For me PIL’s ‘Death Disco’ was a far more important record than anything Lydon had done with The Sex Pistols. Even at my (then) tender age I could hear my dad’s rock ‘n’ roll records in ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’ and therefore its impact was lessened.
But ‘Death Disco’ still holds my attention 25 years after its release. The track was a signpost for post-punk and its possible directions; a moment in time and recording where some of the (ongoing) most influential genres - punk, dub, funk, electronica – came together on one record.
Where punk was based on live performance as the means to gain an audience to buy your 7” single, ‘Death Disco’ was the sound of experimentation and the rise in importance of the 12” in clubs as the method for getting yourself known. Or as The Higsons’ sang it ‘Put The Funk Back Into Punk’.
Within a year, in the UK Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire were simultaneously at the forefront and at the outer limits of the experimental route of post-punk. Germany had Einsturzende Neubauten (trans. Collapsing New Buildings).
Einsturzende Neubauten were performance art as much as they were music. They used drills and other electric machinery as instruments. They banged large bits of metal and concrete with other large objects to grind out rhythms. Often their records sounded more like construction sites than music. Lead singer and art terrorist Blixa Bargeld shouted, growled, moaned and spoke in – predominantly – German, rather than actually sang.
Like an Athena poster can never hope to capture the psychedelic colours of a Dali so a record can never hope to capture the ‘performance’ of Einsturzende Neubauten. 90% of their records are unlistenable. You can’t dance to them and you can’t hum along to them but you are conscious that something is happening for them as artists and for the converted to whom they preach.
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These ‘Early Recordings’ cover the period 1980 – 1982, right at the band’s inception. If there is any arc in their music in this short period (the band are still going!)it is an increased use of the aforementioned machinery in the later tracks. Early tracks have a greater emphasis on tribal drum patterns whereas later stuff - like the 9 minute ‘Thirsty Animal’ (featuring Lydia Lunch) - affords the voice and the synthesised sonics more prominence.
‘Zuchendes Fleisch’ has the pneumatic funk and would probably get Franz Ferdinand onto the dancefloor in some dark, dank dive in Suburban Berlin.
To be honest there is more entertainment to be had by reading the individual band member credits on each track. For example, on ‘Loecher (Leben ist illegal)' Blixa Bargeld offers “vocals / electric guitar” whereas Andrew Chudy plays “amplified metal spring / electric drill / wood-board”. On ‘Backterien fuer eure Seele’ he adds “furniture” but really reaches his zenith on ‘Schwarz’ with his mastery of the “survival blanket”. On some tracks various band members are credited merely with “presence”.
Nearly 25 years on this is a hard slog and is surely only for completists, Julian Cope and students of The History of Household Objects in Rock.
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