Kollaps cover
Released

Few groups have so completely and clearly expressed their fundamental ethos on their debut album as Einstürzende Neubauten did with Kollaps. It’s an album of negatives, of destruction, indeed of collapse – of the collapse of song, of instruments, and of the group’s collective nervous system. Within that politics of rejection, though, Neubauten found great beauty. Listening back to Kollaps, it’s surprisingly how haunting it can be: beyond the punitive furies of songs like “Tanzdebil,” there are spooked, taped voices; clanking, erotic percussives; burbling mini-operas for water; desperate anti-hymns for drills and scream; and, on “Je t’m,” a perverse detournement of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin’s breathy ode.

Jon Dale

Recommended by

Suggestions
In Search of Spaces cover

In Search of Spaces

Flying Saucer Attack
Another Evening At Logos 1974 79 81 cover

Another Evening At Logos 1974 79 81

Max Eastley, Derek Bailey, COUM Transmissions, Logos Ensemble, Feminist Improvising Group
Flies Inside the Sun cover

Flies Inside the Sun

Flies Inside the Sun
21 Again cover

21 Again

Mouse on Mars
Desperate Straights cover

Desperate Straights

Henry Cow, Slapp Happy
Gudrun cover

Gudrun

Pierrot Lunaire
Low Fi cover

Low Fi

Stereolab