Kalte Sterne: Early Recordings

Compiling the earliest vinyl forays for Einstürzende Neubauten, Kalte Sterne is fascinating for the glimpse it gives us to the music they made while figuring out who they really wanted to be. Its formative spirit suggests closer relationships with post-punk or NDW than you’d expect; the pulsing bass thud of “Zuckendes Fleisch” could be a primitivist take on what P.I.L. were trying to achieve at the time. But the whirring electric drill and plastic, wobbling pound of the amplified metal string on the following “Tagesschau-Dub” shows Neubauten were already well on their way. The experiments are always compelling, but there’s also a raw poetry and romance to songs like “Kalte Sterne”; Blixa Bargeld’s voice is cracked here, but you can tell there’s great depth and rich resonance in there. It’s beautifully burnt.