Silence Is Sexy

Einsturzende Neubauten | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 20, 2000)
• Original Release Date: 2000
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Mute U.S.
• ASIN: B00004TM12
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #140,648 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Sabrina

2. Silence Is Sexy

3. In Circles

4. Newton's Gravitätlichkeit

5. Zampano

6. Heaven Is of Honey

7. Beauty

8. Die Befindlichkeit des Landes

9. Sonnebarke

10. Musentango

See all 14 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Pelikanol

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Einstürzende Neubauten have long made a career of taking a wrecking ball to the staid towers of musical convention. Their seminal industrial excess having become a musical institution in Germany--aligning them somewhat to the left of Kraftwerk and Can--they turn the wrecking ball on themselves on Silence Is Sexy. Employing aural texture, murmurs, hushed vocals, and, yes, silence, instead of the Sturm und Drang of collapsing buildings, monstrous machinery, and industrial decay, Silence defies all preconceived notions of what an Einstürzende Neubauten album should sound like. The title track manages to imbue long patches of complete silence with a backbeat and groove, proving their titular claim. Blixa Bargeld--perhaps having learned a thing or two about terrible beauty from his work with Nick Cave--imbues his deep-toned vocals with warmth and emotion, and while at moments the music can careen out of control, for the most part it wavers on the lower fringes of the sonic spectrum. Now that the sonic ceiling has been shattered, perhaps EN want to prove the complexity of silence. Ah, but not for long! Accompanying Silence Is Sexy is a second disc featuring the single, seemingly unending composition "Pelikonal," an improvised duet between a repeated vocal phrase and a drill--not much more pleasant than getting root canal. Yikes. --Tod Nelson

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Total eclipse of the noise, May 25, 2000

By 

Eduardo Alba Echandi "Mexnoise" (Mexico, Mexico, City Mexico) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Silence Is Sexy (Audio CD)

This album has kept me going late to sleep and waking early in the morning just to listen to it before I go to work. It took me a few listens because it doesn't quiet sound like you regular E.N. album. It is more skeletal and has a stark and naked beauty yet it is more elaborate. It kicks off with "Sabrina", a piece driven by a simple, almost isolated bass line, very low, very slow, just teasing as Blixa sings about black which in this context could be interpreted as silence or as the tabula rassa on which he creates his music. It took me a few listens to get it because it sounded a little too simple at first, now I can only say that is as simple as lover whispering your ear, that glorious, that delicate. Sexy indeed. The tittle track, works in a similar way, Blixa mumbles the phrase "silence is sexy" over a bass line, then abruptly stops, he lights a cigarette, takes a drag and takes a long pause in which you could hear the inside of his mouth (don't know about you, but it raised my hair)just building tension until a percussion (you know it is not necessarily drums when it comes to EN) takes silence by surprise. The song starts again until the ever wild Mexico City crowd put an end to it. Very strange indeed!. From then on, a hundred ideas evolve until your mind goes spinning. Every song has a climax but you never notice how it happened, suddenly you just can not feel the ground behind your feet. "In circles" is a beautiful vision of the unique universe of molecules and it apparently chaotic order, it is followed by Bilxa ranting about gravity because it stops him from flying in "Newton's Gravitatlichkeit" . Could you even imagine for a second a world in which these songs were actually .... popular?.

"Die Befindichkeit Des Landes" is one of the stand out tracks here, precise and atmospheric, with a killer lyric about the changes in the landscapes of Berlin during the second part of the century, concluding that after bunkers, and shopping malls, grass will finally grow again in those lands again. The song collapses in brutal percussion, then starts again, then Bilxa abandons himself in a chorus that is maybe one of his best, more touching vocal performances. "Musentango" is a real funny piece (this is a very upbeat album) about getting drunk, and Sonnenbarke would not feel uncomfortable in the "5 at the opened ended Richter Scale" album with its poetry about flying to the sun (alchemy has never left EN). As always with EN albums, every song is wonderful but there is one that steals the show, it happened with "Haus der Luege", with NNNAMMM, with "Der Todd eist an Dandy" and on Sexy, "Redukt" is the show stopper. The whole song ties in the whole concept of the album, slowly developing around the sound of a metal object that is used as percussion on irregular intervals, then strings appear with the song that caresses your ears until Blixa angrily punishes screaming the chorus and then......silence. 10 minutes of pure bliss.

One should avoid phrases like "this is best E.N. album so far, or the record of the year", like nuclear explosion. But this is a very unique piece of music even under E.N.'s unique standards, and one that sounds better every time you listent to it. I you care for a record that matters, buy Silence is Sexy.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Certainly different from early EN, but just as relevant, February 17, 2002

By 

Theresa M. Laehn "teelaehn" (Fountain City, WI, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Silence Is Sexy (Audio CD)

There seems to be one agreement among all reviewers about Silence is Sexy: it's not like earlier Neubauten. The same goes for "Tabula Rasa", another terriffic album from the band. But some people are displeased with those albums and all of the ones in between because they're not...um, "Industrial" enough, they're not angsty enough, and they're too tame. "MAN, break out that pneumatic drill and give me some more eardrum-rupturing caucophony I can sterilize small animals with!" I disagree with that sentiment. Of course, I am in no way ripping on EN's earlier material; it was their brilliant, searing, metal and found sound percussion along with the screeching and squealing of power tools and Blixa Bargeld's banshee yell (anything on "Kollaps", or "Seele Brennt" from "Halber Mensch", for example) that defined them as unique, pioneering artists in the European avant-garde of the 70's and 80's. But Neubauten had no reason to stop there. Evolution in sound and overall feeling/atmosphere the music creates is one of the trademarks of a band who's daring enough to explore new areas of their art. After all, Neubauten is all about beginnings and endings! Einstuerzende Neubauten's music matured as they did, and they did it beautifully.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece, April 25, 2000

By 

Ilya Buzytsky (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Silence is Sexy (Audio CD)

According to the band's lead singer and writer, Blixa Bargeld, their previous work, Ende Neu, summarized the demise of the great experimental lab and playground - the "island of Berlin". Now it is time to go on and rebuild on top of the cultural void left after the loss of West Berlin's political independence.

In the past two decades the never ending quest of Einsturzende Neubauten to question and destroy all that had to do with and emanated from the popular culture left a very noticeable mark in the institution. Uncompromising and ever inventive, EN turned every concept associated with popular music and art upside down and inside out. Furthermore, the resulting flesh was sometimes shredded into pieces and reassembled back together the way only the band could imagine.

The progressive elimination of every layer of cultural conformity, the process of stripping life naked of lies and concessions made by the self-indulgent mass media, brought the band to the realization of the fact that behind all this a much more important thing is present. The metaphysical nature of what is behind cannot be described directly in words or music. It is that which we can only describe as the transcendental Beauty. And now that all layers have been peeled, it is time to attempt the impossible: describe the underlying essence.

"Silence Is Sexy" tries to do just that. Every song offers a new approach to grasping the essence of the quality that we call beauty. Beauty is represented by colors (SABRINA.) Beauty is in the light (SONNENBARKE) Beauty is in silence (SILENCE IS SEXY) and, of course, in love (DINGSALLER) Yet we can never get to Beauty directly, "beauty remains in the impossibilities of the body" (BEAUTY)

In spite of the fact that the record seems to be "on the quiet side", the extraordinary energy of the group is ever present in each song. It just seems to be much more focused. The explosive power of EN is carefully concealed within every song structure. Instead of simply exploding in your ears, the compositions are bulging and cracking at the seams. The internal pressure is well maintained throughout the record. Yet you can never relax and let your guard down, for the strength, albeit hidden is always felt. The energy charge is subsequently transferred to you, along with the album's enigma.

Truly a work of inspiration, with songs both intelligent and enlightening, "Silence Is Sexy" constitutes yet another landmark achievement by the legendary German band.