16 years ago in Berlin, in an empty place under the autobahn, the band Einstürzende Neubauten was formed. They broke with normal music conventions, avoided German rock. They were probably the first and only German singing formation. After the first shock waves died down, the band from Berlin became a cult.

After a break of three and a half years Einstürzende Neubauten (the name means "Collapsing new buildings") brought out their latest album in the autumn of 1996: Ende Neu. "After Tabula Rasa we decided to break with our usual 3-and-a-half-year cycle and be ready quicker. Obviously, that didn't work." Blixa Bargeld is not far wrong. Since the Tabula Rasa album and the EPs Interim and Malediction, together making up a trilogy, they have needed twice as long. Their last tour was in 1993. The first concert, a sort of dress rehearsal, was in Budapest. Their appearance in Orczy Park was disappointing (as a dress rehearsal usually is, but the Budapest audience didn't thank them for it) and sobered up many a fan. But by the last concert, on home ground in Berlin, the group fused once more into a harmonising band.

At the Cologne PopKomm in August, frontman Blixa Bargeld, on the release of Ende Neu, said, at a press conference, and with a hint of irony, "To all those who still haven't seen Einstürzende Neubauten live, I say: pity! You can tell your grandchildren about it, but we'll never play like this again."

After Tabula Rasa, Einstürzende Neubauten fell silent. Well, not quite. F.M. Einheit was bursting with work for theatre musicals. He works on six to eight projects a year (some have been released, e.g. Radio Inferno and Faustmusik, both Our Choice / Rough Trade). Blixa Bargeld has so far written music for two theatre productions. He has also been working as an actor – he was in Bernard-Marie Koltès' Des voix sourdes on stage at the Berlin Academy of Arts, and in Potsdam he appeared in Werner Schwab's Faust: Mein Brustkorb, mein Helm. In his first film role he played in Christian Frosch's Total Therapy, in the role of a psychotherapist. In Vienna, Blixa Bargeld taught students at the Freie Schule, and also helped with an old companion's album (Gudrun Gut's The Ocean Club). By the way, Blixa Bargeld also has a part-time job with Nick Cave's Bad Seeds.

There was less and less time left over for the Neubauten. Mark Chung was the first to leave, to completely escape active musical life (is that possible?). A replacement was quickly found. Roland Wolff was to take up the job, another familiar Bad Seeds face, who was also with the fabulous Jever Mountain Boys. Wolff was there at the first recording sessions for the new Neubauten album (Die Explosion im Festspielhaus and the Kafkaesque Der Schlacht von Babel), but unfortunately Wolff died in a car accident. Then F.M. Einheit left the band to devote all his time to the theatre. "Only three of the originals are left. Me, Andrew Cudy (N.U. Unruh) and Alex Hacke, this trio finished the album." In 1993 they decided to make a "non-studio record". "We just looked for a room, and in this room we position everything and record everything just as we please. We did that for about a year. We sneaked into various institutions, like the Acadamy of Arts in East Berlin, saying we were writing music for Heiner Müller's play, he was the acadamy's president at the time." The first tracks came into being. Installation No. 1 found its way onto the album.

Later they continued this work in Potsdam, but the plan to make a record not in a studio became a financial burden. "The Neubauten never had their own equipment. We had to rent everything we needed, from microphone stands to cables. In the end this was more expensive." They stopped recording.

Something even more tragic happened between 1993 and 1996. The group, or rather, Blixa Bargeld, lost vision. "Somewhere in this period my vision deserted me. Until February 1996 I was incapable of writing a single lyric that could be used by the Neubauten. A terrible concept, but that's what you might call 'writer's block'. I first had to start from scratch, just to know what I wanted to do."

Stella Maris was the first new song, a surprising piece for the Einstürzende Neubauten. They wrote a love song, in which two people never really meet, but only in their dreams, yet it is their dreams which keep them apart. A simple song, perhaps this is why it appeals so much to the audience. Blixa Bargeld sings a duet with Meret Becker. The Berlin actress and singer is now married to Alex Hacke (who, incidentally, plays the minor role of hotel receptionist in The Killer Condom), and was often present at recording sessions. It was a matter of time before they recorded a title together.

It was Meret who helped Blixa write the songs. "I had already given up. I was prepared either to bring out a bad unfinished instrumental album and ruin our reputation in one fell swoop, or to give the record company back their advance and call it a day. That would have been great. ... My trouble was not the lyrics so much as the music. Since 1993, when we started recording the album, we had been accumulating more and more musical material. I could have just kept on apologising to the other band mambers, and saying, I'm sorry, I couldn't think of anything to go with that." But he couldn't just give up, not bearing the other band members in mind, who would have then had financial problems. Blixa Bargeld was, in his own words, literally dragged into the studio.

He was forced to write the lyrics for Stella Maris, and that changed everything. "3 and a half years this state lasted, then, after February, I began writing text after text, and suddenly it happened like clockwork." A smile breaks out on his face. The Ende Neu album is the first record for a long time, the audience reaction to which Blixa Bargeld is eagarly awaiting. "For a time it haunted me. If you mentioned Einstürzende Neubauten, I would just close up. I couldn't open up to any new perspectives. Something new which had always been part of the Einstürzende Neubauten concept. Something new that still excited me, instead of tried-and-tested techniques, and resurrecting what we had already killed off."

After the song Stella Maris came the title track. "The next step was writing Ende Neu, which was clearly pitched as a statement of Einstürzende Neubauten's situation. [Ende Neu means, literally, "End new" - translator] I wrote it on 1st April 1996, exactly 16 years after our first concept. As a basis, I looked for all the words you could make out of Einstürzende Neubauten. I felt we were over the worst, there would be a record and everything would be great."

An era for the Neubauten came to an end. With this new material, there was a new beginning, a return to the band's roots. They began their work where they had started from in 1980, with the same spirit which had urged them in those days to make a record. Kollaps was recorded under the same conditions (and it is rumoured that that record still sells 300 copies a month). E.g. the machines: the track NNNAAAMMM (New No New Age Advanced Ambient Motor Music Machine) lasts more than ten minutes, written solely for motors and a chorus. The machines play in 9/4 time, but are not quite accurate, so mimicking real people. The singing feels like a mantra, possessing the listener and inducing a state of trance. A half-hour version is being planned, but not by Einstürzende Neubauten; it is to be remixed by others.

Ende Neu is different. Listeners do not have to "listen to pain". This album is a lyrical work. Popular music has changed since the 1980s. The art of making music with noise has changed. "That working with noise is now acceptable has, in a way, removed our basis. So the sort of opportunities we had when we made Kollaps, they've all gone. I can't just stand up and say, we're going to make a record you can't listen to. Kollaps was, when it was released, a record you couldn't listen to. I could do the same thing today, and you would be able to listen to it. It wouldn't be the same, because everything around it has changed."

So Ende Neu is different. Although Blixa Bargeld is not fond of the word "positive", their current material does give one that kind of elevating feeling. There is no question about this record being an Einstürzende Neubauten product. Yet, in earlier times there was only one lyrical piece on an album, now most of the album is lyrical. But they did not fall for the latest technical possibilities. Blixa Bargeld even says he has never been to a techno party. And he has only ever owned two techno records, and he himself is represented on one of them (The Ocean Club). For him, Ende Neu is closer to the Beatles and Arvo Pärt than Tricky or Portishead.

Ende Neu is available in a limited edition as an enhanced CD, that is, with an integrated CD-ROM. Not only can you call up the group's entire discography, but you can use your mouse to take you through the La Chapelle studios in Belgium, where they worked as producers together with Jon Caffery. The CD-ROM also contains the video to Stella Maris. But Blixa Bargeld has not even seen the band's Internet pages. "That's what people do these days. I regularly get sent print-outs." (In case you're interested, the address is: http://www.icf.de/EN/. If you don't have a CD-ROM drive, or access to the Internet, I would recommend Klaus Maeck's book Hören mit Schmerzen - Listen with Pain, which has just been published in an updated form by Die Gestalten Publishers.)

Notwithstanding the foregoing, Ende Neu is also the sequel to Tabula Rasa. The 1993 album was definately a cut above what had gone on before. "Our catalogue was full of egocentric texts ("Ich bin's" [It's me], "Ich steh auf Krach" [I like noise], "Fütter mein Ego" [Feed my ego]), the first person clearly dominated. In contrast, Tabula Rasa was written for an invisible other, or as a duet, or feminine. 'We' followed on quite logically" Blixa Bargeld also changes his appearance. He does still wear black, but with a straw hat with veil, he looks much more feminine than before.

For the time being, no tour is being planned. What happened when they were on stage together always depended on the chemistry between them. This chemistry has now changed, as Blixa makes it clear to the journalists, so their concerts will necessarily look different. There may be Einstürzende Neubauten concerts in 1997, but, whatever, for Blixa Bargeld, "The Neubauten are still the most important thing in my life, that which gives me the greatest pain, but also the greatest satisfaction."