Their early albums were unremittingly harsh, with Bargeld's vocals shouted and screamed above a din of banging and scraping metal percussion.

The two female members, Bartel and Gut, left the band after a short period and founded Mania D. Shortly thereafter, Alexander Hacke (alias Alexander von Borsig), a sound technician and multi-instrumentalist who was 15 years old at the time, joined the band and became a longtime member.

Einheit (from the Hamburg band Abwärts) joined Einstürzende Neubauten and they released their first LP, Kollaps ("Collapse"),[4] a mixture of rough punk tunes and industrial noises.

The band also appeared as guest performers on Fad Gadget's "Collapsing New People" 7" single's B-side track Spoil The Child, recorded at Hansa Tonstudio, Berlin in November 1983.

In 1984, Einstürzende Neubauten, with guests including Genesis P-Orridge, Stevo Pearce, Frank Tovey and others, played a show titled The Concerto for Voices and Machinery at the ICA in London.

On the tour, the group's experimental and improvised live performance style occasionally caused difficulties with venue management and law enforcement.

The band ignited lighter fluid in a couple of metal pans, and management stopped the performance and cleared the venue.

[7][8] The one-hour film Halber Mensch (1986) by Sōgo Ishii documents Einstürzende Neubauten's visit to Japan in 1985.

[9] The band image of Einstürzende Neubauten changed: Blixa Bargeld, formerly wearing punk/industrial style clothes, appeared at the live concerts in a suit.

This collection included a musical setting of Heiner Müller's piece Bildbeschreibung ("Explosion of a Memory" or "Description of a Picture").

In Vienna, May 1992, Einstürzende Neubauten performed at The Academy of Fine Arts' 300th anniversary in a show by Erich Wonder, Das Auge des Taifun ("The eye of the typhoon").

The next album, Tabula Rasa (1993),[4] was an important turning point in the band's history, the music becoming softer and containing more electronic sounds.

[10] Mark Chung left the band in 1994 after the recording of Faustmusik for Werner Schwab's play, and made a career in the music industry.

The song Stella Maris – a duet between Bargeld and Hacke's then-wife, singer Meret Becker – became quite famous; a world tour followed the release.

In 2002, Einstürzende Neubauten began work on a new album without the backing of a record label, relying instead upon fan ("supporter") participation in an experiment of a type of Street Performer Protocol combined with an internet community and touches of the patronage system.

A half-hour documentary about the supporters project, Traumfestival, was made by Ste van Holm and Dihcar, and is available on YouTube.

The live shows of the Perpetuum Mobile Tour were recorded by the band's sound engineers, then burned on CDRs with individual pictures of each show taken by Danielle de Picciotto and sold directly after the concerts; numerous "official" live albums were created during this tour as a result.

The performance was filmed and coordinated by Danielle de Picciotto and Ian Williamson and released on the exclusive supporter's DVD at the end of Phase II.

The second Musterhaus CD, Unglaublicher Lärm ("Incredible noise"), was finished on 15 August, and shipped out (as well as posted for download) shortly after.

On 25 February, the fourth part of the Musterhaus series, Redux Orchestra versus Einstürzende Neubauten, was completed.

7 Stimmen Reste ("Voice Remainders") was released on 2 December, consisting of vocal experiments, vocal recordings, and manipulations of voice recordings, enriched with leftover instrumental tracks made with polystyrene, electronic pulses, Hammond organ, bass guitar, and metal percussion.

[16] In November 2014 the group released album Lament,[17] a studio reconstruction[17] of a performance piece commissioned by the Belgian town of Diksmuide to commemorate the outbreak of World War I.

In January 2023, the group announced the Rampen Phase of its Supporter's project on its website, introducing the idea of repurposing improvisations from the previous tour into a full album.

[29] The provenance of the logo has been attributed to the sacred ring of Stonehenge,[30] or possibly to an Olmec Native American cave, and most directly in one source[31] to ancient Chinese origins.