The Jewels

liner notes

The JEWELS album is the result of an experiment to search for a navigation system, which led the band back into hidden niches of the Einstürzende Neubauten universe that have not been especially brightly illuminated before now; into those corners, which have remained in the dark or have been forgotten despite two decades of restless movement.

 

This visualization of their musical cosmos began at the same time as work on Alles wieder offen (2007). Initially, these miniatures were conceived only as download presents for the supporters of Phase 3 of neubauten.org. Consequently, the time that could be spent on jewel cutting was limited; two days had to suffice to go from the first inspiration to a finished song. As a result, the Neubauten sought after a creation process, which would develop the necessary dynamics. In this context Blixa Bargeld sensed that it wasn’t necessary to listen to all the Neubauten albums to remember all those great and miserable ideas, coincidences and inventions that had occurred to the band since it began to make audible what had not yet been brought to sound. He could rely on his memory and listen to it in order to finally envision an unsystematic, Neubauten-specific deck of cards (the first version contained 600!) that became a game, a divinatory adviser and a navigation system. Every card made a cryptic reference to elements of what the Neubauten have created over the last 28 years, including the instruments, materials and structures, with references to verse or chorus, intro and outro, middle section, social relationships and alliances. Who with whom? Who with what? At what speed? From which position?

 

The result of this “subversive interpretation game” is a concept album with miniatures – small JEWELS, 2-3 minutes in length, about which the Neubauten say: “At first we considered this process a gigantic digression, but after a while we noticed that the excursions that led us away from the normal album work were justified by the results, because they allowed us to deliver some of our most ego-free compositions up to now.”

Ich komme davon

Under tarpaulins in front of the house
only scantily covered
in the coal cellar hurriedly buried
you cannot say it is really hidden
nevertheless nobody has not
discovered nothing yet

I’ll get away

Whatever I have to conceal
is transported in the trunk of my car
logically, I am checked
on the access roads
in the computer people
can’t find me, not even by my name

I’ll get away.

Mei Ro

no meat

26 Riesen

Alphabetical
one after the other
all are giants
and all from the same place
every single one
is the best
in his profession
all alphabetical
D
is a doctor
B
is a burglar
in a gathering of the giants
he stands behind the curtain and listens
while D
examines the others
to be on the safe side
that all will stay giants
or become giants
except B wants to get smaller
P,
by the way,
is president.

HAWCUBITE

I teach an Englishman how not to bet
I make him perform
a sequence of nonsense actions
“I am clear, reliable and sober …”
Hawcubite
Hawcubite
all this in order
as I say
to detonate an h-bomb
right on top of his head
“This is fun!”
Hawcubite
Hawcubite
it didn’t work
so I left
Hawcubite
Hawcubite

Die Libellen

There, where I first saw the stars,
in the same section of the sky
fighter planes cavorting
bombers rolling, plunging
or hovering, immobile, waiting like dragonflies in the sky

A plane takes off far too low
slips out of sight
resurges, now above our heads
a military transport plane, a giant machine
ailing before plummeting, flames licking out
first a single scream, then everyone on board
it explodes and crashes behind the houses
blood is raining

The dragonflies are waiting in the passage

Jeder Satz mit ihr hallt nach

In those nights when everything upends
verticals, horizontals
every wrinkle becomes a war
all of time falls into a single point
and me at the bottom
all my fault

I plummet into the sun
for ever
now too

with her, every sentence resonates
with her, every sentence resonates
with her, every sentence resonates
with her, every sentence resonates
with her, every sentence resonates
with her, every sentence resonates
with her, every sentence resonates

my sunspot-troubled head
enthroned with eyes aghast
upright
unasleep

Epharisto

A dreaming man
ευχαριστώ
A dreaming man
with a fish body
drifting on his back over the water
he looks downstream

Robert Fuzzo

Appropriately, the prison is located in a New York apartment building.
It is fairly dirty. Whoever wants to go down the corridor has to wade through falling king prawns.
Shoko Asahara, of Aum Shinrikyo, is here, but he is already very old and decrepit. And Tony Curtis, who is quite popular with the guards because he always beats his excrements into firm, solid pats.
He comes and goes whenever he fancies, sneaks his way out into the neighbour’s flat, which has new tenants. There’s no one home…
He passes down a long suite of rooms. Every so often a door on the left opens onto the stairs. At the end is the kitchen. He steals a few credit cards and a couple of small-denomination dollar bills from a handbag sitting on a stool, from here a door leads onto the rear staircase. Downstairs, at the door opening onto the street, he is approached by a woman, the new tenant: “Ah! Are you Robert Fuzzo?” – “No, but Robert will be here soon.” – and away.

Magyar Energia

Magyar Energia
Magyar Energia
Kikapcsoljuk öket, már régiek, a keletnémetek építették a hatvanas években. Magyar Energia
Magyar Energia
Magyar Energia / we’re shutting them down
Magyar Energia / we’re shutting them down
Magyar Energia / we’re shutting them down
Magyar Energia / we’re closing them down
Magyar Energia / we’re shutting them down / built in the 60’s
Magyar Energia / we’re shutting them down / by East Germans
Magyar Energia / we’re shutting them down / the plants are old
Magyar Energia / we’re closing them down / no longer save
Magyar Energia / we’re shutting them down / built in the 60’s
Magyar Energia / we’re shutting them down / by East Germans

VICKY

(Uuu uur hoo?)

what is it that bothers you so much?
space stations I travel in at night.
this one was in Amsterdam,
and all the other places we are going to …
(Uuu uur hoo?)
I explored the corridors
and found a brewery,
with one of my ex-es inside.
(Uuu uur hoo?)
everybody else at dinner,
was in a chinese costume.
(Uuu uur hoo?)
that is what bothers me …

Ansonsten Dostojewsky

Clarinet
Everything he says really means tamed dinosaurs

So it works, fantastic!
A stupid wannabe playboy gangster
Aha!

Clarinet
Everything he says really means something else
Waking up saves me from treatment

Fantastic, well, OK…
Junk and not enough room
for a normal grown person
“Sangria!”

Violin, clarinet
Glassware, printed blue underneath
I withdraw from treatment
Otherwise:

So it works, fantastic!
Grace and concession
Five different children
Location-Scout-Team

Die Ebenen

The frame boxes
have different shapes
on each level
each layer

They are filled
with milky yellow
fully soaked
cell cultures

Amassing
around the edges
is a gelatinous
gelatinous mass

If scraped off
and spread out
it remembers the forms
and simulates them

Only the levels
should not
must not
will not be mixed

Is this all happening in my body?
in the middle?
Under the cover?
Under the skin?

Only the levels
should not
must not
will not be mixed

Am I only Jesus?

America
big cinema
wood-panelled
an Evangelist session in progress
up on stage, greeted with applause,
is a French friend of the congregation:
Benoît
dancers male and female
Am I only Jesus?
I am only Jesus
he calls for everyone to rise
I’m already standing
dressed in nothing but my white bathrobe
in the aisle on the side
a man gesticulates wildly towards me
I should come closer to the front
the frenzied audience up front claps
only Benoît is left on stage
the dancers have departed
Am I only Jesus?
I am only Jesus
and at some point we’re all supposed to get up on stage
to sing and dance
to reach the ecstatic climax of the event
to join the shared glossolalia
Am I only Jesus?
I am only Jesus

Bleib

stay
stay
stay
stay
bars are missing, missing bars
the gaps between are big enough
your rapid heart when I hold you
I caught you in a bad waystay
stay
stay
stay
I cannot
stop you flying
but even two continents away
can still hear you singing
stay
stay
stay
stay

I kissed Glenn Gould

LA POCHA QUINZE

To my total surprise I got an Oscar
redecoration over at Karl Lagerfeld’s
what exactly for?

AZADA GRITAS

I kissed Glenn Gould
dinosaurs
small horses
tamed dinosaurs
half-dead birds and a lamb being used as fodder
goaded by balloon whips, pulling rickshaws

UN OTRO IDIOMAS

thus, and other variations, half the night

Now there are some sort of loops
What kind of loops?
..well, where the three of them were… in the beginning there were two powdermen and a liverdaughter… inflatable, and the words say:
To Mum and Dad
…that’s just fantastic

EN LAS CUERDAS

Kreuzberg:
I attempt to cr…
I attempt to cross the street…
I attem…
a rabid green car tries to stop me, annoyingly it’s the police.
Waking up saves me from treatment.

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