REPOST:MONDO 2000 Einstruzende Neubauten Interview (by popular request)
Jester
Article originally appeared in Mondo 2000, Issue No 11, Winter 1993
Blixa Einstuerzende:
Bargeld Harassed
by Kennith Laddish and Mark Dippe'
They stood out from the morning's delivery of musical junkmail, two slim
Eurostyle packages with Northern Renaissance graphics. Einstuerzende Neubauten:
Tabula Rasa-German and Latin words I hoped would spell relief from the sampled,
sequenced, Hyphenated-Kletopop: Alternative-Grunge-House, Techno-ska, Gangsta-
Jazz..
Before digital samples existed, Neubauten used tape loops for found
percussion and sampling. Before Trent Renzor's testes descended, EN had largely
abandoned chain saws and drills for the subtler textures of rocks and razor
blades on glass...
I was prepared for something to make my neighbors move away-but, as I
overheard at their performance: "They're actually playing music." Blixa Bargeld,
past member of the tormented caterwaul, straight-up sings-and he has a voice!
I compressed a sound kilobyte and fired it through the Internet to my
man Mark Dippe', cyberpunk poster boy and infant terrible at Industrial Light
& magic. By day Mark deals with digital dinosaurs, but at night he hangs with
living monsters in the murky borderlands of Performance Art. Equally happy with
neo-Tyrolean bloodletting rituals, Mark was eager to join me for an evening of
baiting Blixa.
Blixa Bargeld is-as front man and lyricist-Einstuerzende Neubauten, a
long with NU Unruh, Mark Chung, Alexander Hacke, and FM Einheit. he is also
infamous as the guitarist for Nick Cave's Bad Seeds, and for Wim Wonders' film
cameos, and his galloping groupies. But erase from your memory the graffiti
scrawled about him by mainstream urinalists. We offer him a clean slate.
-Kenneth Laddish
TABULA RASA
We meet Herr Bargeld for dinner at his rock'n'roll motel. He is
ineffably pale in an ebony suit, smoking contemplately, affecting not to
see us. He is Bowie's Thin White Duke, or perhaps a never-aging St. German.
More like Huysman's des Essientes than a Dieter from Sprockets. A vampire-poet,
an undead monochrome dandy. We exchange introductions and welcome him to our
city. He does not offer his hand.
MONDO 2000: Blixa, I know you hate journalists. That's OK: I hate
pop stars. But we're not journalists-and while you're certainly a star, I
don't think you music has ever been exactly popular.
BLIXA BARGELD: I don't hate journalists; I hate what they write. What do
you have against popstars?
M2: How do you talk with people who have nothing to say? But your Tabula
Rasa IS a statement. And its music, text, and graphics harmonize
perfectly. Is it intentionally a Gesamtkunstwerk?
BB: Definitely-but still you should see the European original. It's part
of a three-record set: Interim, Tabula Rasa and Malediction. We were
lucky to get Tabula produced even approaching the quality of the
original. The American Interim is a highly abridged EP. Mute has
promised to release Maldeiction, but not as we originally conceived it.
MARK DIPPE': It's good to holler about things like this in print:
condition might improve.
M2: Unless Mute is also deaf! This record is a departure from your
earlier work, often called "unlistenable." Compared to Grunge and
Grindcore it's almost Easy Listening. Does Tabula Rasa represent a new
musical beginning?
BB: Not in the sense that we erase our past. Tabula Rasa references our
new label. It also refers to our liberation from Some Bizarre, who didn't
pay us for 7 years-our eternal suit against each other was finally
settled in our favor... though we still haven't received a penny. Tabula
Rasa is als simply a beautiful expression.
STILLENBENSRAUM
MD: I like the Renaissance stillben [still-life] references in the
artwork-triple entendre, visual puns... Strange, perverse happenings
here?
BB: Our working title for the project was Still-life with explosives,
and this concept wormed its way into every aspect of the production.
Within the formal methodology of the still-life, the table-tabula,
tableau-represents the universe... The various elements en
tableau-fruit, flowers, or rotting meat-are always symbols, metaphors.
Have you seen our fly? No? The circular ridges which CD disk snap onto
are called "spiders" in the industry. Have a look at ours.
M2: A fly! An Old Master fly inside the "spider." Leave no turn
unstoned... Only master craftsman and serious speedfreaks.
BB: There is a different fly for each album of the trilogy. The come
from the still-life by Ambrosius Bosschaert the Younger reproduced on
the front cover.
STILL HERMETIC AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
MD: This imagery really speaks to me: overripe half eaten fruit crawling
with flies, a glass of wine and a locust. It radiates pestilence... Hey!
There are wires sticking out of this cantaloupe!
BB: I have embedded perhaps a dozen puzzles into the record, with all
the clues an intelligent person needs to solve them. I know our new
material seems more accessible, but that is only on the surface. It
remains elitist and hermetic underneath. Why do we have a song called
"Zebulon"? One of the songs is a palindrome. Did you know that if you
take the first letter from each of the songs we have ever done it spells
out the true meaning of the universe?
M2: Really?
BB: No, but I will tell you that work is compose of many independent
fragments, particles that go in different directions. This interview is
itself one of these particles. The idea of the "Opus"- a complete work,
created in a vacuum, unchanged 'til the end of the world-is
anachronistic. We wanted to do something totally dynamic: a still-life
that explodes in different directions.
M2: When you hear the word "industrial," do you reach for your potato gun?
BB: This term is no longer used in other areas of the world-only in
America. The whole non-existent genre was conceived by your record
industry as a marketing ploy.
M2: What arbitrary label would you prefer to have stuck to you?
BB: I think "Crossover: is good...
M2: Crossing over from what o what? FM (Einheit) classified the work as
"contemporary German Folk Music."
BB: That is satisfactory. We have also called it "Hard core New Age."
SCHWITTERING MACHINE
M2: I have always wanted to ask you: in your early work you must have
really tried to avoid falling into melodies, rhythms and similar
cliches.
BB: It was not difficult at all. We began in a state of pure musical
naivete', free of an cultural biases. Our music is not that unusual from
the Global POV-only in terms of Pop's Eurocentric harmonic chauvinism.
M2: Is EN a continuation of the prewar Atonal movement?
BB: Scloenberg, Berg, Webern... Neubauten! [laughing] I should say yes,
and break into the huge Serialism and Chromatism market. In truth we are
much closer to Kurt Schwitters that to Arnold Scloenberg. I can tell you
now from the beginning we had absolutely no concept of music whatsoever.
Our body of work records our progress of self-education, which continues
to this day. At first we studied sounds themselves, working with objets
trouves, tape loops. Later we progressed to structure, eventually coming
to grasp the concept of rhythm. Now that we're discovering harmonics, I
think we're doing pretty good. Melody was something we couldn't
comprehend before.
M2: I've been listening to your music for years. I used to hear it as
violent dadaistic catharsis. Now these same works sound highly restrained
to me.
BB: Just as I predicted 10 years ago! In 1980 I said that the entire pop
culture would change while we would remain the same, and that day would
come when our "noise" would sound like their new "music." A really
radical change has taken place. Starting in Rap and Hip-Hop, and now
everywhere is all this noise. I am almost sick of it now that everyone
one is doing it.
M2: Others tend to decontextualize source material, reducing it to pure
aesthetics. You seem aware of the attributes of your instruments.
BB: Yes, the semiotics. When we are at our best, our sounds form
sentences as surely as words, which reinforces on another level what we
are trying to express. The idea of using sound, stepping away from notes,
occurred to BeBop and earlier generations of the avant garde. But add to
this quality of what the instrument actually is: this is burning oil. Put
in a certain context you compose a sentence dealing with burning oil.
PLEASE, NOT YOU TOO!
M2: Didn't Depeche Mode sample you?
BB: Yes, for their hit "People are People." They had guts to admit doing
it. They actually asked us to support them on their European tour, but
it didn't work out. of course now we're going to be touring with U2
[laughter all around]
M2: let the record indicate that Blixa brought this up himself, without
any prompting. Their name certainly comes up a lot around here.
MD: I can see it now: a couple of sledgehammers could turn their video
wall into a found orchestra. I love the subtle undertones you get from
exploding cathode ray tubes. You could "find" The Edge's guitar and let
it do a duet with your burning oil. That might sound good...
M2: beamed around the world with their live network feed and personal
satellite uplink!
BB: I don't think they'll let us do that!
M2: Will you let them suck up all your proprietary Berlin imagery into
their imager processors? Truning Trabis into U2-mobiles, dancing on the
ruins of the Wall like it was their healing message that brought it
down! They want to sample you, not your music-you SOUL. The Spy Plane
wants to make you a PET GERMAN IN THEIR ZOO.
UH OH: DIPPE'S DOING IT AGAIN
MD: Hey, give the guy a break. Bono is probably a hardcore Berling kinda
guy. Hangs at Bahnhof Zoo every night sharing needles with junkies
prostitutes.
M2: Not! He's a good Catholic boy-Achtung Blixa, The will fuck you over.
Like Burroughs said: "If you are doing business with a religious
son-of-a-bitch, get it in writing-his word isn't worth shit, not with
the Good Lord telling him how to fuck!"
BB: We just got the fax yesterday. We are supposed to open for them
tomorrow in Rotterdam. The Edge seems to have requested us. We have
never supported anyone before so we decided to see what it's like.
MD: What was it Breton said? That the ultimate artistic act is firing a
revolver blindly into a crowd of people...
M2: Er, when you first came out, everyone was outraged-but now you
attract crowds who like what you do. So if you're tired of preaching to
the perverted, it will be great fun for you: You'll know what it's like
to be hated again! These Benelux Benetton teenies will be expecting "One
life, one love..." but they'll get a dose of HEADCLEANER!
BB: That is what they are going to get!
ALL YOU NEED IS HEADCLEANER
MD: HEADCLEANER should satisfy the fans of your original work.
BB: The original "Headcleaner" was 45 minute live performance we did in
Vienna, in a midnight procession down Vienna's closed main street.
We performed in a specially designed vehicle, a giant skeletal steel
Phallus-tank. There were explosions, artificial-snow storms, huskies on
conveyor belts...with us playing a version of "Headcleaner" which will
never be equaled at full volume. Vienna is the most morbid of cities,
and the text dealt with natural catastrophes, such as Pliny's account of
the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. A good film was made of this event, but it
has been banned. We're working on a video from this footage, which we
will release over here.
M2: The transition from the prolonged tone to the wall of noise sounds
like it might be the sound of a real head-cleaning tape.
BB: It is actually two tones-the two opposed standard tunings for the
note used by the Viennese and Parisian schools-played simultaneously.
An allusion to the musical Cold War which divided Europe for years, with
repercussions still felt to this day. Headcleaner is a metaphor for a
mystical substance, a universal solvent, the Philosopher's Stone in
liquid form.
M2: Cool-you mean liquid acid? or is it some hallucinogen fresh out of Sandoz?
BB: I was speaking of an alchemical substance, you know? It's not the
same as a chemical substance
MD: Where can I find treatment for my alchemical dependency?
M2: Alchemists Anonymous?
TABLE O' RASTA
Where do pop acts stay when they play the Bay Area? The Phoenix, a piece
of Hollywood real estate grafted into the heart of San Fransico's
Tenderloin. It even features a Caribbean restaurant with authentic So
Cal cuisine. Blixa orders a rock shrimp quesedilla.
MD: You like Jamaican food: what do you like in music?
BB: generally I like things I cannot tell what is happening in four
bars. I like Henryk Gorecki, Symphony of Mournful Songs, third movement.
He's the first contemporary composer to make it onto the English charts
in a long time. And I rather like the Kronos Quartet.
M2: What do you think of Grunge?
BB: Is he from Finland? I'm surprised we are talking so much about Art.
M2: Art whom?
MD: Hanging out in Vienna you must know Herman Nitsch and Otto Muehl.
BB: Some of my favorite people are Actionists.
MD: Mine too. The Actionist's images have permeated the culture..
BB: We performed at the last Dokumenta that Joseph Bueys did. Aside from
ourselves and Bueys, the thing that really touched me was the Nitsch
Retrospective. It possesses a dimension I call "pressure", as in
physics. What do you think of Schwarzkogler?
MD: When his pictures were first published in America, it was presented
like, "Here's an artist who chopped off his own dick and bled to death
for performance art." So I had to find out more. Which lead me to Peter
Weibel-I worked with him on some virtual rituals-and from him I met
Nitsch. I was supposed to meet Otto Muehl but he got arrested.
SEX DRUGS AND REICH AND ROLL
BB: People see Schwarzkogler as a horrific character. The look at his
S&M fantasies, but his pictures are quite beautiful. he was a true
romantic. I know on of his best friends who doesn't believe he
suicided. Otto's in jail right now, for supposedly having sex with
minors again. It's sick really-he's Reichian and he has two camps, on in
the Alps and one in the Canary Islands, the two camps of the so-called
AA commune.
MD: That's great, creating a cult as an art piece:the artist as God who
demands sex from everybody.
BB: It's not like hat! It's not a cult: it's based on Wilhelm Reich's
thinking. The women have the only rooms and they choose whom they'll
sleep with. These communes have been in existence for a long time.
Somehow a video was released and used to convict Muehl. The woman judge
called it the sickest thing she'd ever seen...
M2: AA? Does this have something to do with the Crowley A:A, the "Great
White Brotherhood?" I could see them using Reich for cover these days.
Crowley's got a bad rep.
BB: For good reason. Wilhelm reich has nothing to do with Crowley! AA
stands for something totally different! Reich, you know? Orgone
accumulators. Bions. Vegetotherapy! And, of course sex...
M2: I'm down. But Crowley... If you think Crowley was crazy, read his
Diary of a Drug Fiend. And if you think Reich was sane read his
self-suppressed Contact With Space.
BB: Reich's work is better known in America than in Europe, so maybe you
know better. You should-it was you folks who fucking killed him!
REACH-KILLERS WANT TO KNOW
M2: How did you feel about the Red Army Faction when you were growing
up? I liked the hands-on-the-trigger approach to having war criminals
for parents.
BB: The RAF were my heroes.
MD: Are you in sense terrorists? Einstuerzende Neubauten translates as
"Collapsed New Buildings," which reminds me of J.G. Ballard's book
High-rise. A future of a 400-story politically independent superstructure,
with competing cultures on different floors, like towering Bosnia. These
buildings need to be collapsed.
BB: That's interesting, but the name Einstuerzende Neubauten is not
originally an anarchist slogan. It's an architectural phenomenon, like
your "sick building syndrome." Neubau means "new built"-the official
designation for postwar. Mant Neubautens were constructed of
steel-reinforced concrete;the walls are held in place by the ceilings,
and the weight of the floor above stabilizes the building. But
succumbing to "material stress", they are known to
collapse-einstuerzende-of themselves. The classic example of this was
the Berlin Kongresshalle, which was a gift from your government. This
collapsed in the first week after we formed. it seemed like a good omen.
M2: How do you feel about Berlin?
BB: I love the Potsdamerplatz-in that empty lot is a greater historical
presence that anywhere I know. The Nazi Government ministries were
here-gone without a trace. The wall went straight through it, and now
even that is gone, every last piece sold to American tourists. Of
course, now it's the most valuable real estate in the world and has been
bought up by Sony and Mercedes-Benz.
ALTWELTSCHMERZ
MD: Do you see WWII as a pivotal event in your psyche-that destruction?
BB: I will tell you two things about our psyche. First, I refer you to
Walter Benjamin's essay on the destructive character, which he describes
as handsome and friendly, whose only motto is "to create space." How do
you think a destructive personality creates space? This is another
tie-in to einstuerzende.
The Nebau/Altbau dichotomy points to historical dimension oin
our work. It's not architectural destruction that haunts us. It's the
rift torn in the culture of Europe and especially Germany. The prewar
avant-garde tradition was completely severed. There was no German
tradition one could refer to without feeling guilty. That culture which
existed before the war is rightly forbidden to us, because of what it
lead to-or at best, did not prevent. Connect the "destructive
character" with this historical perspective and you have a key to our
method and madness. It means that love songs are possible.
M2: You see this as uniquely German? Our avant garde was destroyed..
BB: You had Bugs Bunny before, during and after the war. The war you
won. The point I am trying to make is that the German tradition is gone.
We hate our culture and our language. All our philosophy and music was
appropriated by the Nazi's: Durer, Bach, Friedrich N-Punkt! We cannot
redeem that tradition. We can only re-invent. This is the only way that
there can be love songs. There is a famous quotation-I believe its
Adorno-"After Auschwitz you can't write a poem anymore." He was right,
in his time, in that culture. I believe war created a space, a void that
makes it possible for me to re-invent German culture out of this pure
nothing.
M2: You are one of the few German artists that speaks in your own
tongue.
BB: For the last 20 years they tried to make people believe that you
can't do "rock" music in German. It's a cheap lie but everyone in our
country seems to believe it.
BEATLESCHMERZ
MD: You can. "Interimsliebenden" could be the biggest German language
international hit since the Beatles "Komm gibt mir dein Hand."
BB: i can't believe you would even mention THAT SONG in an interview
with me!
M2: Sorry Blixa...uh, but it is a beautiful song: the words are profound
[hastily covering his gaffe] I think you deserve more of a reputation as
a poet. This must be some of the finest contemporary verse in the German
language, and it comes across well in English too.
BB: Thank you. I do have an honorary professorship in Poetics from the
Vienna Academy of Arts. So I have not gone completely unnoticed.
MD: Your primary subject matter is not politics or philosophy, is it? It
almost seems that all your songs relate to an emotion-uh, what is the
word I am looking for...?
ALL YOU NEED IS...
BB: Love? I know you were ashamed to say the word, and so am I. Its
true:that's the basic subject. I know we are called Teutonic and
destructive, but now you know the truth.
M2: "Love"-who can define that?
BB: I can. A functional definition of love is that feeling shared by two
lovers in their kiss. Our single, "The Interimlovers/Die
Interimsliebenden," which is also the first rack on Tabula Rasa, is a
description of this kiss, and is thus a critical, dynamic definition of
love.
M2: Oh... OK!
--END
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"Smash the control images, smash the control machines." William S. Burroughs
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