Silence Is Sexy

Einsturzende Neubauten

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 20, 2000)
• Original Release Date: May 23, 2000
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Mute U.S.
• ASIN: B00004TM12
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #29,106 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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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

8 of 9 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)

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars their best album of the 90's, March 4, 2003

By	I X Key "burningfield" (tomorrow) - See all my reviews

This cd is generally more hard-hitting than the cd before it, Ende Neu, without sacrificing the beautiful minimalistic virtuosity of their musical instrumentation. This cd sounds as intellectual as the Neubauten members are. This cd is big ideas. It's fun. I get lose in the pulsing pounding of Redukt. In Die Befindlichkeit des Landes (the lay of the land), the way the rhythm grows & completes itself is amazing. In Beauty, the monologue is interesting, & the ambient wavering electronics are great. I saw themplay in Boston on their tour for this. I think it was during Zampano that Blixa was gyrating. There are,of course, also a few songs that have the romantic minimalism they do so well. In one of them, the title track, there's a long silence. In another, the first song on the cd, there's a reference to Russian avant-garde artist Kazimir Malevich who was a great great greart pioneer of minimalistic, abstract geometric painting. The last song, Total Eclipse of the Sun, you could play for your grandmother without distressing her.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a Turning point in their career, October 12, 2000

By	Simone Oltolina (Morbio Inferiore, TI Switzerland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Einstürzende Neubauten have dealt with a wide variety of sounds (most of which were dazing and disturbing) in the past so it's a bit surprising to find out that their last record is entitled "silence is sexy". One might be wrongfooted when listening to the record for the first time and wonder if this is actually the same band that recorded "1/2 Mensch"... well, yes, they've changed their trademark sound and this, far from going to the disadvantage of quality, makes Silence is Sexy their best record to date... It sounds more calm, meditative than their previous efforts but the lyrics are simply astounding (many track are sung in German but you'll find a translation in the booklet) and the music is as sophisticated as usual (well, they're one of the best indie bands out there if not the only one). Sometimes the music stops, giving way to the silence, then it takes up again and at times it sound as furious as usual... but given that in both cases you are listening to a work of art, who really cares?