The most exposure anyone seems to get to German music these days came from 7th grade German class. Die Prizen, Falco and perhaps Rammstein: these are Deutschland's representative musical groups. This country's musical legacy is more like a derailed Disney soundtrack: a series of cheesy one-hit wonders with a very limited American shelf life. , the newest album from the German band Einstrzende Neubauten (collapsing new buildings), may not have any one-hit wonders but it is definitely not without qualities that could turn off any American listener.
Known for their use of white noise and supplementing percussion with power tools, Einstrzende Neubauten's music sounds like what the nihilists from \The Big Lebowski"" would have listened to while lacing up their boots. , although more structured than Neubauten's earlier work, is mostly experimental sound that should have been released when cryptic lyrics and ambient pushed musical boundaries. Reciting lyrics over whirling ambient noise punctuated with electronic loops is no longer cutting-edge or artsy, it's just annoying. While Einstrzende Neubauten was integral in carving out the industrial genre in the 1980s, for which countless groups, from NIN to Skinny Puppy, are indebted, the band's influential days are over. is not a genre-destroying record but simply reasserts Neubauten's mastery of all things modern art and German.
Neubauten has never restrained their use of odd instruments to supplement tracks and continue to experiment on. Car tires, sheet metal and air compressors all contribute to the album's unique sound. The track ""Boreas,"" although devoid of air compressors, smacks of Gregorian influence. Acute and raucous percussive elements are scattered about the background, layered with round, mono-note vocals. In the title track, perhaps the catchiest on the album, an authentic industrial beat carries through militant bass riffs. However the lyrics are simply ridiculous: ""I'm on the way / with my invisible ice-cream machine / with my invisible open fireplace."" The song later devolves into one-word exclamations that closely resemble German vocabulary flashcards from the transportation chapter, ""Fahrstuhl (elevator) / Taxi (taxi) / Gepackwagen (baggage cart) / Flugzeug (airplane)."" Later in the album, the song ""Youme & Meyou"" allows for poppy grooves sweetened with violins and lyrics very much in English, an unexpected twist on an otherwise sheet-metal-heavy album.
Many listeners may be unable to identify with because it is unaccompanied by media hype, readily accessible sex appeal or even a catchy song; barriers extend well beyond language in this case. But, if nothing else, this album is unique and un-American in that there are very few Neubauten-like bands this side of the Atlantic. The German music industry evidently has very different standards for what constitutes a marketable group and while this is not a bad thing, it immediately ostracizes millions of music lovers, whose minds have been lip-glossed to death by one-too many Britney Spears face shots. requires very specific musical taste and quite a bit of patience. Without these, this album ist kaputt.
Einstrzende Neubauten's album, Perpetuum Mobile, was released by Mute Records.
