Please Rewind Talent Wall

Blixa Bargeld

Blixa Bargeld has built a career at the point where music, performance and film meet. Born in West Berlin on January 12, 1959, he grew up in the city’s Tempelhof area and began experimenting with audio equipment as a teenager, even taking tape recorders apart. Self-taught after leaving school before completion, he moved quickly from an early Pink Floyd record toward the German krautrock of Kraftwerk, Neu! and Can, which he described as major influences at the time. In 1980, Bargeld founded Einstürzende Neubauten, establishing the group that would remain central to his work. His involvement with film followed early: he appeared in Kalt wie eis in 1981 and Berlin Now in 1984, performing music in both. These appearances fit naturally within a wider practice that has never kept acting, composition, sound and performance in separate boxes. From 1983 to 2003, Bargeld was also guitarist and backing vocalist with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, occasionally taking lead vocals alongside Cave on songs including “The Carny” and “The Weeping Song.” Other collaborations took him to recordings by the Gun Club and Alain Bashung, while later projects included ANBB with Alva Noto and the album Still Smiling with Italian composer Teho Teardo. Since the mid-1990s, Bargeld’s solo Rede/Speech Performances have offered another view of his approach. Working in English or German with microphones, sound effects, sampler loops and overdubbing, he treats speech as raw sonic material. His occupations across acting, composition, singing, writing, guitar and performance art reflect a body of work shaped less by conventional boundaries than by a persistent curiosity about what sound, language and physical presence can do. Even his adopted name carries an artistic construction: “Blixa” came from a felt-tip pen brand, while “Bargeld” means cash and also referenced artist Johannes Theodor Baargeld.