In case you missed it, here’s a favorite Blixa interview, circa 1993.
Blixa Einstuerzende: Bargeld Harassed
by Kenneth Laddish and Mark Dippé
They stood out from the morning’s delivery of musical junkmail, two slim Eurostyle packages with Northern Renaissance graphics. Einstuerzende Neubauten: Tabula Rasa – German and Latin words I hoped would spell relief from the sampled, sequenced, Hyphenated-Kletopop: Alternative-Grunge-House, Techno-ska, Gangsta-Jazz…
Before digital samples existed, Neubauten used tape loops for foundpercussion and sampling. Before Trent Reznor’s testes descended, EN had largely abandoned chain saws and drills for the subtler textures of rocks and razor blades on glass…
I was prepared for something to make my neighbors move away – but, as I overheard at their performance: “They’re actually playing music.” Blixa Bargeld, past member of the tormented caterwaul, straight-up sings – and he has a voice!
I compressed a sound kilobyte and fired it through the Internet to my man Mark Dippé, cyberpunk poster boy and infant terrible at Industrial Light & Magic. By day Mark deals with digital dinosaurs, but at night he hangs with living monsters in the murky borderlands of Performance Art. Equally happy with neo-Tyrolean bloodletting rituals, Mark was eager to join me for an evening of baiting Blixa.
Blixa Bargeld is – as front man and lyricist – Einstuerzende Neubauten, along with NU Unruh, Mark Chung, Alexander Hacke, and FM Einheit. He is also infamous as the guitarist for Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds, and for Wim Wenders’ film cameos, and his galloping groupies. But erase from your memory the graffiti scrawled about him by mainstream urinalists. We offer him a clean slate.
-Kenneth Laddish
The interview transcript is under the page cut…
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Articles & Interviews with Blixa and Teho in Italian. (Use Google translator).
