Einstürzende Neubauten is an ever-changing musical band, originally from West Berlin, formed in 1980. The band is often classified as industrial or electronica, though neither really applies well in describing what it is that Einstürzende Neubauten does or sounds like. One of the band's "trademarks" is the use of self-made instruments and noises, in addition to standard musical instruments.
Blixa Bargeld (Christian Emmerich) (original member) Alexander Hacke (alias Alexander von Borsig) N.U. Unruh (Andrew Chudy) (original member) Jochen Arbeit Rudi Moser
Boris Wilsdorf - sound engineer Ash Wednesday (touring member since 1990s, perhaps named for the Australian bush fires, perhaps for the holiday) Erin Zhu - executive producer, webmaster of neubauten.org.
Beate Bartel (original member, left the band in the early 1980s) Gudrun Gut (original member, left the band in the early 1980s) F.M. Einheit (Frank Martin Strauß) (percussion, early 1980s - middle 1990s) Mark Chung (bass, early 1980s - middle 1990s) Roland Wolf - replaced Mark Chung on bass in 1995, died in a traffic accident short time later.
The band name is usually translated into English as "Collapsing New Buildings," though Neubauten generally carries the more specific connotation of a high-rise tower block. Also, the term Neubauten was associated in 1980 with the post- World War II buildings in Germany, which include, due to the destruction during the war and rebuilding after, nearly all the German buildings.
On April 1, 1980, Einstürzende Neubauten made their first appearance in the Moon Club in Berlin. This date is considered to be the band's birthday. Their name was a reference to the Berlin Kongresshalle, a post-war "new building," which had collapsed earlier that year. At that time the band was just a coincidental live set-up of the Dadaistic musical movement the Geniale Dilettanten. This line-up featured Beate Bartel and Gudrun Gut, Blixa Bargeld, and N.U. Unruh, who later went on to record music under the name of Einstürzende Neubauten. The two female members Bartel and Gut left the band after a short period of performing and founded the girl-band Mania D.. A young sound technician and multi-instrumentalist Alexander von Borsig (alias Alexander Hacke), fifteen years old at that time, joined the band and became a long-time member.
