Einsturzende Neubauten

[kenjari]

The Neubauten show last night was wonderful. They are terrific live: they do slightly different versions of the songs, and you can see what they're doing to make those sounds.
For those who are unfamiliar with EN, they are one of the original industrial bands. And when I say industrial, I don't mean a bunch of guys with samplers, I mean a bunch of guys with scrap metal, plastic tubing, jet turbines, etc. Their music ranges from noisy and chaotic (Armenia, Durstiges Tier) to sublimely beautiful (Keine Shoenheit onhne Gefahr, Boreas). Over the 25 years they've been in existence, their music has become less amorphous and more tightly structured, but it's always been creative and fascinating.
Oddly enough epilimnion and I first encountered Einsturzende Neubauten via MTV of all things. The last place you would ever think to encounter a little-known German industrial band. But we caught a clip of one of their performances on 120 Minutes in the early 1990s and were transfixed.
As I said, the show was terrific. I went with Other Kenjari, anacrusis, and epilimnion. I was pleasantly surprised at some of the material the band included in their set, particularly Armenia, which is a very intense piece, and Neun Arme, which the band said they've never performed live until this tour. I was also pleased to hear Haus der Luge, I Wish This Could Be Your Colour, and Ende Neu, even though I pretty much expected them. Ende Neu is especially good live, since it features all the members of the band playing various plastic tubes and pipes as percussion instruments.
Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, Einsturzende Neubauten was able to provide something quite unique at the show: CDs of the performance we had just heard. They were recording the show, and then quickly burning and packaging the CDs so that they would be available shortly afterwards. By the time the crowd had filtered out to the lobby of the club, the CDs were there.
I'm pretty tired here at work, but it was well worth it.

Comments

[anacrucis.livejournal.com]

yeah.