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Posted on 2007 by MG

1/2 Mensch

The Einstürzende Neubauten occupy that border territory where aesthetics linked to both rock and the German noise scene deriving from musique concrète converge. Unlike the latter, however, they tend to insert concrete material into a rock form, typically with percussive functions (on metal and wooden objects) or drones (using drills, milling cutters, and band saws).

They are among the founders of the Industrial movement that shook the European (and beyond) music scene in the early 1980s with their use of atypical instruments, including jackhammers, sheet metal, hoses, compressors, and other elements capable of creating an alienating, dissonant sound, representative of modern industrial civilization.

From the 1990s onwards, their destructive fury was tempered by more linear songs.
I have to say, I preferred them as iconoclasts, as in this approximately 9-minute excerpt from Sogo Ishii's film Halber Mensch (Half Humans).

A 9 minutes excerpt from the Sogo Ishii film Halber Mensch (half humans) featuring the Einstürzende Neubauten.


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