Description
Book SynopsisAt the end of his life, Pierre Schaeffer commented that his musical and sound experiments had attempted to go beyond ''do-re-mi''. This had a direct bearing on EinstÃrzende Neubauten''s musical philosophy and work, with the musicians always striving to extend the boundaries of music in sound, instrumentation and purpose. The group are one of the few examples of ''rock-based'' artists who have been able to sustain a breadth and depth of work in a variety of media over a number of years while remaining experimental and open to development. Jennifer Shryane provides a much-needed analysis of the group''s important place in popular/experimental music history. She illustrates their innovations with found- and self-constructed instrumentation, their Artaudian performance strategies and textual concerns, as well as their methods of independence. EinstÃrzende Neubauten have also made a consistent and unique contribution to the development of the independent German Language Contemporary Music
Trade Review'... this book is an important contribution to the research of German popular music.' Popular Music
Table of ContentsPart I Context for Destruction; prologue1 Prologue: Being There/Not Being There; Chapter 1 Architecture, Angels and Utopia; Chapter 2 Kattrin’s Drum: Germany & Music – Identity, Politics & Memory; Chapter 3 Free to Make Noise; Chapter 4 Demonic Berlin; Part II Performing Destruction; prologue2 Prologue: ‘They were always quoting Artaud’; Chapter 5 Strategies against the Body; Chapter 6 Strategies against the Corner; Chapter 7 Strategies against the Voice; Chapter 8 Strategies against the Scream; Chapter 9 Strategies against the Text; Part III Performing Reconstruction; prologue3 Prologue: ‘We know we have witnesses’; Chapter 10 ‘A Small Utopia’; conclusion Conclusion ‘To infect others’ Einstürzende Neubauten Warten auf die Barbaren Jo Mitchell’s Reconstruction of Concerto for Voice and Machinery ‘She is Happy like Roadworks’;
