Customer Reviews

Drawings of Patient O.T.

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you plan to buy this album, please don't buy the version distributed by Thirsty Ear/Some Bizarre Records. The company has never paid the band for its recordings, and NONE of your purchase price will go to the makers of this exceptional music.

Another version is available through Indigo Records, and the group does get paid for those copies.

I discovered Einsturzende Neubauten back in 1983 when this record ( remember those ? ) was first released. I had no idea what I was in for, as I had only read reviews of the band, short mentions in magazines like Trouser Press. Nothing I had read prepared me for the absolute stunning originality and variety I found in Drawings of Patient OT. I never bothered to read the translated lyric sheet, Blixa Bargeld's vocals being as much of an integral instrument as the myriad jackhammers, pounded metal and found sounds. It was at times all one huge wall of sound, of "noise" used for more than "just because we can", it seemed to me to all make perfect sense. Music created for the listener who thought they had heard it all. Some of the selections heard here are quite abrasive and heavily percussive. But some lean more toward the ambient, indeed soothing, in their use of quiet , whipered vocals, and repetitive ( is that a tape loop? perhaps a sampler I hear? ) sounds, both natural and unatural. Minimal use of bass and guitar make Drawings of Patient OT somewhat unapproachable, something so far outside the mainstream that it remains untouched and undiscovered by most. It has been one of my favorites for years, especially after I wore out the record ( I still have the sleeve - an amazing piece of artwork in and of itself )and got this on cd. It still sounds fresh to me, and I to this day find myself falling asleep with this on my cd player, quietly, with earphones on. Last year I saw a copy of this LP in a used record store, hanging on the wall with a tag attached saying "listen to this and find out why all those people have that silly red tattoo." I had to chuckle ( yes, I have one of those "silly red tattoos" of the red EN petroglyph logo)I think the point being once you listen to Einsturzende Neubauten, you fall into one of two camps - you either "get it", and totally immerse yourself in it , or you hate it,and dimiss it as annoying, repetitive and pointless. And if you do "get it", I highly recommend this early work by EN.

This is without any doubt my favorite industrial album. Every single composition is perfect and together they make nightmarish symphony. Screams of tortured souls, humming of grotesque machinery, eerie sound samples are elements which give this album a kind of disturbed, twisted beauty. Yes, this album is beautiful, but only if you open your mind and let your brain concentrate on music vibration. This album is not for everyone and it requires intense listening to be appreciated. But this album is a true gift for every serious music lover.

I can remember my first encounter with en, it was the fall of 91. i was 15 years old, helping a friend strip wallpaper. he was much older then me (23), so knew alot more then me about music. at the time i was rebelious, listening to harcore punk and the rottenist of death metal. he popped in strategies of archetecture 1 into the tape deck and said, "are you ready". yeah, whatever. i know whats up. the first blast of jackhamers filled the room and my eyes widened and jaw dropped. i was in shock, complete.
never had i emagined music being so raw, so powerfull, so energetic as e.n. needless to say i fell in love. they completly changed the way i precieve music. i'd draw their logo anywhere i could. on my school note books, desks, chairs, walls, sharpie it on my hand or arm. i was obsessed. after purchasing drawings of patient ot when i was 16, i found the crowning point of their career. this album seemed the most twisted. the most disturbed. from the pounding bass of abfackeln, the mentaly ill hospitalstische kinder-der vernichtung and the haunting armenia (my favorite song by e.n. to date) just what a teenager needed. everything to scare the parents and surronding adults alike.
even the band i was in became completely obsessed with e.n. we began rummaging for random pieces of metal. stealing huge metal grated carts from the neighboring jewel store (during the bulls half-time, when they were in the championships), those green boxes you see on the side of the road with telephone wires in it and stuff. even a bulldozer claw (sadly the cops came and chassed us away, they were very baffled as to why someone would want something like that, so we told them to make music with, which confused them evern more). we began writing songs with our found objects and encorperated them into our live set (we were a hardcore punk/metal band) needless to say, it wasnt accepted to well.
This album is a must. this band is crutial in existance. mainstream is robbing the art from music. albums like this need to stay vibrant and utilaized for the sake of the future of music.
And i carry the mark on my arm as well. had it tattooo when i was 21. that logo is a reminder to me of how much i love music and what it meant to me as a teenager. a reminder that there is no boundries in music and art in general. and those who say otherwise know nothing of what art truly is.

This is my favorite of their older albums. The dark energy that saturates Drawings of Patient O.T. feels very cleansing. It ranges from the near-punk (but not) title track to dirty, gritty metallic noise to very dark & spare songs with buzz-saws droning in & out among the instrumentation. Essential music. If you're ever feeling pent up, it'll smash your world back into order. Or, if over-orderliness is the problem, you can regard this music as very satisfying in its chaos.

Not for the faint of heart, this is perhaps the finest of all the Neubauten that has been recorded. It shows the group exercising their considerable power to the fullest, having gone past the sometimes clumsy experimentation of their early releases, while fully harnessing the rage, volume, and intensity that their progressively weaker later material exhibits. A spectacular release that demands and deserves your full attention.

This was the first E.N. record that I ever heard. It remains among my favorite work by them. While their later releases represent more "accessible" or refined industrial music, the earlier works are rife with passion and energy. It's helpful to know at least a little German, but you can certainly get the gist of this band from their textures (and perhaps volume!).

With repeated listenings, the structure of the songs becomes more apparent. It's much more than a bunch of angst-ridden kids banging on dustbin lids. There are familiar song elements here, along with found/invented music instruments. If you ever have the opportunity, see them perform live. The band is sometimes a sonic assault, and sometimes surprisingly quiet... You may be surprised to see how musical a ball-peen hammer can be. As the book title suggests, listen with pain.

this is not quite as controlled as halber mensch or five on the open ended richter scale, but it's still great. if you want to hear EN at their early stage, this is the album to get. the only downside to this cd is that it is much better listened to it's entirety...you can't really listen to just one or two tracks off it...it's a concept album and that's pretty clear when you listen to it. everything is here: blixa's menacing vocals, harsh clanging metal percussion, and a total disregard for any sort of normal song structure or making anything that would sound like music to the uninitiated. overall, highly recommended.

summary:
a groundbreaking masterpiece, helping to evolve industrial into something more rythmic, more accessable, while retaining its integrity. it loses a star because it is quite old (20yrs!) and so recorded quite bad, and btw: totally sung in german. i would have loved to hear these songs redone with modern technology and with the aim of creating an epic. (?).

detail:
1. chilling discordant splings and splangs lead into a throbbing percussion and then occassionally compliment it in conjunction with strained vocals that evolve into a german chant. naaas.
2. thee sound of a child playing unselfconsciously opens this... or is it the sound of something a little more ominous?
3. the music starts that follows would seem to indicate so. jarring disorientating. vocals guide you through a dimly lit hospital corridor you stuggle to navigate on account of being fed too much medication.
4. a short and not so sweet voyage into insanity, ever wondered what it sounds like into the mind of a man restrained by a straightjacket, confined to a padded cell? hear this and you might understand why anyone would ever have to do such a nasty thing. an urgent sounding, intense, rythmic track - nice!

*sigh*

5. slower, sinister. driven by german vocals, something that sounds like a machine at work; a throbbing alien probe? punctuated by drum beats.
6. horns? an attempt by one to communicate with another? sounding lonely in its failure to get any response? or two horns lamenting a sad occassion.
7. the vocals here are samples, that sound like recorded from a walkie talkie, or some other wireless medium. the music is minimal, a throbbing drone, some bursts of scraping the inside of a metal container?
8. ooh. a cold shiver down the spine on this one. urgent vocals and percussion. your dance to this are the spasms of someone dying from over exposure to insect poison! you thrash out breaking glass, and yes you can hear it in the music too! this song is just waaay to short though.

*u-hum*

9. a reprieve? minimal music to a vocal recant. a lovely opening: the sound of grinding teeth!
10. delving once again into something your body feels obliged to respond to. i swear this hints at some sort of secret tribal voodoo ceremony, complimented nicely by bursts of electric guitar. also a very short track though. really dig the weird breathing (loop): the breath of someone involved in a strenuous exercise; dancing round a fire possesed by some third world demi-god... (er...).
11. a very scary, powerfull piece. slow ominous music (includes a soft violin!) serve as a soundscape to what starts of as german narration evolve into screaming rants. this is vintage einsturzende! (did i hear the word voodoo?) theres a clip in here of what sounds like a hundred lonely souls mourning, and something that sounds like a newly born alien, freshly born (burst out) of some poor persons guts.
12. (im getting summoned?). focus here on lyrics, more spoken than sung, to a slow simple distorted electric sounding throb and clips of what sounds like a recording of people at a park/ carnival?
13. vocals here sound more like narration than lyric: also a recording of someone speaking through a wireless/ radio? (what is talking about? maybe a recording of someone commenting/ reflecting on recently/ currently performing an autopsy?). the music is subdued, almost has an aquatic feel.
14. clips of previous recordings? a collage of music? ending with lyrics of a different song sung/ squeeled over it.
15. an alien sounding vocalization and discordant guitar drive this (slowly), accompanied by lyrics that sound like they are being sung through a backward masking technique. quite cool.

*shew*