As of: April 8, 2024, 12:01 p.m
By: Johannes Löhr
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The Einstreichen New Buildings 2024: (back from left) Rudolf Moser, Alexander Hacke, NU Unruh, Jochen Arbeit. Seated: Blixa Cash. © Thomas Rabsch
Blixa Cash has been the head of the Einstreichen Neubuildings for over 40 years. In the interview he talks about the new album “Rampen”.
The Einsteinde Neubuildings have been around for 44 years - and over the years, the originally wild Berlin industrial combo has opened up to an orderly, beautiful sound. She shows how spontaneous she still is on “Rampen”, an LP based on live improvisations. Singer, guitarist and lyricist Blixa Cash explains how the new buildings work today - and what connects them with the Beatles.
Your new album is called “Rampen”. You can imagine a lot of things, from rocket launches to the selections in Auschwitz.
I struggled for a long time whether I should call the album that. Our followers also discussed this on the website - they came up with the connection to Rudi's Resterampe. I then added a subtitle: “alien pop music”, apm for short.
And what's with the ramps?
They are derived from launch pads. This is what we call collective improvisations in live concerts in front of an audience. We've always had them. And we have often recreated these ramps in the studio since the mid-1980s, so we record them under better conditions.
In a distant parallel universe we are the Beatles
Blixa cash
They essentially turn the creative process on its head. Normally you present on stage what you created in the studio. Does it work exactly the other way around for you?
It used to be just like that for us. Before we had record releases, we improvised every concert. Later the ramps slowly became a little less. But they always remained. This time we had 29 ramps to work with at the end of the last tour. So: When I say alien pop, then we are just a different kind of musician. We make minority pop music. For aliens and marginalized people. Strange pop music for strange people.
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Visually, the pure yellow record looks a bit like the Beatles' White Album. Is that intentional?
Yes! NU Unruh, who is known to be the biggest living Beatles admirer under the sun, came up with the idea of calling the album “Yellow” because of the lyric “Sing for me in yellow.” Then I turned it around like this: Why don't we design the record in the same way as the White Album? The limited edition is yellow only, embossed, hand numbered, five autograph cards, one poster, yellow double vinyl. So the similarity is clear. And because of alien pop music: let's just assume - in a distant parallel universe we are the Beatles.
In the first lines of the album you sing: “Everything has already been written, everything has already been said”: Does this reflect the artist’s fear that the creative well will run dry?
Absolutely correct. This is the first piece we recorded. And in a certain sense I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to squeeze anything out of the old lemon. But then that went away.
Are the “ramps” also a journey back to your roots, so to speak?
No, we never stopped the ramp thing. But at some points it goes back to where we started. The decision to make an album with ramps was purely practical. We knew that Alex Hacke wouldn't have time to work on a new record in 2023. And because we were on tour with a certain set of instruments, it was clear that all of these ramps would also be created from this set of instruments. This means we were able to record them without spending weeks searching for materials, strategies or tools, which usually takes a lot of time for us. This simply made the whole thing go faster.
Speaking of roots: they “Berlin” in a few places on the album.
It has to do with the cities we played in. We went on stage in Vienna and I said to myself just for fun: Well, let me be a Berliner. In Paris I thought: Maybe Patricia Kaas is there. She wanted to sing a duet with me - at the beginning of the pandemic - so I wrote her the song, but she hasn't recorded it yet. That's why I wanted to sing it to her. It's the most minimal version of a break-up song: "Me without you, you without me - eat better." In the end, however, it sounds to me as if this was God's reckoning with the universe.
We started out in rat holes
Blixa cash
There are many geological images in your texts: terminal moraines, bog corpses, trilobites on the seabed. What attracts you to it?
I originally wanted to become an archaeologist. That didn't let me go. I expect from music that I can find something there. That I have gained knowledge. That there is a truth there that wasn't clear to me before.
What do you prefer: playing live or working in the studio? The physical experience of a Neubauer concert or the later refinement?
I could definitely live with not making any more records. But I couldn't live with not performing anymore. The situation of going into the studio and recording something takes a toll on me psychologically. At first I don't want to. And if I'm in there, eat too late, then I'm kind of written off by my family. I just think about the album. Hence the initial resistance: I don't actually want to go there. So it's better to play live.
As an experimental band, the Neuhäusern were always alien music, strange. Does it sometimes surprise you that you have now become a German cultural icon?
Well, it's a natural process. That something that goes outside the norm is absorbed by the cultural sector. The question is more: How seriously should I take this? In our early days we performed in rat holes - so it's nice to play in the philharmonic halls of the world every now and then.