Intended to be "unlistenable," Germany's Einstürzende Neubauten's 1981-debut album Kollaps has attracted listeners four decades after it was recorded.

Perhaps the best musical encapsulation of the Cold War as experienced in the walled city of West Berlin, Kollaps is a product of its time while remaining as vital, exhilarating and surprising as the day it was released.

The book explores the contexts, themes, and influences that shaped Kollaps. It describes the early days of Einstürzende Neubauten in West Berlin, the manic energy of their performances, their use of scrap metal, drill hammers, bodily sounds, and tape loops, their preoccupation with nihilism and subversion, and what Nick Cave called the "incredibly mournful, haunting" nature of their music. The beginning of a 40-year career, this first burst of energy remains their purest statement.