Strategies Against Architecture, Volume 1 (Strategein Gegen Architekturen) encapsulates German industrial progenitors Einsturzende Neubauten at their rawest and most primordial. This recording--compiled by the band and Jim... more » "Foetus" Thirlwell--includes early singles and previously unreleased cassettes from 1980-83, along with most of the B-sides of the band's first LP, Kollaps. Primal and provocative in its austerity, Strategies... remains hyper-progressive and unmatched almost 15 years after its initial release. Junkyard angst for the apocalypse, Neubauten strips down into broken instruments, buckets, and sheet metal for drums. --Esther Yoon« less
Strategies Against Architecture, Volume 1 (Strategein Gegen Architekturen) encapsulates German industrial progenitors Einsturzende Neubauten at their rawest and most primordial. This recording--compiled by the band and Jim "Foetus" Thirlwell--includes early singles and previously unreleased cassettes from 1980-83, along with most of the B-sides of the band's first LP, Kollaps. Primal and provocative in its austerity, Strategies... remains hyper-progressive and unmatched almost 15 years after its initial release. Junkyard angst for the apocalypse, Neubauten strips down into broken instruments, buckets, and sheet metal for drums. --Esther Yoon
"This music is just beautiful. It's very minimal -- too minimal even for the grit that characterized so much of their later music. Most of the songs make use of metal objects for the sounds, but there's also some softer, more watery music. At one point on this cd, they were literally making their music under a bridge, & a train went over. You can hear the train. In 20th century classical music, 2 antithetical compositional ideas were minimalism (which had some feeling of complete control) & aleatory,or just randomness. This cd's minimalism with the train that just happened to go by so they left it seems to me like it could be understood as a synthesis of those 2 views.It's formative music for them, basic & pure, before their creativity demanded that they add more."
THIS IS INDUSTRIAL
J. Brady | PAWLEYS ISLAND, SC United States | 04/16/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Duh...That's why they call it "Industrial"
Harsh,hypnotic, highly percussive, stark, brutal,primitive, repetitive, impossible to resist and undestand ( unless you speak German )experimental, ambient "noise" for the modern age. I listened to this tonight all the way through, and realised how varied it really is. The first few tracks are much more basic, the metallic clang you would expect, but no less because of it. Some of them are quite groovy ( although I almost hate to use that word, it makes you think of disco, and this certainly is not disco - although I'm not slagging dance music ). Drumming on the insides of traffic tunnels, found sounds, distorted vocals.... you get the idea. Then track 9 goes all bubble-gooey, with water and stuff in the background, with truly disturbing, scary chanting and screaming. Then the next song is more "band" sounding, the standard guitar-bass-drums-keyboards, but no less exhilerating. The whole thing is one giant sonic mess, a "stew" , if you will, and that's precisely why it rates five stars. It is at times the heaviest "heavy metal", the most trippy "psychedelic". A true classic."
Strategies against depression
Richard A. Maas | 12/17/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"`back in 88 this stuff sounded so horrible, german kids nihilisticaly banging on dying machinery, but now in my 50s all I hear is their youthful exuberance. Buy this for anyone having problems with depression, it will help them."
Amazing
gottisttod | City of Dis, Netherlands | 04/24/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Not for narrow-minded crap-peddling mainstream-obsessed type of people. Pity that two of those already reviewed this...."
"You have to listen to this compilation album with a grain of salt: it is one of the most intense and uncompromisingly brutal albums you'll ever hear in your life! No, it's not a grindcore or a black metal band, it's EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN's most extreme example of TRUE industrial music. The band memebers make "music" out of banging on metal plates, using pneumatic drills, making explotions, and using every possible tool to create pure mayhem. Just imagine this: the "bass drum's" skin is a sheet of metal!!! "Tanz Debil" opens this barrage of noise and the album never lets up. "Kalte Sterne" might sound like a very primitive THE CURE and it is by FAR the album's most "musical" song. No wonder some extreme metal bands took NEUBAUTEN to heart. Although this has NOTHING to do with Metal (maybe punk, in the sense that this IS musical ANARCHY!), the attitude and brutality are very much alike. "Stratigien gegen architechturen" is basically the "Kollaps" album with some few extra tracks, but it's a good thing that, if you like this, also get "Kollaps". For open minded folks only and for people into really weird stuff! Steh auf!"