“On stage I wear a postmodern paper copy of Marlene Dietrich’s famous swansdown coat.”

Blixa Bargeld Interview SPEX N° 357

„I only know pacifists“

Spex: Mr. Bargeld, the première of Lament will be in Belgium, right?

Blixa Bargeld: Haven’t you read the blurb? Lament is a commissioned work for the region Flanders. Do you really think I was keen on making a record about World War I, or what? This document (points at CD), this flat pressed document of a music recording which is available on vinyl, download and CD, is principally only the deposit of the work on a performance. We have been engaged by the region Flanders, especially the city Diksmuide, to compose a performance which will have its première there and marks the beginning of a whole year of events that should remember the beginning of World War I. We are the first. Among others Tindersticks are also part of it, they composed music for a museum.

Spex: Diksmuide is in Flanders, in the zone that was radically destroyed during World War I. The cities and villages there have been sometimes on one, sometimes on the other side of the front and have been fired at until there was hardly anything left of them.

Blixa Bargeld: The landscape in Flanders is very much scarred by World War I until today. There are still collectors of military things walking through the forests with their metal detectors to find any pieces.

Spex: The first out of three parts of the titletrack „Lament“ has a very simple text: „Powerful people love war“. What is left of it in the end are the words „power, war“. Is Lament a pacifistic record?

Blixa Bargeld: I only know pacifists. I don’t know what else it should be? One of the first ideas I had was to make Lament a piece of three parts with voices. But only the first part was becoming the voice part in the end. Basically there is a specific textform for a Lament. In the Old Testament are miscellaneous lamentations. In the classic Lament there is the blaming of the enemies, which of course is an invocation of god. That was not something I could do like that. There were two scientists I worked with, with whom I prepared it, a historican and a literary scholar who tried to provide me material to find some aspects that would not be completely grinded through the mill of memory by the end of 2014. Among other things they found out that there was a Flemish renaissance composer in Diksmuide who was quite well-known and wrote a motet with the title „Pater, Peccavi“. Father, I have sinned – that is the confession with which the son goes back to the father in the Allegory Of The Prodigal Son in the New Testament – and that fit together with the source material that is here in Berlin.

Spex: We talk about audio recordings by prisoners of war, recorded by German scientists.

Blixa Bargeld: Basically there is no audio material of World War I. And that is simply because there were not existing options to record sound. The only thing that is existing worldwide are the phonograph cylinders stored here in Berlin that Thomas Edison had constructed for his phonograph and with which scientists were sounding out the prisoners of war. Compared to World War II, prisoners were treated better, but one should be aware of the fact that these recordings were extorted under constraint. One of the sample texts the scientists wanted the prisoners to read was exactly this one: The Allegory Of The Prodigal Son, in all languages you can think of that European peoples were speaking. Probably because the bible texts were available in all these languages. I could not stop myself from walking through this open door and put it together. Well, the composer with his motet in eight parts who is buried in Diksmuide that is, which I arranged with Jan Tilman Schade for a string octet and slowed it down to the most extreme and these voices on the phonograph cylinders from the Lautarchiv of Humboldt University. That is exemplary digitalized, also the sheets completed by the scientists back then, who says what, occupation and age of the speakers and so on. The problem of working with that material only was: Its horrible by the criteria of an audiophile.

Spex: There is noise.

Blixa Bargeld: Noise is even overestimated. It rustles and crackles. It’s impossible to judge this material by the criteria of personal taste. I can’t work with phonographs by dead people that emerged during a forced situation and say: I like this speaker better than that speaker. Or: That is crackling too much. Therefore we had to find a method to work with this material without judging it by ourselves. We play it with so called boom boxes, little speakers that you can hold in your hand. By releasing these voices and retrapping them without really knowing what will come out of that. If you keep in mind that Lament is not really a conventional record but working on a performance you have to imagine it like this: There is a string octet playing this motet „Pater, Peccavi“ and the rest of Neubauten is releasing voices.

Spex: Philip Scheffner used recordings like that in 2007 in his movie…

Blixa Bargeld: …The Halfmoon Files…
Spex: …as a starting point, exactly. He especially focused on phonograph cylinders recorded in Wünsdorf near Berlin where among others the Muslim and other non-christian prisoners were interned.

Blixa Bargeld: In the so called Half Moon Camp.

Spex: Exactly. These prisoners were abused for the ethnographic studies of German scientists. They for example should sing native songs in their own languages. There is only one speaker from Wünsdorf who can be heard in the third part of Lament.

Blixa Bargeld: There are thousands of recordings. First I researched in all kinds of directions in the Ethnologic Institute and the Lautarchiv of Humboldt University. I would have loved to find music recordings that could have been used, because I especially searched for musical targets you could do something with, but unfortunately I did not find anything within the material of the digitalized phonographs.

Spex: The band sings in English, German, Flemish and French on Lament.

Blixa Bargeld: It was the wish of the client that it would be great if there would be something in Flemish. I kept that in mind of course. I took Flemish pronunciation lessons but I did not get to the point of singing. Actually I am reciting.

Spex: The first piece of Lament is a real “Neubauten start”, it squeaks and cracks.

Blixa Bargeld: That symbolizes the machinery of war and was inspired by the increasing war expenses most nations had before the beginning of World War I. Everyone was preparing for a war already. A similar situation like now where the Nato suddenly has to become stronger. Exercises are being held while at the same time the Crimea is annexed and the fault lines of Europe become visible again. That all has influence as well when you work on things like this. You realize everything is still there like it was 100 years ago. That creates a second layer. In our performance there are „The Willy-Nicky Telegrams“.

Spex: Which are based on the telegraphic correspondence between Kaiser Wilhelm II and his postilion Zar Nikolaus II.

Blixa Bargeld: Today it could be called „The Angie-Vladi-Mails“.

Spex: World War I was a sound sensation as well. The enormous noise that was mostly induced by the huge guns was described very often. The media theorist Lax Wouterloot put up the thesis that you can understand the artillery – because it seldomly hits but it’s noise has such a frightening effect – before all as a psychological weapon. The cannon is an instrument of terror.

Blixa Bargeld: That is possible. But I don’t think that it was meant like that. However I am no expert for weapons and I hope I won’t mutate into an expert for World War I. The work on this material meant you had to drown yourself into this group of themes. After I finished the preparatory work and we went into the studio I wanted to quit the whole thing after a week already. Since it became clear that I won’t get a well balanced result if I would not dive into it on a very deep emotional level. And I did not want to do that. I did not want to focus on death for months. I don’t know what it’s like for other singers, but singing about death always means singing about your own death as well. I did not want to go there but in the end I continued and got deeper and deeper into it which made it more and more difficult. Without writing a piece like „How Did I Die?“ it would have collapsed, it would not have made any sense.

Spex: At the beginning of this song you can hear the narrative voice of a soldier who asks himself how he died. But in the end it says „We didn’t die / We’re just singing a different song.“

Blixa Bargeld: A song like „ Der 1. Weltkrieg. Percussion Version“ is a completely mathematic composition. It’s the try to keep something away from yourself so you are not directly involved. But doing only that would have been a little too flat. It had to go into depth as well.

Spex: In „Der 1. Weltkrieg. Percussion Version“ single countries are represented through plastic tubes, the length of the song represents the length of the war, every beat is for one day. That indeed is quite abstract. I listened to your first record „Kollaps“ for preparation and asked myself afterwards if Einstürzende Neubauten from the beginning on has been a band who thematized the noise of war and the collapsing of houses.

Blixa Bargeld: I did not understand the last part: The sound of collapsing houses?

Spex: Einstürzende Neubauten is your bandname and the noise you hear on „Kollaps“, with the jackhammers and drills….

Blixa Bargeld: (resolutely) There is no jackhammer, there never was. There were electric hammers, a bigger domestic appliance. Jackhammer is a completely different effort, you can’t easily put a compressor like that in the studio.

Spex: I rephrase it: The noise on „Kollaps“ is quite aggressive and vehement, with the sound of electronic hammers and drills.

Blixa Bargeld: Songs like „Sehnsucht“ where someone plays two chords on the electric piano and sings „Sehnsucht“ along to that, are aggressive?
Spex: „Sehnsucht“ is not aggressive, no.

Blixa Bargeld: Fine, then we can stick to this. It’s always said: In the past it was all so noisy and today it’s not anymore. That is not true, there were always both sides.

Spex: There are very beautiful, calm songs on „Kollaps“, nevertheless I repeat my question and limit it to this: There are some songs on „Kollaps“, like „Kollaps“, „Steh auf Berlin“ oder „Hören mit Schmerzen“ – that are very loud and aggressive. Neubauten started in 1980, the record was released in 1981. World War II was still present everywhere in Berlin. Was your music back then reflecting this war?

Blixa Bargeld: It’s hard to jugde for me. I can only say that the Cold War was more present in Westberlin than in other cities in West Germany. Since the living situation is always showing in these recordings, I suppose that something made it’s way in there. But in which form I can not say. It was not my thought anyhow.

Spex: Lemmy of Motörhead once said „The music we make is music in the age of mass extinction.“ When one listens to music like yours, one could imagine that it is also an expression of that.

Blixa Bargeld: That for now sounds rather tasteless.

Spex: Lemmy is running around with Iron Cross and SS jacket. It’s not about good taste. I don’t think it’s that absurd.

Blixa Bargeld: If it is like that for him, all right. But you said that could be seen like that for Neubauten as well.

Spex: It was more a question I asked myself.

Blixa Bargeld: The only war I ever participated in during my lifetime is the Cold War. And I hope I will never have to be part of another war as long as I live. The Cold War was very present in Berlin, and that simply meant: When a plane was buzzing longer than you’d expected, you started thinking something might happen. In Westberlin you could receive DDR television with a hanger functioning as an aerial. West television was more complicated.

Spex: Throbbing Gristle, who worked with noise – though different noise – as well already some years before you, were concerned with the idea of sound as a weapon.

Blixa Bargeld: Today when talking about the history of Industrial everyone forgets that the basic manifestation of it was that it never, at any point, was about pleasing people. You would never think that about the things that are apostrophized as Industrial today, Nine Inch Nails for example. But the fundamental metaphor of the whole thing was that it was not about entertaining or pleasing.

Spex: The beginning of this document called „Lament“…

Blixa Bargeld: I like „document“.

Spex: You said that.

Blixa Bargeld: We only talk about the CD as a document, that is nice.

Spex: Well, at the beginning of the document the leviathan makes noise. Later the record becomes much calmer, a lot of voice can be heard, it’s complex, also sad and inspiring. But I asked myself if this very silent, melancholic atmosphere that dominates it, is fitting the real noise and terror of war.

Blixa Bargeld: My starting point was: I want to avoid every form of bellicistic rage. That was the first thing I said in the studio. There is this nice sentence by Tom Waits „I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.“

Spex: Another connection between war and music are the Harlem Hellfighters. You recorded two songs by them as well. Was that the initial name of the band? The members of this Afro-American band had been fighting and making music together in Europe.

Blixa Bargeld: The Harlem Hellfighters Band was so to speak the military band of the 369. infantry regiment, the Harlem Hellfighters. Some of the Hellfighters had played with Cab Calloway. It was a proto-jazz band before the term jazz was even established. The dominating term was ragtime. Their bandleader James Reese Europe – I was told that by another interviewer before – was stabbed to death by the drummer in 1919. The fascinating thing is, they were recruited in the US in times of racial segregation. There were immense protests against it and the Americans manoeuvred themselves out of it by transporting the black soldiers to France and putting them under control of the French. They must have had a big part in the jazz craze that happened in France then. There are very beautiful photos of them with shot instruments, a tuba with bullet holes. They must have created and played these songs already back then and recorded them after the war. In „On Patrol In No Man’s Land“ the whole noise of war is woven into the text. That is like a dialogue between the drummer and the singer, the drummer illustrating everything the singer is singing: When it says „There is a German Minenwerfer“ the drummer plays a loud Bummbummbumm. They have been the first crossing the Rhine by the way. They were feared by the Germans, because no one of them ever went in prison.

Spex: They did not want to leave anyone behind.

Blixa Bargeld: The Germans said, that is how it’s recorded: „They smile, while they kill“. They were very frightened of them.

Spex: Later the right-wing propaganda took advantage of that to warn about the subhumans, the primitives, who marched across the Rhine back then.

Blixa Bargeld: The Senegalese snipers were also greatly feared. They were able to lie there motionless for two hours only to suddenly pull the trigger. I really start to slowly mutate into an expert. Of course it is pointless to make a record that works just didactic. That was not what it was all about for me. I am part of the grey race of Avantgarde Entertainers, whose more or less only representative I am. I always want to do something that is in some way entertainment. I think there is nothing worse than putting something boring out into the world. You should be drawn to it and say: That was a profitable time I spent with this music. I don’t want to come across like I know everything, like SPEX once wrote. It is not like that. I unavoidably had to deal with these things and have searched my own corners, niches and pockets of things that I thought could be interesting.

Spex: While you did not fear anachronism, like the historican calls it: You have recorded „Sag mir wo die Blumen sind“ from 1955.

Blixa Bargeld: Like I said, World War I and World War II kind of belong together and therefore it fits. On stage I wear a postmodern paper copy of Marlene Dietrichs famous swansdown coat. It is stored in Berlin in the film museum. My grandmother was born 1901, like Marlene Dietrich, they both experienced World War I as 13-year olds. Marlene went through both wars. When there is one thing you can not criticize her for then it is that she did not show enough antifascism. Therefore this combination fits well. Pete Seeger, who wrote the song, died one day after we started working on it. Seegers music was not played in the radio anymore after his citation to the House Un-American Activities Committee. He is one of the most important songwriters of the past 100 years. Songs always create other songs. The big advancement is that May Colpet, screenwriter for Billy Wilder published a German version in the USA with two further verses and Pete Seeger, who spoke German, said „That is much better than the English version“. And do you know who arranged the song for Marlene Dietrich?

Spex: No.

Blixa Bargeld: Burt Bacharach! He had the following glorious idea: Instead of letting it pass through in C-Dur like in Seeger’s version – the song has a circular structure you must know – it goes up a half-tone in every verse in Bacharach’s version, C, Cis, D. And then it goes back down until it is back at C. That is a genius arrangement. We refer to this whole story. But it only became possible through doing something Neubautenesques with it.
Spex: Earlier you said, it was important to not end the project with death, but with the line „We didn’t die“.

Blixa Bargeld: I was sure that the performance can’t end like that. Somewhen I accidentally came across some different chords and realized: That is what has to come afterwards. I knew, the dead will come back, not as zombies but: „How did I die? Or didn’t I die at all?“ Maybe they are not dead at all. That of course is a utopian, inverted version. There is a historic model, another example for one song creating another song. Kurt Tucholsky wrote a song he dedicated to Erich Ludendorff. It’s called „Die rote Melodie“. A cabaret singer sings through the complete horror of World War I. But then the dead come back. Namely to catch Ludendorff!

Interview by Ulrich Gutmair
Pictures by Thomas Meyer

Translation by Anna