Concrète Dschungel: Einstürzende Neubauten’s Kollaps At 45

Neubauten's uncompromising debut album ‘Kollaps’ is 45 years old. Jeremy Allen explores the bombed-out terrain of their West Berlin and wonders if, despite the penurious conditions, it was easier to make art then

Feral musicians emerging from the rubble of bombed-out West Berlin (as composer György Ligeti described it, "a surrealist cage in which all those inside are free") and creating themselves out of their own blood and guts very much feels like a tale from another age. In a world of coffee shop startups, utilitarian computer software and ersatz bedroom electronica as aural wallpaper, building your own percussive instruments from scrap might seem primitive, complex, redundant even. But in 1981, when Einstürzende Neubauten made Kollaps, it was revolutionary.

For the briefest...

The post Concrète Dschungel: Einstürzende Neubauten’s Kollaps At 45 appeared first on The Quietus.