Monday, July 21, 2025

Alien Pop Monday 00.15 - erkannt das Sehnen die Knoten hält

Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the Fifteenth track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "Gesundbrunnen."  Here it is, after 15 mixes, the end—complete with 195 tracks and 131 artists featured, a corpus of what feels, to me at least, to be Alien Pop Music.

There is a passage in KOLLAPS by Melle Jan Kromhout & Jan Nieuwenhuis that speaks to the concept of Alien Pop Music that I re-read just before finalizing this mix, as I made the decision to have "Sehnsucht" (desire) off of Kollaps, their fisrt EN album, serve as the final song that I think serves as a nice conclusion to this series...

Desire is the breath that fuels life and connects the inside of the living body to the world outside. Air spreads around in the depths of the lungs, where it branches out. Oxygen flows through blood and brains until it is used up and residual gas is exhaled to make room. Just like this Einstürzende Neubauten feeds itself with sound. The band is an organism that mutates with each consecutive song. It inhales sound. It lives on sound. Just as every breath is an extension of life, sound is Einstürzende Neubauten's sustenance.

This way, the band absorbs other kinds of music and makes certain elements their own [...] With each song, Einstürzende Neubauten wanders further into unknown territory and encounters different sounds and music to reorganize themselves. 

Kromhout, Melle Jan, and Jan Nieuwenhuis. Einstürzende Neubauten’s Kollaps, pp. 83–84.  

# Artist Track
1 Einstürzende Neubauten Gesundbrunnen
2 Cinder Well The Doorway
3 The Damage Manual Limited Edition
4 Laura Cannell & Nik Colk Void Closer to Heaven (Nik Colk Void remix)
5 Cold Specks Void
6 Nihiloxica Black Kaveera
7 One Leg One Eye I’d Rather Be Tending My Sheep
8 Nine Inch Nails God Break Down the Door
9 Ulver The Hour of the Wolf
10 Jochen Arbeit Darkness
11 Chemlab Pink
12 Ryuichi Sakamoto fullmoon
13 Einstürzende Neubauten Sehnsucht

Wo vorher keine Tür war / Da machen ich dir jetzt auf

Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Mittwoch Mix - hwæt! Wait until you know the time is right on time / The end is near

 The (probably not) long awaited return of my annual Birthday Mix tradition...

Back in 2021, I was turning 38 and compiled the Better In My Day Mix, a selection of songs that is equal parts tongue in cheek memento mori, peculiar birthday allusions & references with a few aspirational touches to complete the mix.

Then in 2022, with my 39th birthday, I compiled a baker's dozen of songs all released the year of my birth, 1983, vertrocknet im Sonnenlicht.

For my 40 birthday in 2023, I went all out, first I gathered songs that I love and that were recorded before I was born. The very slightest theme of Memento Mori threads through many, but not all, of them, gathered together as hwæt! Before My Time.

Then I compiled the hwæt! Top Forty... a mix of 41 songs one a year for each year I’d been around, plus one for that 41st year. As with all of my birthday mixes, there is a tiny bit of Memento Mori, but mostly these are just songs I like.

Last summer, this blog was on a hiatus, but now, with my 42nd birthday approaching, I've assembled a mix to revive this tradition, hwæt! Wait until you know the time is right on time / The end is near. Mostly but not all, released since my last birthday. A little less of a memento mori mix, but those melancholy motifs remain.

# Artist Track
1 Blixa Bargeld & Nikko Weidemann Lazarus
2 Allie Goertz The Great Destroyer
3 Gloria Artemis
4 Zombie Zombie Double Z
5 Sumac & Moor Mother Camera
6 Young Fathers Lowly
7 Xordox Unreality
8 The Young Gods Systemized
9 Dark Chisme Lucretia My Reflection
10 The Cure Drone:Nodrone
11 The Legendary Pink Dots Blood Money : Transitional
12 PIG The Ratchet Effect
13 Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld Durch Mich

Not gonna lie, since I saw 28 Years Later, I've been pondering how I can make sure that on that distant day my skull is added to the bone temple...

Monday, July 7, 2025

Alien Pop Monday 00.14 - Fossiliien, die wir beide sind

Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the Fourteenth track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "Trilobiten." After seven months of this project, we've reached the penultimate mix. 

Off the top of my head, "Trilobiten" is one of the most 'folk' songs Neubauten has ever released, up there with "Ein Stuhl in der Hölle" and this mix definitely leans a little in that direction.

# Artist Track
1 Einstürzende Neubauten Trilobiten
2 Kikagaku Moyo Trilobites
3 Angeline Morrison Ophelia
4 Chris Connelly Ophelia Moment
5 The Body and BIG|BRAVE Once I had a Sweetheart
6 Panopticon The Devil Walked the Woods
7 Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, Kim Myhr, Jenny Hval Me, you, me, you
8 Rudolph Moser CAUSE YOU
9 Your Ancestors Knew Death A Fossil Record
10 How To Destroy Angels Ice Age
11 Gloria Styx
12 Hacia Dos Veranos I’ll Be Your Mirror
13 Einstürzende Neubauten Youme & Meyou (Live)

Was ist noch uebrig?

Monday, June 23, 2025

Alien Pop Monday 00.13 - Allet hat sich uffjelöst

Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the Thirteenth track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "Ick wees nich (Noch nich)."

I'm particularly pleased with this mix, I think it is strangely cohesive in both musical language and lyrics. Perhaps I will be the only one who feels that way, but these thirteen songs really do seem to me to be of a set.

# Artist Track
1 Einstürzende Neubauten Ick wees nich (Noch nich)
2 Wire Time Lock Fog
3 Chrome Nova Feedback
4 Zola Jesus Wiseblood
5 The Love Interest Blue Velvet Mix
6 Gazelle Twin Obelisk
7 The Soft Pink Truth You Don’t Know (The Full Rose of Dawn)
8 The Bug Void
9 Fragile Self Need for Sanctuary
10 The Answer Lies in the Black Void Become Undone
11 Strange Attractor Undone
12 The The Lonely Planet
13 Einstürzende Neubauten Die Befindlichkeit Des Landes (Klaviermusik Version)

Alles nur künftige Ruinen

Monday, June 9, 2025

Alien Pop Monday 00.12 - Sing für mich in gelb

Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the Twelfth track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "Aus den Zeiten." 

“In another solar system, Einstürzende Neubauten would be as famous as The Beatles are in ours,” says Blixa Bargeld

Wesley Doyle. “Loving The Alien: Einstürzende Neubauten Interviewed.” The Quietus, https://thequietus.com/interviews/einsturzende-neubauten-blixa-bargeld-interview-2/ 

# Artist Track
1 Einstürzende Neubauten Aus den Zeiten
2 Karen O Sing Along
3 Dead Luke Yellow Sunshine Superstition
4 Dawn Ray’d Strike Again the Hammer Sings
5 Wolven Daughter Sing to Me the Gospel
6 Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter HOW CAN I KEEP FROM SINGING
7 Th Da Freak Sun King (The Beatles cover)
8 Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld Nerissimo (Italian)
9 Lake Sing 99 90
10 Baker / Coloccia / Mueller Yellow
11 Stereolab Fiery Yellow
12 Azar Swan Sing Me Back
13 Einstürzende Neubauten MoDiMiDoFrSaSo

Music and colo(u)r are constants in Blixa's lyrics, and though there are songs that more directly quote the Beatles (e.g. "Headcleaner."), I decided instead go with "MoDiMiDoFrSaSo" for the final cap of this mix to contrast with "Aus den Zeiten."

Bargeld: Listening to mindless music on the tour bus radio. I developed a simplified version of an upbeat, stupid pop song made up of "MonTuesWedThursFriSatSun", with "FriSatSun" sung enthusiastically every time. That was the idea for this piece, with various quotes from other songs and regulations in the lyrics. It's a little bit like a comic strip.

Bargeld, B., Zinfert, M., & Partridge, M. (1997). Headcleaner: Text für Einstürzende neubauten = text for collapsing new buildings. Die Gestalten Verlag. Pg. 256

Monday, June 2, 2025

Alien Pop Monday 00.11 - I try to drag myself out

Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the Eleventh track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "Planet Umbra." Of course after remarking that the last mix was one of the longer ones, this mix ended up exceeding it in length.

I had an unexpectedly busy Memorial Day weekend, so I decided to delay posting this mix for a week, but I plan to go back on schedule next week, so instead of the every other Monday, everyone will get two Alien Pop Monday's back to back. Then after that, I'll go back to the every other week schedule mostly because it means the final mix will post on my birthday.

# Artist Track
1 Einstürzende Neubauten Tar & Feathers
2 Boris D.O.W.N -Domination of Waiting Noise-
3 Fever Ray What They Call Us
4 Fragile Self This Is My Existence
5 Zamilska Fragile
6 Cold Specks Let Loose the Dogs
7 The High Confessions Along Come the Dogs
8 Zola Jesus Run Me Out
9 ANOHNI & the Johnsons Scapegoat
10 GGGOLDDD This Shame Should Not Be Mine
11 Chris Randall Wait 03
12 David Bowie Lazarus
13 Einstürzende Neubauten Seven Screws

This was one of the hardest mixes to put together, because it's built from the same improvisational rampen as "The Pit of Language," but I think it turned out well in the end and feels poignant for this moment in time. Only four more mixes remain, and while that means there are two months of this project left, it does feel a little odd to be in sight of the end. 

Monday, May 12, 2025

Alien Pop Monday 00.10 - We cast no shadows

Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the Tenth track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "Planet Umbra." Of course after remarking that the last mix was one of the longer ones, this mix ended up exceeding it in length.

I think that I've finished assembling the mixes, but I'm sure that I'll change a few things around as I continue to put out the remaining mixes.

# Artist Track
1 Einstürzende Neubauten Planet Umbra
2 X-TG Emerge to Space Jazz
3 /A\ Hotel Stellar
4 Strange Attractor Black Earth
5 Stereolab I Feel The Air {of another planet}
6 Neu! Negativland
7 The Sisters of Mercy Black Planet
8 Holger Czukay Jah Wobble Jaki Liebezeit Twilight World
9 Gary Numan and Titan Dark Rain
10 The Bug vs Earth Another Planet
11 Tiny Star Gravity
12 Moon Duo Planet Caravan
13 Einstürzende Neubauten Zebulon

Perhaps it's fitting that what might be the longest mix goes with the longest track off the album.