Tabula Rasa
©Mute. Deutschland, 1993.
‟Despite its title--Latin for "clean slate" but, more likely, a play off the concept of beginning again--Einstürzende Neubauten's seventh full-length is a culmination of everything that has come before for this extraordinary band. Sure, they were known for making hellish noise in their early days, employing rocks, circular saws, and drills in their performances, but they were musicians, too, crafting elegant songs by the late 1980s that still possess an affecting power. Tabula Rasa, released in 1993, contains all these elements and ups the ante considerably. For one thing, it's a much more varied listen than its predecessor, the grimly powerful Haus der Lüge. The exuberantly melodic ("Zebulon") bumps up against the darkly experimental ("12305[te Nacht]") and the outright rockin' ("Die Interimsliebenden"). But the most startling track must be the ethereal "Blume," a sexually charged lullaby that's fraught with the thick layers of symbolism we've come to expect from lyricist Blixa Bargeld. Sung--in English!--by Anita Lane, whose voice registers somewhere near the Cranes' Alison Shaw, it sounds like nothing we've ever heard before from Neubauten. The disc closes with the 15-minute "Headcleaner," a mesmerizing, bombastic, symphonic cacophony that interpolates the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love." It all ends quietly, but your ears may never be the same again.‟
Simon Landau
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