Blixa Bargeld and Noise

Abstract

On June 1, 1980, singer Blixa Bargeld and percussionist N. U. Unruh of the avant-garde band Einstürzende Neubauten (“Collapsing New Buildings”) performed a now-legendary atonal composition in West Berlin’s southwestern district of Friedenau-Schöneberg. Kneeling and bending over inside the claustrophobic crawl space of a pillar supporting the city expressway, these young performers banged, scratched, and pounded against its steel and concrete interior. Bargeld chaotically plucked an untuned electric guitar, which was amplified by a 1960s Telefunken transistor radio, and screamed in German about a postapocalyptic urban wasteland, while Unruh played on a diverse set of percussion instruments ranging from spare metal parts to an old washing machine drum. This 40-minute session of experimental noisescapes, later entitled “Steel Music” (“Stahlmusik”), was recorded on a simple cassette recorder. It was later duplicated and sold as a limited edition cassette tape in Bargeld’s second-hand store, Eisengrau.¹