This re-issue of Einsturzende Neubauten’s 1993 album ‘Tabula Rasa’ arrives as a double CD including the original version on CD1 and a collection of singles and alternative versions on CD2. It’s a suitably lavish package.
This reviewer is forced to admit that this is my first journey into the esoteric world of Einsturzende Neubauten and I arrive with next to no preconceptions. Sure I’ve heard about the use of power tools on their records and, more famously in their live show. The ban from the ICA for taking a pneumatic drill to the stage (after throwing milk bottles into cement mixers) will live for a long, long time in music folklore. And Blixa Bargeld, one of the founder members is more famous for his long term collaborations with Nick Cave. So what of his music here?
The band formed in 1980 as part of the Die Geniale Dilletanten, a Dadaistic musical movement with the aim of breaking down all musical conventions. So far, so high brow. However, their music has made little headway into the conventional music world and there is good reason for this. Whilst relatively interesting as a concept they are bloody hard work in reality. Opener ‘Die Interimsliebenden’ lulls you into a sense of false hope by being a palatable piece of Industrial restraint that brought to mind the first Nine Inch Nails album (‘Pretty Hate Machine’). The lyrics (on a majority of the songs) are in German and whilst trying to avoid racial stereotypes they do add to the machine like feel of the music.
Much of the rest of the record, takes a mellower outlook including ‘Blume’ which bucks the trend by being sung in French. This means that the whole middle section of the album drifts by like a bizarrely ambient version of lessons in the language lab at school whilst a group of unnaturally regimented builders work outside. The final track of the original album is the 15 minute ‘Headcleaner’. Unfortunately, missing the obvious pun, it’s not 15 minutes of silence. Rather here we find the power tools and banging on metal of legend. Quite a noise it is too but spoilt by a stop start approach (with the last 5 or so minutes reverting back to an ambient sound) whilst the masochist inside that loves Ministry, NIN and other noise merchants would prefer a full on assault comparable to having your brain drilled. An opportunity missed.
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CD2 offers us an English version of ‘Die Interimsliebenden’ re-titled (rather obviously to any German speakers out there) ‘The Interimlovers’. Follow this up with ‘Salamandrina’, ‘3 Thoughts’, ‘Ring My Bell’, 2 versions of Blume (English and Japanese) and rounded off with ‘Ubique Media Daemon’. Of which ‘3 Thoughts’ has an urgency to it that separates it from the herd and ‘Ring My Bell’ dips it’s toe in waters usually associated with the likes of the Aphex Twin.
For fans this looks like a class re-issue, well packaged with suitable extras. To the uninitiated caution is advised. Bands such as Einsturzende Neubauten are often more interesting on the written page than coming out of the speakers and although ‘Tabla Rosa’ is only one CD in a whole body of work it does little to persuade us into delving further.
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