EINSTURZENDE NEUBAUTEN Alles Wieder Offen (2xLP) (gatefold sleeve)

$

20

Einsturzende Neubauten

Alles Wieder Offen

Format: 2xLP

Record Label: Potomak

Condition: New

• Reissue on the band's own label - double album - gatefold sleeve - originally released in 2007

• Working outside normal record business market mechanisms, Einstürzende Neubauten recorded this album over some 200 days in their own studio funded by their world-wide network of supporters. The word on the international music scene was that Einstürzende Neubauten had become calmer, quieter even. Alles Wieder Offen blows this assumption out of the water; it is an urgent and compelling album in every aspect. The instruments do not exhaust themselves by a consumptive struggle against each other as they might have on prior recordings, but instead create an unprecedented fusion of Einstürzende Neubauten-typical instruments with conventional ones. Alexander Hacke's bass has never sounded warmer, Jochen Arbeit's guitar more graceful, the metal of Rudolf Moser and the percussion of N.U. Unruh more unsettling and diverse, or Blixa Bargeld's voice more mercurial yet forceful. It's the little details that first draw the attention: Jochen Arbeit's whizzing guitar on "Unvollständigkeit," seeming to anticipate the outburst that follows: a rain of light, falling aluminum sticks; the way Alexander Hacke electronically deconstructs Rudolph Moser's rounded, flowing rhythm on "Weilweilweil"; the deft combination of uplifting organ and the almost tender feedback that rends the sky open on "Nagorny Karabach." This album also is very conscious of the band's history. On a lyrical level, "Unvollständigkeit" is a sister piece to both "DNS/Wasserturm" (1983) as well as "Redukt" (2000); "Nagorny Karabach" refers to "Armenia" (1983), which is the sun of the EN-cosmos; "Von Wegen" quotes both their first single and a line from the song "Sehnsucht" from Kollaps (1981). Moreover, musically "Von Wegen" mirrors the structure of "Zerstörte Zelle" (1987). "Susej" is based around a rhythm guitar figure that Bargeld recorded in a flooded cellar of the Hafenklang studio in Hamburg in the early '80s. Many layers have deposited themselves around the group's original nucleus. At the same time, the energy and the sheer willpower of the early days is still powerfully evident here. Perhaps the most emotionally-affecting and intellectually-stimulating album of Einstürzende Neubauten's career.

• Track Listing: Nagorny Karabach / Weil Weil Weil / Ich Hatte Ein Wort / Die Wellen / Let's Do It A Da Da / Alles Wieder Offen / Unvollstandigkeit / Susej / Von Wegen / Ich Warte