EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN's long-awaited new studio album, Perpetuum
Mobile has arrived at last and will be released on February 10, 2004 through
Mute. This is the follow up to Silence Is Sexy (2000) and the Strategies
Against Architecture III (2001) anthology.
For Perpetuum Mobile the band, who have been operating as a constant
line-up consisting of Blixa Bargeld, Alexander Hacke, N. U. Unruh, Jochen
Arbeit and Rudi Moser since Ende Neu (1996), decided on a novel and unusual
production approach. Webcams were installed at the Neubauten studio in
Berlin to transmit the entire creative process via the Internet on their
homepage, www.neubauten.org. Interested fans were granted access to the site
after paying a one-off fee which served to guarantee the financial
independence of the production. At previously announced fixed times, their
supporters had the opportunity to watch the creative process live and to
send their comments live to the band. To be able to react to incoming
remarks, everybody in the studio, including sound engineer and webmaster,
were equipped with a laptop.
All the sessions were broadcast - and later also the rough mix
versions - were filed in an archive that could always be accessed online and
discussed later in the chat or the forum. There were a number tracks, says
Blixa Bargeld, that the band would have abandoned after a few attempts ("Ein
seltener Vogel"), but continued to work on because the supporters insisted
on their completion. So these fans, through their influence on the music,
the lyrics and the production, were supportive in these respects.
On completion of the production process, each supporter received the
Supporter Album # 1, mainly consisting of material different to the songs
now released on Perpetuum Mobile - exclusively conceived in the sessions
that were broadcast live.
North American tour dates for Spring 2004 will be announced soon.
www.neubauten.org
www.blixabargeld.com
www.mute.com