Einstürzende Neubauten - Kollaps (1981)

Einstürzende Neubauten's first album, as one might imagine, is their most primitive and radical effort, the purest expression of their original aesthetic. This makes the album both historically significant and conceptually intriguing, of course, but what's most interesting about this album is that it still sounds surprising decades after its release. 

Often, albums that are considered extreme art statements upon their debut sound almost quaint a few years later, but while Kollaps perhaps sounds less extreme to ears that heard industrial music turned into disco pabulum by the likes of Nine Inch Nails than it did before, songs like the eight-minute title track and the rumbling live closer, "Negativ Nein," are still a fascinating blend of rhythm and random bashing, tonality and atonality, with anguished vocals by Blixa Bargeld that often seem to have little connection with anything else in the piece. 

The brief tracks, like the 80-second "Sehnsucht," are even more extreme explorations of pure noise. Starting as early as the next album, Einstürzende Neubauten would begin slowly introducing more mainstream musical concepts into their aesthetic, making Kollaps as undiluted a listening experience as there is in the entire catalog.

"The first LP “Kollaps” (Collapse) was a component of Berlin’s big bang in the early 1980s – more radical than punk – which was meant to open completely new avenues for the younger generation to make music. The approach was anarchic, loud, undifferentiated and dilettantish. Correspondingly, its motto was “This record should be inaudible.” However, it wasn’t ruled out that previously unknown perspectives for musical work might develop from this sound mire. The first loose structures can already be heard on the next record."
(Karin Aderhold, Gerhard Paproth, Berlin, in November 1992)

Tracklist:
1 Tanz Debil 3:23

2 Steh auf Berlin 3:46

3 Negativ Nein 2:27

4 U-Haft Muzak 3:40

5 Draussen ist feindlich 0:48

6 Hören mit Schmerzen 2:32

7 Jet'm 1:24

8 Kollaps 8:03

9 Sehnsucht 1:21

10 Vorm Krieg 0:20

11 Hirnsäge 1:55

12 Abstieg & Zerfall 4:28

13 Helga 0:11

14 Negativ Nein 4:37


Track 14 is a  bonus track, recorded live at Tempodrom, Berlin, June 1987.mm

Einstürzende Neubauten - Kollaps (1981)

(ca. 320 kbps, cover art included)