I’ve been into, deeply into Einstürzende Neubauten since their 1983 album Zeichnungen des Patienten O. T. (or Drawings of Patient O. T.), having been introduced by WFMU back in the day.
During my Bennington College years, 1983 – 85, I would drive down to Toonerville Trolley in Williamstown, MA and hunt for the latest records from Neubauten, :zoviet*france:, Psychic TV, Cocteau Twins, etc. and always came away with something…tasty.
Since those days, Einstürzende Neubauten has kept busy and what’s more they never went down the road that inevitably leads to Vegas for ageing rockers whose once ‘edgy’ music has found its way into supermarkets a few decades later. Not so Neubauten.
Try rolling your cart to that.
Rampen (apm: alien pop music) is their latest, released today on the band’s own Potomak label and it was my Album of the Week before I heard a single note.
From an interview with Neubauten’s lead, Blixa Bargeld, on The Quietus:
“In another solar system, Einstürzende Neubauten would be as famous as The Beatles are in ours.”
…
“At first I wasn’t sure if calling the new album RAMPEN was such a good idea,” says Bargeld, “Which is why I gave it that subtitle, “Alien Pop Music”, inventing a new genre, APM. Don’t let pop music be given popularism by the majority – there is a minority pop music. Pop music for the different girls, pop music for the different boys, pop music for the aliens.”
…
“The dry wit has been overlooked in Neubauten for a long time,” he says. “We are taken far too seriously. Maybe it’s because we’re German, I don’t know. But it’s not just outside of Germany, it’s overlooked here too.”
…
“N.U. Unruh is the biggest Beatles fan under the heavens”, says Bargeld. “His idea was we call the album Gelb [yellow]. And I just thought maybe we just make it like the ‘White Album’ but make it yellow. So, it’s done in the same way: it’s a double album, with the embossed writing, a poster inside and photos of the individual members, and a number on the back. So it is clearly a reference. And clearly a joke also.”
I like jokes and the music Blixa Bargeld, N. U. Unruh, Alexander Hacke, Jochen Arbeit, Rudolph Moser and Felix Gebhard make on Rampen (apm: alien pop music) and I’m thinking that other solar system may be a more inhabitable place.