On 16 October, Einstürzende Neubauten, one of the key bands in German popular music, gives a concert as part of Liszt Fest. If there’s a band whose work is hard to characterize through ten songs, it’s the band led by Blixa Bargeld (which did not even attempt to offer a gist of its oeuvre on its Greatest Hits album). Even so, these ten tracks make a convincing case for what makes the band unique and why this concert is not to be missed.

Armenia (1983)

Einstürzende Neubauten started out as a post-punk, industrial noise band, which created cathartic songs that pushed the boundaries of music by using tools (drills, concrete mixers), custom-made instruments and metal percussive instruments. A key moment on the third album is a good illustration, and may be familiar from the famous action movie, Heat.

Yü-Gung (1985)

The 1980s mostly saw Einstürzende Neubauten apply and refine the above formula, and in the process emerge as one of the most original bands, with immense influence on more industrial subgenres. This is one of their best tracks from this period.

Feurio (1989)

The dark ambient component of the band’s music became more prominent towards the end of the decade, just as they were incorporating electronica and Electronic Body Music (itself greatly inspired by EN) into structures and compositions that prefigured post-rock in distinctive ways.

The Interim Lovers (1993)

The turning point in EN’s oeuvre is the 1993 album Tabula Rasa and the songs released around it, where they achieve their goals partly via very different musical means. It is here that Bargeld is perhaps closest to the work of Nick Cave, whose musical world he himself had actively shaped since the mid-eighties as a member of the Bad Seeds.

The Garden (1996)

With the 1996 album Ende Neu, the band’s sound had reached a new stage: this is already exquisite art pop, while the musical structures continue to be unique and original.

Sabrina (2000)

In fact, this stage of the band’s evolution is almost ambient pop, as demonstrated by their great album from 2000, tellingly entitled Silence Is Sexy.

Youme & Meyou (2004)

This track characterizes the direction the band followed in the 2000s, with quieter, more delicate songs that continued to be informed by splendid ideas and a post-industrial mindset.

Nagorny Karabach (2007)

Many of the hidden gems of the band’s oeuvre were written during this period, including the “midnight blue ballad,” Nagorny Karabach, one of their most beautiful and profound songs.

Alles In Allem (2020)

Compared to their beginnings, this seems to be a different band, with a focus on songs, but they still have an outstanding sense of dramaturgy and a mastery of construction.

Ist Ist (2024)

Let’s end this list with a song from the new album, which the band is now touring. Can you resist these arrangements? Einstürzende Neubauten have lost nothing of their edge over more than forty years. This is music that moves the heart, the mind and the viscera.