Einstürzende Neubauten

On 1 April 1980, Blixa Bargeld was asked to play at the Moon Club in West Berlin. He accepted, invented the name Einstürzende Neubauten — “collapsing new buildings” — on the spot, and called a few friends. The first line-up consisted of whoever happened to be free that night. Among them were Beate Bartel and Gudrun Gut, already connected to Mania D: Bartel would later join Liaisons Dangereuses, Gut would go on to found Malaria! N.U. Unruh was also there, and remains in the band today. The group was born like that: without a plan, without conventional instruments, in Cold War West Berlin, inside a walled city.

On 21 May 1980, less than two months after the band’s formation, the roof of Berlin’s Kongresshalle collapsed, killing one person and injuring many others. The building was a symbol of the German-American alliance. The band’s name suddenly acquired an unforeseen resonance: newspapers were writing about “new buildings collapsing”, and a still unknown group found itself caught in a coincidence that marked its public history even before the music did.

In 1981, fifteen-year-old Alexander Hacke joined as sound technician and multi-instrumentalist, together with percussionist F.M. Einheit. The first LP, Kollaps, was released. The instruments were self-built: sheet metal, tools, objects found in scrapyards. Unruh sold his drum kit because he needed money and built, using tools both stolen and bought, something that vaguely resembled a percussion set. Bargeld played a battered Fender Jaguar and had no pedalboard: his effects had been stolen. Material necessity became the method.

In 1983 Bargeld joined Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds, where he would remain as guitarist until 2003, doubling tours and sessions between the two bands for twenty years. Neubauten evolved in the meantime: from Halber Mensch (1985) to Haus der Lüge (1989), the sound became more structured. In 1990 they recorded the soundtrack to Heiner Müller’s Die Hamletmaschine for East German radio. Bargeld began appearing in a dark suit. Tabula Rasa (1993) marked the turn towards a more controlled, more electronic sound.

From 2002, Neubauten anticipated music crowdfunding through a digital subscription system, the supporter project, which allowed them to produce records without a label. The model developed through several phases. Bargeld rejects the word “fan” — “etymologically dirty, it comes from fanatic” — and calls them supporters. On 4 November 2004 they played at Berlin’s Palast der Republik, the former seat of GDR power, with a choir of one hundred people: the concert became a document of an era, and the building was demolished shortly afterwards. In April 2025 Hacke left the group after forty-four years. In 2026 he was replaced by bassist Josefine Lukschy, formerly singer and guitarist with the Berlin band Crashpad, selected through two rounds of auditions. The current line-up comprises Bargeld, Unruh, Jochen Arbeit, Rudolph Moser and Lukschy. Forty-six years after the Moon Club, Neubauten continue to search for the sound they have not yet found.