampe” (“handrail”): an improvisational piece somewhere in the, apart from this fixed, setlist. During the tours,

37

6.3 BODIES

Simon Frith states that ‘The presence of even a recorded sound is the presence of the

implied performer – the performer called forth the listener – and this is clearly a

sensual/sexual presence, not just a meeting of minds.’110 This is certainly the case: every

recording represents the presence of performing bodies. But in most cases it is nothing more

than a necessary consequence of recording; except for possible explicite sexual references in

popular music, most artists don’t use this fact in an artistical sense.

Because the body in performance art shifts from a necessary condition to the focuspoint of

the performance and embodiment was thus, as I explained, a focuspoint in the work of

Einstürzende Neubauten, they had to represent this in a more specific, more clear and more

critical way in their recording, which they did.

First, considering the experience of the listeners own body, as I explained, it is impossible,

or at least unfavourable, to record noise “as such.” It was not possible to use the way of

producing noise they used live, in their studiorecordings. They had to construct it, layer for

layer, to make a carefully shaped soundscape of noises, choosing the right frequencies for the

song, to make sure other necesarry elements, such as vocals, would not be covered by it.

Contrary to their live performances, then, the recorded noise becomes a colour within a

framework of other elements. It is not just noise for noises sake, but a specific effect with a

specific aim: to disturb the song and to disturb the listener. The experiences of abjection and

sublimation caused by noise, are, when noise is carefully shaped like this, exploited to their

full extend, because the listener can hear every element, but still is not able to process the full

spectrum. He will be taken over by it every time he hears it, which would not be the case if

the sound would be an uncomprehensible cluster of white noise.

The second way of embodiment involves a more complicated argument.111 It starts with

Artauds “Theater of Cruelty” and his wish to replace the wordly nature of literature, drama,

by its way of enactment, theatre. 112 According to Susan Sonntag, this emenates from Artauds

longing for the reunification of body and mind, whose seperation, he believes, are the origin

of constant suffering. 113

new songs developed out of these improvisations. In a way this practice served as a way to “remain true” to their roots and keep the image of a “free,” “anarchistic” band alive. 110 Frith, 1996: 215 111 I explained this process more thoroughly in my essay “Einig/mit meinem ungeteilten Selbst, belichaming in

die Hamletmaschine van Heiner Müller en die Einstürzende Neubauten.” Kromhout, 2006 112 Kalb, 1998: 49. 113 Sontag 1980: 17-28

38

As a consequence of this line of thought Artaud ascribes an equal value to all human-

produced souds, in other words: for Artaud all human sounds are as valuable as speech.

Speech refers to the mind, other sound (screaming, shouting, mumbling, hissing) represent the

body. When the voice is used for something else than speech, the mind approaches the body.

This idea is expanded by David Appelbaum in the chapter ‘The verge of madness’ of his

book “voice” who, in a adjustment to Hobbes’ Leviathan, states, that speech stands for

humanity, sanity and rationality; non-human sounds (screaming, shouting, mumbling,

hissing), on the contrary, stand for bestiality, insanity and irrationality. 114 They are bestial,

madness, war, anarchy, fear..., mortality.

In the article “Voices out of bodies, bodies out of voices: audiotape and the production of

subjectivity” N. Kateherine Hayles states that when a voice is recorded, the recorder takes

over the voice, thus becoming a body of its own: 115 ‘The taped body can separate at the

vertical ‘divide line,’116 it is devided in two bodies. In an adjustment to this idea, I argue that

when a voice is taped by a recorder, instead of Hayles believe that the recorder becomes a

body, the suggestion of a new “virtual body” is created. Because people link a human voice

automatically to a human body, the sound of a voice always represents this body. Not

necessarily the body of the actual performer, but certainly a “virtual” body. When the

recorded voice is played, the listener will recognize it as a human voice, thus “creating” a

human subject. No human subject can exsist without a body, therefore every recorded voice

becomes a subject becomes a body.

What does this mean for Einstürzende Neubauten? The voice of a singer creates a “virtual

body.” Einstürzende Neubautens specific use of the human voice, screaming, whispering,

screeching and hissing, refers very directly to the physicality of this body. The body becomes

more explicit because of the use of these animalistic, abject sounds of irrationality. Blixa

Bargelds vocals are always on the “verge of madness.” He whispers with a lot of air, screams

on the top of his lungs and howls screetchingly. Besides that, these vocals are mixed in very

clearly, often even recorded so loud that a distortion occurs. With this, the representation of

the physicality of the performance is established in a sonical way. The bodies (every different

voicetype a different body) are present in sound. A good example of the many ways this takes

place is the song ‘Falschgeld’117 (Example-CD #6)

114 Appelbaum 1990: 54 115 Hayles 1997: 74-95 116 Hayles 1997: 79 117 ‘Falschgeld.’ Einstürzende Neubauten, 2002 (1983): track 9

39

Furthermore, other sounds of the human body serve the same goal. The nine second track

‘Finger und Zahne,’118 (Example-CD #7) with the sound of fingers ticking against teeth, is

one of the most unpleasant songs on the Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T.-album.

The abjection of the human body, the “mortality” Appelbaum refers to, is present in this

voice. As an essayist on the internet, Jim Haynes, writes: ‘the only voice that comes close to

his [Keiji Haino – Japanse avant-gadistische noise-muzikant. MK] ability in translating the

abject is that of Blixa Bargeld of Einstürzende Neubauten; growling and wailing over a

desolate lilting viola on ‘Armenia’119 (Example-CD #8). With this screaming, the meaningless

of noise is represented, because, as I quoted Simon Reynolds earlier, to noise ‘the only

response is wordless – to scream.’120

Although this was by far the most important way of embodiment in sound the

Einstürzende Neubauten use, there are two more things I would like to point out.

First a real ‘recording- and producing-trick.’ Because, obviously, the listeners of an album

can choose his own-volume level, Einstürzende Neubauten does not have the advantage of

their loud livevolume. To get around this problem, they applied a trick in the song ‘Seele

Brennt’121 on their 1/2 Mensch album (Example-CD #9). The song exists of two parts: a quiet

whispering chorus and a loud, exploding refrain. Deliberately, they turned the volume of the

quiet parts down, in order for the listener to put the volume up to be able to hear every detail

(and there are quiet some). The loud part, however, has a normal volumelevel and takes the

listener by surprise, sounding twice as loud as he or she intented, bursting out of the

loudspeakers.

Second and last the physicality of repetition. This does not differ substantially from the

trance-like effect repetition has in the actual performance, but in combination with the spatial

placing of sounds, also treated in the next paragraph, it can get a different dimension, as it

does in ‘Die Genaue Zeit,’122 a song Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T. (Example-CD #10). The

feedback of a swinging microphone is combined with chant-like repetitive vocals. The

microphone feedback swings form left to right in stereo, emphasizing the ongoing repetition,

placing the listener in its center to be overtaken by the sonic experience. The length of the

song, more that six minutes, makes it possible to get completely drawn in by it.

118 ‘Finger und Zahne.’ ibdem: track 8 119 Haynes, 2006. ‘Armenia:’ Einstürzende Neubauten, 2002 (1985): track 11 120 see note 85 121 ‘Seele Brennt.’ Einstürzende Neubauten 2002 (1985): track 5 122 ‘Die Genaue Zeit.’ Einstürzende Neubauten, 2002 (1983): track 12

40

6.4 PLACES

In the actual performance, place is not represented through music, it is simply there. On

record, the actual spatial element is absent and has to be represented. Of course, the recording

represents the place where it was recorded: the studio. But this fact is mostly covered by

artificial, productive elements such as “reverbation,” “echo,” and “hall,” among others.

Through this¸ spaces are created in which the performance appears to take place. In ‘Draussen

ist Feindlich’123 (Example-CD #11) for instance, the repetitive bang on a metal object sounds

with a light reverb. The vocals, however, are produced very dry and without any reverb, to

represent the “inside” as opposed to the “outside” where the lyrics say it is ‘hostile.’ Blixa

Bargeld ‘whispers in your ear’ to make you feel secure, or insecure... (‘Schliess dich ein mit

mir, hier sind wir sícher’).

On the contrary, the next song on the album, ‘Hör mit Schmerzen’124 (Example-CD #2)

creates a large room, or auditorium, by producing the metalic rhythm as well as the screamed

vocals with a lot of reverb. This use of reverbation on vocals and percussiontracks to create a

spatial effect, is used very often on their first four to five records.

On the song ‘DNS-Wasserturm,’125 the backingtape was recorded in an actual watertower,

creating a hollow and spatial sound, with a very direct reference to the recordingplace,

because of this fieldrecording.

In a completely different way the acapella song ‘1/2 Mensch,’126 (Example-CD #12)

where a choir was recorded voice by voice, layered carefully and placed next to each other,

creates a call and response structure representing a theatrical space.

The use of samples, from vocal-loops and soundexcerpt to sampling specific sounds are a

second way of place-representations. Different from modern-day computerproduced, digital

samples, the sounds Einstürzende Neubauten use refer to specific objects that are attached to

specific places.

The drill at the beginning of ‘Steh auf Berlin’127 (Example-CD #13) is not a contextless

sound, but represents very specific images of building-areas. The same goes for the children-

voice in ‘Hospitalische Kinder/Engel der Vernichtung’ or the tape-loop of a policerecording

of the voice of a supposed kidnapper in ‘Merle.’

123 ‘Draussen ist feindlich.’ Einstürzende Neubauten, 2001 (1981): track 5 124 ‘Hör mit Schmerzen.’ ibdem: track 6 125 ‘DNS-Wasserturm. ’ Einstürzende Neubauten, 2002 (1983): track 13 126 ‘1/2 Mensch.’ Einstürzende Neubauten, 2002 (1985): track 1 127 ‘Steh auf Berlin.’ Einstürzende Neubauten, 2001 (1981): track 2

41

Even with samples that are used to represent not only itself, but also something different,

such as the sound of a breaking bottle in ‘Zeichungen des Patienten O.T.’ 128 (Example-CD

#14 )which is used as some kind of snaredrum, the sound also keeps its initial reference, in

this case someone throwing a bottle on the floor.

6.5 THE EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN-RECORDINGS

What were the consequences of this recordingprocess for Einstürzende Neubauten and

their music? Most improtantly: in a way they became musicians. It is almost impossicble to

want to record something without having to make specific artistical choices, and having basic

musical skills. If it possible at all, the result is most likely something nobody wants to listen

to.

Einstürzende Neubauten already developed a way of expressing their ideas in

performance. The crucial developments in their career were first the fact that they proved to

be able to translate this strength to their studiowork and second that they managed to maintain

this interplay between performing and recording in the course of almost the entire decade,

with, Zeichnungen der Patienten O.T., 1983 and 1/2 Mensch, 1985, as the perfect symbiosis

of the two worlds.

The subsequent albums, 1987’s Fünf auf der nach oben offenen Richterskala and Haus

der Lüge of 1989, show interestingly enough a tip of the scale to one of both sides. Fünf auf

der nach oben offenen Richterskala, intended as a return to more fluent ways of musicmaking,

leans, because of this intent, too heavily on long improvisational pieces that show no studio-

innovation and therefore do not work that well without the performative aspects they were

created with. Haus der Lüge on the other hand, can be considered as the upbeat to the next

phase of their career. The album lacks most of the raw energy of the previous albums and is

clearly audible the result of studiowork. This, of coarse, goes for all albums, but with Haus

der Lüge, the polished, transparent sound and more traditional beats and songstructures,

combined with ambient-like soundscape do no longer represent a transgressive, brutal and

exciting performance. Even the first track, ‘Prolog,’ displaying a combination of rethorical

lyrics about resistance to the masses (‘Meint ihr nicht/wir könnten unterschreiben/auf dass uns

ein bis zwei Prozent gehören/und Tausende uns hörig sind’ Example-CD #15) 129 and what

may be the harshests sudden noise-eruptions they recorded, can not cover the fact they were

heading for a different style, but did not yet find the way to execute it.

128 ‘Hospitalische Kinder/Engel der Vernichtung,’ ‘Merle,’ ‘Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T.’ Einstürzende

Neubauten, 2002 (1983): track 2, 6, 9 129 Bargeld, 1997: 120

42

7. Conclusion

It is important to realize that Einstürzende Neubauten and their music were formed in a

gradual process, under the influence of several circumstances that were crucial for the way

they developed and the way the music was conceived. My approach of treating Einstürzende

Neubauten as performance art instead of a regular (or, as you like, avant-garde) band was

meant to make this process more clear. Einstürzende Neubauten is not a performance art

group, but the framework of performance art, a form of living art with a strong focus on

temporality, spatiality, physicality and interactivity, and the execution in the here and now,

offers several grips that make it easier to understand their work. The specifics of Einstürzende

Neubautens liveperformance do bare resemblance to performance arts approach at time,

space, bodies and the interaction between performer and audience; unlike other bands, this

performance preceded the music, shaping it on the way. During the development of the

performance the music grew in size and eventually became an independent aesthetical object.

The roots of the development lie at the end of the seventies and the beginning of the

eighties in the isolation of West Berlin, where in the left-wing environment of that city the

“Geniale Dillentanten” were formed. It was in the sarcastical, nihilistic rethorics of this scene

where Einstürzende Neubauten finds its origin. Within the, almost conceptual art-like, outlet

of “Geniale Dilletanten,” a combination of sixties-like absurdism and pseudo-intellectual

rethorics, the band was formed with little to non musical skills and an intention to destroy the

idea of music altogether.

Around the same time inspiration was drawn form similar developments in other

countries, most importantly the work of Throbbing Gristle, who evolved directly out of the

transgressive performance art scene in London in the seventies.

The performance of Einstürzende Neubauten took the shape of some kind of ritual. The

greatest appeal of their act was the physicality of this ritual, which was esthablished through

the presence of their bodies on stage, on the one hand tormented, skinny and gaunted, on the

other hardworking, muscular and sweating, which expressed a close link between the

musicians and their instruments, a physical way of producing music (banging on metal,

drilling in stone, smashing on plates etc.) and also resulted in a sense of risk of physical

damage.

The physicality was transmitted to the audience not only through this visual spectacle, but

also through the use of musical elements, most notably noise. Initially intended by the band as

the ultimate way to destroy musical structure and as a resistance to commodity, the use of

43

noise makes the listener susceptible to the performance, because its chaotic nature holds a

strong tension and the experience of abjection and sublimation results in a heightend sense of

self-awareness, a loss of rationality and a feeling of togetherness.

In the tradition of performance art this physicality is one of the cornerstones of the

artform. The focus on the bodies of performer and audience alike form one of the pilars of

performance art. As ‘a form of rethorics with the body as its central point,’130 performance art

uses the body as both the material and the object of the narrative. This same idea is expressed

in the performance of the early Einstürzende Neubauten, who, in their stageperformance, used

the physicality of their performance to assure a constant and charged interactive exchange

between (the bodies of) the audience, (the bodies of) the band and the (body of) the music.

The second link between the performance art tradition and the performative ritual of

Einstürzend Neubauten is the aspect of place. Explicitly and implicitly Einstürzende

Neubauten used the location of their concerts as a integral element in the performance,

upgrading the function of the surroundings from mere conditional to an instrument that can be

used and manipulated in favour of production of the work of art.

The initial programm which was formed in the “Geniale Dilletanten” days, a programm of

destruction, resistance, anarchic and revolt, was translated into a performance which

expressed these ideas, these rethorics, in a nondirect, critical and symbolic way. This early

performance must therefore be treated and understood as a whole, as one gesture expressing a

world of complex statements.

However, during this process, Einstürzende Neubauten became a band, they became

musicians. Was music initially a part of the larger whole of the performance by which they

expressed their revolutionary (“no more music”) rethorics, gradually, starting quite early in

their career, certain musical specifics developed and became more fixed by, on the one hand,

the awareness that some things worked better than others to express the central idea, on the

other as a logical consequense of the way they performed.

The improvisational nature of their music was a result of the “anything-goes”-call-for-

amateurism of Geniale Dilletanten and resulted in chaos, counterbalanced by repetition,

forming the two extremes in and the groundwork of the music of Einstürzende Neubauten.

Although both aspects are a result of the way the band made music, they also serve an

aesthetical goal in the performance. Chaos, resulting in noise, and repetition, resulting in

trance, are ways to esthablish the abovementioned physicality and the, in performance art

130 See note 33

44

critical, interaction between artist and audience in the room. Chaos and repetition are both

musically essential, forming the basics of the music, as aesthetically, shaping the performative

ritual.

The music of Einstürzende Neubauten can therefore be considered as a result of their

performance. Only in performance and because of performance did their music take shape and

did the bandmembers learn how to use it as a mean to translate their ideas. Through the years,

then, the music took the symbolic function of the performance over more and more, until, by

the end of the eighties, Einstürzende Neubauten were an almost “normal” rockband, and their

performance a “normal” show, or a show with, as Blixa Bargeld calls it ‘eine gewisse

Theatralik.’ 131

This development becomes even clearer in respect to the recordings of Einstürzende

Neubauten. As Theodor Grazyck argues, the recording in rockmusic is not just a reproduction

of a performance, but rather a representation of a virtual performance, thereby becoming the

main aesthetical momentum in rockmusic. For Einstürzende Neubauten the problem was that

their music and aesthetical ideas developed in performance. Recording meant for them:

finding ways to represent the specifics of the performance in sound.

The live-focus on improvisation shifted to a studiofocus on soundexperimentation and the

development of new recording techniques. The functions of the different elements of their

performance, both musical and non musical, had to be revaluated to maintain the basic

premises on which their performance was build and be able to offer the same experience on

record. Through a carefull construction of sound, using the possibilities of the studio,

Einstürzende Neubauten created a sonical pseudo-performance.

Chaos looses much of its urgency and therefore becomes a colouring element, distracting

the audience and disrupting songstructures. The experience of noise offers the possibility to

represent the idea of immediacy and actual presence; through the use of noise, arousing

feelings of abjection and sublimation, experience is suggested. Because they are carefully

constructed in a studio, chaos and noise become “fake”-representations of themselfs.

The ritualising aspect of repetition and pulse is maintained and even gets emphasized by

placing the rythmic tracks close in the mix.

Bodies are represented by their sounds. Human sounds represent human bodies. This

representation is increased by the use of non-rational, bestial sounds and a very unrational use

131 Bargeld in 1990: ‘Du kannst zehn Konzerten tatsächlich passieren lassen, im Sinne eines echten Happenings.

Es Funktioniert viellecht auch mit hundert Konzerten, aber spätestens beim hundertundersten ist die

45

of the human voice (screaming, hissing, whispering), which result in a stronger feeling of

physicality. Through sound “virtual bodies” are created. Besides that, the screaming of Blixa

Bargeld posseses a feeling of abjection and confirms the nature of noise as being beyond

meaning.

Space is created by the use of productional additions such as “reverbation,” “hall” and

“echo,” matching the nature of the song, the use of fieldrecordings and the use of samples that

represent a general spatiality or a specific place.

The answer to the question what makes the Einstürzende Neubauten different from others,

through which their succes and influence can be explained, turns out to be bipartite. The first

important quality of the group has been their strong and compelling performance. They

managed to transmit their goals and ideas in a very effective way to the listeners, because they

persuaded these goals without compromis and with great dedication. This performance was,

as I argued, not so much a musical show, as a combination of different rethorical gestures that

relate strongly to the performance art tradition.

However, performance alone is not enough. Without albums they would not have reached

an audience outside the small scene in Berlin, maybe Germany. Records are the cornerstone

of the musicindustry. Due to the merit of their recordingskills, they grew out to become as

influential as they did, because they managed from their first record onwards to translate their

unique performance to recordings in an adequate way. The development of Einstürzende

Neubauten as a live act did most certainly have ist repercussions on their studio-output, which

became more sophisticated with every record released. Einstürzende Neubauten succeeded

were other great live bands with such an energetic and unique liveperformance failed: they

seperated their studiowork from their performances and created it almost anew on record, but

with maintenance of the underlying idea and experience. For the first ten years of their career,

there were two Einstürzende Neubautens: a studioband and a liveband.

The influence and importance of Einstürzende Neubauten is therefore the result of the

development of a unique performance and being able to translate this with musical

craftmanship to a progressive and unique recorded oeuvre.

From this, it is also possible to explain why the material they released after their last

record of the eighties, Haus der Lüge of 1989, seems to be less relevant than their earlier

work. Haus der Lüge already focussed primarely on studiotechniques. Their subsequent

Spontanität nur noch eine Lüge. An diesem Punkt fing es an, für uns schwierig zu werden. Der cleverste Kompromiss war, eine gewisse Theatralik einzuführen, etwas zu inzenieren.’ Borchardt, 2003: 39.

46

album, Tabula Rasa from 1993, did no longer represent the urgent immediacy of the

trangressive liveperformance. In a way, Einstürzende Neubauten ended up doing what

everybody else was doing: creating a studioalbum out of nothing but studiowork, leaving the

performative aspect, which had been so crucial and distinctive for their work up to that

moment, definitely behind. They turned into a more or less “normal” rockband: producing

music in a studio and reproducing it onstage.132 The initial order of the process was turned

around and because of this the music they made from 1993 up to the present day may be

interesting, compelling, experimental and containing a wide variety of unique sounds, it lacks

the brachial, primitive, urgent power of performance and with that a great deal of its appeal.

132 As Gracyk writes about the band Def Leppard: ‘The group’s live repertoire is pretty much limited to their

own music, which they slavishly copy from their own recordings’ and ‘the records are the standards by which they’re to be judged, even in live performance.’ Gracyk, 1996: 90

47

8. Bibliography, Videography and Audiography

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Appelbaum, David. ‘Verge of madness.’ Voice. Albany: State University of New

York Press, 1990: 44-55.

• Artaud, Antonin. Vert. Simon Vinkenoog. Theater van de wreedheid. Amsterdam:

Meulenhoff, 1982 (1938).

• Attali, Jacques. Vert. Brian Massumi. Noise, the political economy of music.

Minneapolis/Londen: University of Minnesota Press, 1985 (2003).

• Bargeld, Blixa. Stimme frisst Feuer. Berlin: Merve Verlag, 1988.

• Bargeld, Blixa. Headcleaner. Text fürEinstürzende Neubauten. Berlin: Die

Gestalten, 1997.

• Bent, Graham. ‘The demolition Derby.’ Sounds, 19-9-1987: 3.

• Borchardt, Kirsten. Einstürzende Neubauten. Höfen: Verlagsgruppe Koch

GmbH/Hannibal, 2003.

• Broadhurst, Susan. ‘Liminal Aesthetics.’ Body, Space and Technology, 1, Nov

2000. http://people.brunel.ac.uk/bst/1no1/suebroadhurst.htm

• Creed, Barbra. ‘Kristeva, feminity, abjection.’ The Monstruous Feminine. London

and New York: Routledge, 1993.

• Dax, Max, Robert Defcon. Vert. Margit, Sander en Alexander Paulick. Einstürzende

Neubauten, No Beauty Without Danger. Berlin: own publisher, 2005.

• Dreher, Thomas. ‘Performance Art nach 1945: Aktionstheater und Intermedia.’

Dreher Netzliteratur. 2001. http://dreher.netzliteratur.net/2_Perform_n.45_Einf.html

• Duguid, Brian. ‘Prehistory of Industrial Music.’ EST-web, version 17-02-2003,

1995. http://media.hyperreal.org/zines/est/articles/preindex.html

• Frith, Simon. Performing Rites. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.

• Goldberg, RoseLee. Performance Art, from Futurism to the Present. New

York/Londen: Thames and Hudson, 2001 (1979).

• Gracyk, Theodor. Rhythm and Noise. Durham, North Carolina:Duke University

Press, 1996.

• Hayles, N. Katherine. ‘Voices out of bodies, bodies out of voices: audiotape and the

production of subjectivity.’ Morris, Adelaide, ed.. Sound States: innovative poetics

and acoustical technologies. Chapel Hill/Londen: The university of North Carolina

Press, 1997: 74-96.

48

• Haynes, Jim. ‘This music is difficult. The Obscure organisation, version 2006.

http://www.obscure.org/~rgluck/DifficultMusic.htm

• Hehn, Richard. ‘Spiele Ohne Grenzen.’ Parapluie, 14, 2002.

http://parapluie.de/archiv/theater/performance

• Henderson, Dave. ‘Wild Planet!’ EST-web, versie 17-02-2003 (1983).

http://media.hyperreal.org/zines/est/articles/wplanet.html

• Huey, Steve. ‘Einstürzende Neubauten. ’Allmusic Guide (AMG). All Media Guide.

Versie mei 2006. http://www.allmusic.com

• Kahn, Douglas. Noise, Water Meat: a history of sound in the arts. Londen: The MT

Press, 2001 (1999)

• Kalb, Jonathan. ‘On Hamletmachine: Müller and the Shadow of Artaud.’ New

German Critique. No. 73, Winter 1998: 47-66

• Kopf, Biba. ‘The Primer. Einstürzende Neubauten.’ The Wire. Nr 194, 2000: 38-44.

• Kristeva, Julia. Vert. Leon S. Roudiez. Powers of horror, an essay on abjection.

New York: Colombia University Press, 1982 (1980).

• Kromhout, Melle. Einig/mit meinem ungeteilte Selbst. Belichaming in “die

Hamletmaschine” van Heiner Müller en de Einstürzende Neubauten. Amsterdam:

unpublished, 2006.

• Lechte, John. ‘Art, Love and Melancholy in the work of Julia Kristeva.’ Fletcher,

John, Andrew Bejamin, ed. Abjection, Melancholia and Love: the work of Julia

Kristeva. New York: Routledge, 1990.

• Müller, Wolfgang, ed. Geniale Dilletanten. Berlin: Merve Verlag, 1982.

• Oosterling, Henk. De Opstand van het lichaam. Over verzet en zelfervaring bij

Foucault en Bataille. Amsterdam: Sua, 1989.

• Poel, Ieme van der. ‘Julia Kristeva.’ Doorman, Maarten, Heleen Pott, ed. Filosofen

van onze tijd. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2000: 313-326.

• Reynolds, Simon. ‘Noise.’ Cox, Christoph, Daniel Warner, ed. Audio Culture,

readings in modern music. New York: Continuum Group, 2004: 55-58.

• Russo, Mary, Daniel Warner. ‘Rough Music, Futurism, and Postpunk Industrial

Noise Bands.’ Cox, Christoph, Daniel Warner, ed. Audio Culture, readings in

modern music. New York: Continuum Group, 2004: 47-54.

• Sangild, Torben. The Aesthetics of noise. Copenhagen: Datanom, 2002.

• Sarko, Anita. ‘On Blixa!’ Details, 04-1990: 107-108.

• Sonntag, Susan. ‘Approaching Artaud.’ Under the sun of Saturn. New York: Farar

Straus Giroux, 1980: 17-67.

49

• Spielman, Katherine. ‘Einstürzende Neubauten on Broadway.’ Puncture, zomer,

1984: 12-14.

• Terpstra, Martin. ‘Kristeva, Bataille, Céline.’ Te Elfer Ure, 40, jrg. 90, nr. 2, 1986:

213-230.

• Ullmaier, Johannes. ‘Einstürz auf Raten: Die Einstürzende Neubauten auf den weg

von E nach U.’ Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, 158.2 March-April 1997: 20-25.

• Vague, Tom. ‘Barbells for Bonzo. Einstürzende Neubauten.’ Zig-Zag, 11-1985: 56-

57.

• Schütte, Uwe. Basis-Diskothek Rock und Pop. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun., 2004.

VIDEOGRAPHY

• Maeck, Klaus, Johanna Schenkel. Einstürzende Neubauten, Liebeslieder. Duitsland:

!K7 records, 1993.

• Beetz, Christian, Birgit Herdlitschke. Seele Brennt, Einstürzende Neubauten.

Duitsland: Good!movies, 2000.

• Whitney, John. Einstürzende Neubauten. Justification no longer necessary. United

States: Brainwashed Inc, 2004.

http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1044&Item

id=61

AUDIOGRAPHY

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Moon, 1.April. Eisengrau, 1980(a).

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Stahlmusik. Eisengrau/Rip Off, 1980(b).

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Kollaps. Indigo, 2001 (1981).

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T.. Indigo, 2002 (1983).

• Einstürzende Neubauten. 2x4. ROIR, 1997 (1984).

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Strategies Against Architecture '80-'83. Mute, 1995 (1984)

• Einstürzende Neubauten. 1/2 Mensch. Indigo 2002 (1985).

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Fünf auf der nach oben offenen Richterskala. Indigo 2002

(1987).

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Haus der Lüge. Indigo, 2002 (1989).

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Strategies Against Architecture II. Mute, 1991.

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Silence is Sexy. Mute, 2000.

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Supporters Album Live und Rare. Own publisher, 2004(a).

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Kalte Sterne, Early Recordings. Mute, 2004(b).

50

• Goodstein, Michael. ‘Interview with Blixa Bargeld.’ Choking on Cufflinks with

Michael Goodstein. New York: WFMU 91.1fm, 09-02-2004.

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/10359

9. Example-CD content

01 - Abfackeln! (Live 1984) (excerpt)

51

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Supporters Album Live und Rare. Own publisher, 2004(a).

02 - Hör mit Schmerzen (1981) (excerpt)

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Kollaps. Indigo, 2001 (1981): track 6

03 - Atomarer Walzer-sprachlos (Live 1980) (excerpt)

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Moon, 1.April. Eisengrau, 1980: track

04 - Kein Bestandteil sein (Live 1980) (excerpt)

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Stahlmusik. Eisengrau/Rip Off, 1980: track

05 - Leid und Elend (Live 1987) (excerpt)

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Strategies Against Architecture II. Mute, 1991: track

06 - Falschgeld (1983) (excerpt)

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T.. Indigo, 2002 (1983) : track

07 - Finger und Zahne (1983)

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T.. Indigo, 2002 (1983) : track

08 – Armenia (1983) (excerpt)

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T.. Indigo, 2002 (1983) : track

09 - Seele brennt (1985) (excerpt)

• Einstürzende Neubauten. 1/2 Mensch. Indigo 2002 (1985) : track

10 - Die genaue Zeit (1983) (excerpt)

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T.. Indigo, 2002 (1983) : track

11 - Draussen ist feindlich (1981)

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Kollaps. Indigo, 2001 (1981): track 5

12 - 1/2 Mensch (1985) (excerpt)

• Einstürzende Neubauten. 1/2 Mensch. Indigo 2002 (1985) : track

13 - Steh auf Berlin (1981) (excerpt)

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Kollaps. Indigo, 2001 (1981): track 2

14 - Zeichungen des Patienten O.T. (1983) (excerpt)

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T.. Indigo, 2002 (1983) : track

15 - Prolog & Feurio (1989) (excerpt)

• Einstürzende Neubauten. Haus der Lüge. Indigo, 2002 (1989) : track 1 & 2