Worth: $12.00
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Cast:
Blixa Bargeld, N.U. Unruh, Mark Chung, F.M. Einheit, Alexander Hacke
Intro:
… if you’re a fan of experimental music in general, or of noise-rock in particular, it’s worth a look.
The German band Einsturzende Neubauten – whose name translates as collapsing new buildings – is still going, but this documentary covers only their initial years, from 1980 to 1993.
In the early days, they were particularly enamoured of musical “brute force”, and the idea of developing rock into “pure noise”. Their extreme and uncompromising approach to the craft is apparent here in a plethora of ways, only some of them sonic. Recordings were made in such unlikely places as under an autobahn bridge and inside a watertower (in total darkness!), while the definition of instruments was expanded to encompass electric drills, bricks and jackhammers.
The prime focus here is, understandably, on Blixa Bargeld, the band’s singer, guitarist and main ideas man. His vocals are by turns anguished, ululating and hypnotically gentle, and he’s no slouch on guitar, as anyone who’s heard his work with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds can attest. But the philosophical underpinnings are intriguing too, and the whole ongoing ‘project’ is bound up with Bargeld’s literary and existentialist preoccupations. (Unfortunately, the manifestations of that often get lost in translation – or the lack of it, when he declaims over the music and there are hardly any subtitles.) The doco gets more engaging as it goes on, with the group’s style becoming more accessible – tuneful and sometimes dreamily sophisticated – without being remotely bland. There are moments, indeed, when the sheer sweep of the music makes it seem strangely orchestral.
Liebeslieder was shot on video, so most of it is no great shakes on the visual technical level. And frankly, some of the extended early live footage becomes a tedious racket, however interesting it may be conceptually. But if you’re a fan of experimental music in general, or of noise-rock in particular, it’s worth a look.
