Reken er niet op dat Einstürzende Neubauten zonder slag of stoot een nieuw album uitbrengt. Het moet telkens iets speciaals zijn, een statement. ‘Rampen’ is de zoektocht naar nieuwe vormen, naar onontdekte tonen en nog niet eerder uitgesproken woorden. Sinds hun oprichting in april 1980 wil EN niet alleen het onhoorbare hoorbaar maken, maar ook het ongehoorde. Noem het alien pop music zoals de ondertitel van het nieuwe album luidt. Blixa Bargeld, N.U. Unruh, Alexander Hacke en die andere compromisloze Berlijners bouwen sinds de jaren 80 steeds ruimte in hun livesets in voor Öffentliche Improvisationen mit offener Entwicklung und Ausgang, zogenaamde Rampen. Popmuziek voor paralleluniversums en tussenwerelden. Voor hyperruimtes en interzones. Microcosmisch en intergalactisch. ‘Rampen’ is een demimondaine bewering over vergankelijkheid en toekomst en als die er niet is dan is er altijd nog Einsturzende Neubauten. ‘Wie Lange Noch?’
2LP - Limited Edition Deluxe 180g Yellow Vinyl with embossed and numbered cover, printed inner sleeves, poster and 5 photo cards of the band members.
Einstürzende Neubauten present their new album. RAMPEN (apm: alien pop music). They search for new forms - pursuing undiscovered sounds and unspoken words.
Since the band was founded on April 1, 1980, Einstürzende Neubauten have been shifting the parameters of mainstream and subculture to make the inaudible audible - perhaps the unheard as well. This experimental field research, spanning more than four decades, is now entering the next stage.
In its 44th year of existence, the band is going back to its roots while redefining itself. It’s a change in self-image, for which the Berlin quintet plus one has created its own genre in 2024: apm – alien pop music.
Constant evolution – that’s how Einstürzende Neubauten’s body of work can best be summarized. A musical evolution, which began with the debut album Kollaps in 1981 and is now being manifested with the release of the album Rampen – apm: alien pop music in April 24, on which Blixa Bargeld, N. U. Unruh, Alexander Hacke, Jochen Arbeit, Rudolph Moser and Felix Gebhard present themselves from their most unpredictable and unconventional sides. On their new album, the Neubauten now put an – albeit belated – end to all sound speculations.
Since the mid-1980s, Einstürzende Neubauten have been experimenting on stage with what they call “ramps”: public improvisations with open developments and outcomes; launchpads into the still unexplored that the band performed in 2022 during the encore on its last Alles in Allem tour and those recordings served as the basis for the new album.
Rampen – apm: alien pop music is pop music for parallel universes and in-between worlds - for hyperspaces and interzones. It is microcosmic and intergalactic at the same time. It’s a demi-sophisticated claim outside of all physical laws, with which the Einstürzende Neubauten enter a stylistic no man’s land between the past and future. There’s a return to the roots on one side, while a new art form emerges on the other from powerful eruptions of noise encountering cryptic, often fragmentary lyrics: Popular music for aliens and outcasts. Anti-pop has become alien pop. Outlandish. Spun like a cocoon. Unheard. Sonus inauditus. Not unintentionally, the reduced artwork on the cover is reminiscent of the iconic layout on the Beatles’ White Album. “It’s based on the idea that the Einstürzende Neubauten are just as famous in another solar system as the Beatles are in our world,” Blixa Bargeld said, remarking on the balancing act between avant-garde and tongue-in-cheek, provocation and pop-cultural discontinuity.
This approach also directly defines the central theme running like a common thread through all the songs: change, utopian mind games and transience.
“On the album, I found a few solutions and formulated things in ways I haven’t formulated them before, because they were never so clear to me. I’m somebody who believes you can attain knowledge through music. It’s always been that way. I follow the conviction I’ll find something in the music that I didn’t know before. And sing something that I didn’t know. Something that turns out to be true. Or, to take this down a notch, something that at least has meaning.” This album represents the next step in the evolution, where the familiar language is finally left behind, opening further, infinite possibilities: alien pop music.
Tracklist:
Disc #1
01. Wie Lange Noch?
02. Ist Ist
03. Pestalozzi
04. Es Könnte Sein
05. Before I Go
06. Isso Isso
07. Besser Isses
08. Everything Will Be Fine
Disc #2:
01. The Pit Of Language
02. Planet Umbra
03. Tar & Feathers
04. Aus Den Zeiten
05. Ick Wees Nich (Noch Nich)
06. Trilobiten
07. Gesundbrunnen
