Intuitive Music

Einstüerzende Neubauten

Einstüerzende Neubauten was formed in Berlin in 1980 and was one of the most important electronic experimental groups that was formed solely to break the norms of musical composition.

The band, which name means “Collapsing New Buildings”, was founded by Blixa Bergald and N.U. Unruh in Berlin 1980 as part of a modern folk music movement. They were influenced by the Dadaist movement, experimental pioneers such as Can, and the industrial figures of Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle.

During the first few years of the band, they played completely on improvisation using sounds and noise from power tools. On April the 1st 1980, Einstüerzende Neubauten played their live debut at Berlin’s Moon Club, performing a set-up of the Dadaistic musical movement the Genialen Dilettanten, featuring Beate Bartel, Gudrun Gut, Blixa Bargeld (Christian Emmerich) and N. U. Unruh (Andrew Chudy). The two female members Bartel and Gut left the band later to form the female band Mania D.

Einstürzende Neubauten’s “Kollaps” debut album was released in 1981, after the joining of the percussionist Frank Martin Straub, alias FM Einheit, to the band. The album was a curious fusion of rough punk rock and industrial noises.

During their first German tour, Brittish Mark Chung joined the band and later also the sound technician Alexander von Borsig became a member to form the classic line-up that lasted for the next ten years.

In 1983, Einstürzende Neubauten recorded their second album “Zeichnungen des Patienten O. T.” inspired on a book by Leo Navratil about Oswald Tschirtner’s art. Blixa Bergald eventually quit in 1983 to join Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, but the group still occasionally has released albums during the last decade.

The period between 1985 and 1989 was the most popular of the band. The next album “Halber Mensch” (1985) was an important breakthrough for the band’s style which became more structured and melodic. The albums “Fünf Auf Der Nach Oben Offenen Richterskala” (1987) and “Haus der Lüge” gained international success.

In 1991, the band recorded the soundtrack for Heiner Müller’s theatre play Die Hamletmaschine. Their album Tabula Rasa, released in 1993, became an essential work of industrial electronic music and the band’s sound became more oriented to bigger audiences, this provoking the departure of Mark Chung and Frank Martin Straub from the band.

The last 90’s shaw Einstüerzende Neubauten releasing the LP “Ende Neu” (1996) and the joint of members Jochen Arbeit and Rudi Moser to the band. In 2000, Einstürzende Neubauten released their 20 Anniversary album “Silence Is Sexy” and a year later began the work on a forthcoming album without a contract with a record label, which was supported economically on the internet by 2000 fans who signed up to get the work finished and published.