Einstürzende Neubauten "Silence is Sexy" Mute Records Limited CDSTUMM182
Disc 1 (68:37)
Sabrina (4:38)
Silence Is Sexy (7:00)
In Circles (2:30)
Newtons Gravitatlichkeit (2:01)
Zampano (5:40)
Heaven Is Of Honey (3:54)
Beauty (2:01)
Die Befindlichkeit Des Landes (5:41)
Sonnenbarke (7:49)
Musentango (2:15)
Alles (4:42)
Redukt (10:17)
Dingsaller (6:16)
Total Eclipse Of The Sun (3:53)
Disc 2 (18:33)
Pelikanol (18:33)
Einstürzende Neubauten is Alexander Hacke, N.U. Unruh, Jochen Arbeit, Rudi Moser and Blixa Bargeld.
Einstürzende Neubauten mark the 20th anniversary of their being with their most restrained effort to date. Why is this? Is it due to the parting of long time member FM Einheit and new members Jochen Arbeit (guitar) and Rudi Moser (percussion)? Is it a conscious decision to change their sound? I don't know. After listening to the album over the past few months I came to the conclusion that most of it was uninspired and bland. Then, on July 25th I saw the band perform nearly all of the songs from the album live and it gave me a whole new respect for them, essentially flip-flopping my previous opinion. Blixa sings about evenly in German and English, the latter being a bit more rigid than the former. Alexander Hacke's bass lines and Blixa's calm and collected vocals are the driving sexy forces on "Sabrina", "Silence is Sexy", "Heaven is of Honey", "Sonnenbarke" and "Total Eclipse of the Sun" with only a minimal amount of additional chorus vocals and instrumental accompaniment. "In Circles", "Die Befindlichkeit Des Landes" ("The Lay of the Land"), "Alles" ("Everything") and "Dingsaller" ("Howany") are a bit noisier with more use of plastic and metal percussion, bells, random channels from a tv and free falling objects. "Newtons Gravitatlichkeit / Zampano" is upbeat and busy with a steady pneumatic piston and percussion rhythm, horn blasts and plastic wind instruments. "Beauty" is a brief spoken interlude with Blixa reciting the complexities of beauty, "your arms would not be able to stretch as far as necessary to form an adequate gesture for beauty", over an ambient atmosphere. "Musentango" ("The Muses Tango") is a cute little dance with strings and gentle Spanish flavored percussion. "Redukt" ("Lost in Detail") provides the most aggressive moments of the album with the brief chorus title screams sandwiched between the otherwise refined moments. The second limited edition bonus disc contains the drab 18 and 1/2 minute improvisation "Pelikanol" which is mostly Blixa repeating a few lines and singing extended notes over an electric drill motor loop. I'm unsure if "Silence is Sexy" would have ever clicked for me without the live experience to enhance my impressions of the songs. There's a certain charm and beauty throughout the album that hopefully anyone can find with enough patience and open-mindedness. Ironic considering that with much of Neubauten's past work you had to search in the noise rather than the silence for the beauty ...
Where did I get this cd? - mail order via Riouxs Records.