Einstürzende Neubauten's "Blume" video (1993)

From pioneering German industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten, this terrific video for their song "Blume" that embodies the underground spirit of the time/scene. The song is on their 1993 album Tablua Rasa. Einstürzende Neubauten, which means "collapsing new buildings," often fashions their own instruments from scrap metal and construction tools. It makes sense then that the horn-like instrument seen in the video is a recreation of the Intonarumori, a musical contraption built by Italian Futurist artist Luigi Russolo, author of the 1913 manifesto L'Arte dei Rumori ("The Art of Noises"). I used a photo of the Intonarumori in my post on Tuesday announcing our new Boing Boing Music page. Einstürzende Neubauten (Thanks, kawayama and swalbr!)

• [dave]

  Their music is great, used some of it here on my light herder site:

  http://lightherder.blogspot.com/2010/01/blog-post.html

• [kmoser]

  I thought I was watching a Calvin Klein ad from the 1980s.

• [dpamac]

  I love anything with Blixa Bargeld. Personally, my favorite Einsturzende Neubauten video is “Sabrina.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnnGYaqjW-A

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Der morgige Tag ist mein He looks like the love child of Wolverine and end-stage Judy Garland.

• [Ashen Victor]

  I dont know what is more mesmerizing, the fantastic sound or the jazz hands…

• [Chris Wiggins]

  Blixa Bargeld cooking Risotto:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdBrATEMPjM

• [Josef Stalin]

  Never seen something so dubious and irresponsible. Well done. Keep up the good work!

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71sg-ThOQ6o

• [smonkey]

  here’s some nice video of the machines at work with details.

  http://vimeo.com/6539480

• [awjt]

  The Boing Boing Music page is GREAT!  Can you make it so that you don’t have to click through to listen to a song?  (i.e. make the teaser graphics the active links)

• [Partario Flynn]

  a better translation of this tremendous band’s name might be “demolishing skyscrapers”.

  • [Gyrofrog]

    I’m not sure that’s quite right; compare “The buildings collapsed.” vs. “The buildings demolished.”  For example, the former Berlin Congress Hall, which was indeed a collapsing new (i.e. post-war) building.

    • [Partario Flynn]

      true, but the band had already been formed and named before that happened, didn’t it?  it is entirely possible i’m reading more anti-modernity into their stuff than i should.

      • [Gyrofrog]

        [EDIT: You are] Not misreading anything, just that those neubauten could probably (not) take care of themselves.  (Trying to remember old grammar lessons – I think it’s transitive vs. intransitive? “She’s running the show” vs. “She’s running away.”)  OTOH I recall an interview in which either Blixa or N.U. Unruh, when asked if or how they set a building ablaze as part of a background image, said something to the effect of “it’s really simple, just set it ablaze.” Though that may have been an altbauten.

        I didn’t really keep up with them after Fünf auf der nach oben offenen Richterskala, but at one point something “clicked” for me and those albums following Kollaps no longer sounded noisy (nor extreme) at all. I started thinking about their earlier material (especially the live recording 2 x 4)  more as “world music” than anything else (although I know that term makes some cringe) – moreso when I found the recording that “Armenia” excerpts (it’s an Ocora disc, called, simply, Armenie IIRC).

    • [swlabr]

      Wikipedia: “The band name is usually translated into English as “Collapsing New Buildings”. Neubauten (“new buildings” in English) is a general term referring to buildings constructed in Germany after 1945. These are often regarded as cheaper, flimsier, and less aesthetically attractive than Altbauten, or pre-1945, especially pre-modernist buildings. Due to the extensive destruction throughout Germany during the Second World War, and the extensive rebuilding thereafter, Neubauten constitute a very familiar element of German cities.”

  • [mindysan33]

    I’m not a German expert (by ANY stretch of the imagination), but I’ve always seen it translated into English as “collapsing new buildings”.  Would someone who is a native speaker of the language translate it as “demolishing skyscrapers”?  I don’t know…

    Either way, I’ve always taken it as a conceptual idea – fundamentally questioning what we mean by the modern – so both translations could apply here. I thought the Neubauten part was a reference to bauhaus modernism, more than a physical building – more what a modern building means about the modern world. 

    Maybe I’m wrong…  I’ve been a fan since the 90s, but I’m not a fan girl who knows all the ins and outs of the band…

    • [Antinous / Moderator]

      I was under the impression that it should be idiomatically translated as ‘slipshod construction’.

      • [paulcarcosa]

        That’s a bingo.

        (And “demolishing skyscrapers” is quite off the mark.)

    • [TheMudshark]

      I would actually translate it as “collapsing new buildings” just like you wrote first. I.m.o., neither “demolishing skyscrapers” nor “slipshod construction” would be accurate. The name to me has always conveyed a general lust for the act of destruction, be it the destruction of buildings, systems, societal standards or whatever else.

      See for example lyrics such as the ones for “Krieg in den Städten:

      Aufstehn/Hinlegen
      Verbrannte Erde
      Ich steh auf Viren
      Ich steh auf Chemie
      Aufstehn
      Abstürzen
      Einstürzen
      In die Luft sprengen
      Krieg unter Autos
      Ich steh auf Feuer
      Ich steh auf Rauch
      Ich steh auf Drogen
      Ich steh auf Krach
      und ich steh auf Steine
      Ich hol dich nicht raus
      Ich steh auf Zermalmen
      Ich steh auf Krankheit
      Ich steh auf Niedergang
      Ich steh auf Ende
      Ich steh auf Schluß
      Ich steh auf Aus
      Ich steh auf Hölle

      Standing up/lying down
      Scorched earth
      I´m into Viruses
      I´m into chemicals
      Standing up
      Falling down
      Collapsing
      Blowing up
      War under cars
      I´m into fire
      I´m into smoke
      I´m into drugs
      I´m into noise
      and I´m into stones
      I´m not getting you out
      I´m into crushing
      I´m into sickness
      I´m into demise
      I´m into ending
      I´m into finish
      I´m into “off”
      I´m into hell

• [dexitroboper]

  And the vocal is by Anita Lane http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9jiio_anita-lane-jesus-almost-got-me_music

• [Flugfrei Jones]

  great track. their “faustmusik” is a mainstay in my cd changer (not that the old bastard gets much use anymore)

• [swlabr]

  I just love this video. I could watch it repeatedly. The understated and haunting music, mixed with that odd Germanic sense of humour. The little cabinet that Blixa keeps retreating into, and the Chrysanthemum described as an “urgent star”… it comes together in an unusual way.  

• [niktemadur]

  Einstürzende Neubauten’s “Blume” video, presented by State Farm!  What the hell…?
  What will they think of next, Throbbing Gristle’s “Discipline (Berlin)”, presented by Pfizer?

  • [David Pescovitz]

    If we’re lucky.

• [SunShine_K]

  Faints at the sight of Blixa….THANK YOU a million times.

• [Noddy Ninetythree]

  all this translation talk is doing is making me want to listen to Fad Gadget

• [Jack Orenstein]

  0:46-0:48. Is that Richard Lewis?

• [Noctilucent Studios]

  Haunting….bet this is the kind of thing David Lynch sees in his nightmares.

• [TheMudshark]

  Quintessential Neubauten to me will always be their industrial noise stuff:

  Krieg in den Städten:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdZKT4RhSGo&feature=plcp

  Schmerzen Hören:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd6luAaojSs

  Negativ Nein:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDwY92R8WAw

  Even though all of this should objectively be unpleasant to listen to, for some reason to me it never was. Love it in fact.

• [Christopher Lindley]

  Yeah – their industrial stuff.  If you like this sort of thing, then you might enjoy “Strategies Against Architecture”.  Here’s my pick:  ‘Armenia’ from their great video Halber Mench (1985?), stuck against Zeichnungen Des Patienten O T:  http://youtu.be/7IL__IAyBuE

  Einstürzende Neubauten:  The reason I can’t be bothered with “Green Day”.

• [Michael Cate]

  Blixa did some commercials for Hornbach, which I believe is a German hardware store chain.  They’re commercials are pretty awesome:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj95bNoPyrY 

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgo4uWVykoo 

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gRQAZ93ihY 

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH0wkTHcVXw

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INeVnqTEmsI

  Silikatfarbe!