INSTRUCTIONS NEW CONSTRUCTIONS - Lament

Kategorie: CD-Reviews | Genre: Avantgarde | Heft: Jahrgang 2014, eclipsed Nr. 166 / 12-2014 | VÖ-Jahr: 2014 | Wertung: 8/10 | Label: BMG | Autor: WK


How did Rapper Ice-T warn so nicely in 1993 at the beginning of his CD "Home Invasion": "This is not a pop album". The same applies to the new CD of Einstürzende Neubauten. This is not a pop or rock record, but a conceptual work in the triangle of sound sculpture, audio book and musical memory work. The First World War is certainly not an issue that you just shoot from the hip. Not even Blixa Bargeld, whose holster sits directly behind the front plate, can do this. "Lament" is an unusual CD even for the conditions of the Einstürzende Neubauten. For the first time, cash and its derivatives have not worked their way formally and structurally up to a topic, but rather in terms of content. This work has been correspondingly heterogeneous. Similar to John Heartfield's posters, it is a montage of opposites that demands the listener's full attention. Bargeld and his assistants have processed many historical sources, partly using original audio documents of the time, partly reassembling texts from the First World War. Some have a purely documentary character, others approach the subject from a sensual perspective. There is room for a timeline as well as for an improvisation on the barbed wire harp. The fact that the result as a whole never has a didactic or moralising effect is due above all to the fact that the new buildings have never lost sight of humour. There are many cabaret features in the style of the early twentieth century. The emotional climax is a piece of recent date, but which thematically refers to war. The version of "Sag mir, wo die Blumen sind" (Tell me where the flowers are), accompanied only by an extremely minimalist bass guitar and a few percussive elements, gets under your skin against this conceptual background.

Top Track: Lament 1-3

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