DESCRIPTION:
Artist/Band: Einstürzende Neubauten
Album: "Silence is Sexy"
Released: 2000
Reissued: 2011

The element of surprise was and continues to be routine for the Einstürzende Neubauten. On "Silence is Sexy" they masterfully celebrate the unexpected in the exploration of silence.

"Silence is Sexy" is a wonderful album in the classical Neubauten sense; lyrical and melancholy. It's a musical coming-of-age from metal-defying scrap iron sound to constructed melodiousness, with a familiar rhythmic undertow and a bittersweet melancholy -- playful, arrogant, poetic, subversive, dandified and mature.

From its first release in 2000 (marking the 20-year existence of the band) to date, it has doubtlessly remained the most complex work of the Neubauten and the most fascinating in its evolution. It shows the Neubauten universe from both a known, emotionally moving side, as well as one that is deliberately constructive. It clearly breathes the inimitably rough Neubauten handwriting, while Blixa's voice cuts through intellectual and cryptic texts. It is carried by metal sounds, from which individual instruments can almost no longer be extracted -- and by silence. Ultimately, nearly inaudible tones or laughter in the right place can seem more destructive than the most enduring rage.

A fascination with improvisation including musical intricacies and special instruments had always been their trademark and continues here in a completely new, impressive way. Plucking the soft, subtle tones, the band permits itself irony and self-mockery. This sounds humorous, melancholy and astonishingly tender, despite conscious cross-references to their loud beginnings.

The band -- Blixa Bargeld, Andrew Unruh, Alexander Hacke, Jochen Arbeit and Rudolf Moser -- now celebrate percussive minimalism instead of archaic rhythms, tender ethereal sounds instead of infernal noise and razor sharp fabulations instead of spontaneous wordplay. The band proceeds calmly, quietly and surprisingly humorously. But even this turning to moderate sounds should be understood as a countermovement. The last line of the title song "Silence is Sexy" declares: "Silence is NOT sexy at all!"

It is the contemplative songs, which constitute the character of the album. Nevertheless, the Neubauten's dry humor also reveals itself here in amplified flashes, alongside a light looking back to their early experiments.

In "Sabrina" they raise the question, which color can be assigned to the sounds. Their answer is black. Black is the sound of silence, the color of melancholy, which lies over the country and the city.

For further information, please visit:
http://www.neubauten.org/silenceissexy
http://www.neubauten.org/biography
http://www.last.fm/music/Einst%C3%BCrzende+Neubauten
http://www.myspace.com/neubauten

Lyrics

It's not the red of the dying sun
The morning sheets' surprising stain
It's not the red of which we bleed
The red of cabernet savignon
A world of ruin all in vain

It's not that red
It's not that red
It's not that red

It's not as golden as Zeus's famous shower
It's doesn't, not at all, come from above
It's in the open but it doesn't get stolen

It's not that gold

It's not as golden as memory
Or the age of the same name

It's not that gold
It's not that gold
It's not that gold
It's not gold at all

I wish that would be your color
I wish this would be your color
I wish this would be your color
Your color, I wish

It is as black as Malevich's square
The cold furnace in which we stare
A high pitch on a future scale
It is a starless winter night's tale
It suits you well

It is that black
It is that black
It is that black
It is that black

I wish this would be your color
I wish this would be your color
I wish this would be your color
...
Your color, I wish

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