Einstürzende Neubauten’s ‘Kollaps’ turns 45 on 5 October
Einstürzende Neubauten’s debut album “Kollaps” turns 45 on 5 October. The 1981 ZickZack release introduced the band’s self-made instruments.
Einstürzende Neubauten’s debut studio album, “Kollaps,” turns 45 this year. The German industrial band released the record on 5 October 1981 through the Hamburg label ZickZack. It remains the first official full-length release by Blixa Bargeld, N.U. Unruh and F.M. Einheit under the Einstürzende Neubauten name.
“Kollaps” runs 38 minutes across eleven tracks, recorded in Berlin in 1981 and produced by the band itself. The album mixes rough punk-derived song structures with noise generated from self-built devices, electronics and metal plates and other found objects, a method that became the band’s signature. The tracklist includes “Tanz Debil,” “Steh auf Berlin,” “Negativ Nein,” “U-Haft Muzak,” “Draußen ist Feindlich,” “Schmerzen Hören (Hören mit Schmerzen),” “Jet’M” (a cover of Serge Gainsbourg’s “Je t’aime… moi non plus”), the title track “Kollaps,” “Sehnsucht,” “Vorm Krieg” and “Hirnsäge.” Later CD reissues appended additional tracks, including a live 1987 recording of “Negativ Nein.”
Trouser Press described the record as “one of the most shocking visions ever committed to vinyl.” “Kollaps” is also listed in the reference book “1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.” The album has since been reissued, including a 2002 edition paired with the 1982 dub companion “Stahldubversions.”
About Einstürzende Neubauten
Einstürzende Neubauten formed in Berlin in 1980 around vocalist and guitarist Blixa Bargeld and percussionist N.U. Unruh. The band’s name translates to “collapsing new buildings,” a reference to construction failures in West Berlin at the time. From the outset, the group built its sound around self-made and adapted instruments, including power tools, scrap metal, oil drums and construction debris, played alongside conventional guitar, bass and vocals. F.M. Einheit joined on percussion before the band’s first LP.
The band’s earliest recorded appearance came via the cassette-only “Stahlmusik” in 1980. Einstürzende Neubauten signed to the Hamburg independent label ZickZack, which released “Kollaps” on 5 October 1981, the band’s first official studio album. The record was recorded in Berlin during 1981 and produced by the band itself, with no outside producer credited.
Following “Kollaps,” Einstürzende Neubauten continued to record for European independent labels through the 1980s, including “Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T.” (1983) and the compilation “Strategies Against Architecture ’80-’83,” before moving to Some Bizzare/Mute for later releases. Bargeld also worked as a guitarist with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds from the band’s formation in 1983. Einstürzende Neubauten’s lineup has changed over four decades, with Alexander Hacke and Marc Chung both joining in the years following “Kollaps.” The band added bassist Josefine Lukschy in 2026, alongside confirmed festival dates and studio webcasts. Forty-five years after “Kollaps” introduced the band’s self-made-instrument method on record, Einstürzende Neubauten remains active, with the album standing as the starting point of that catalogue.
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