30 years ago, Belgium act FRONT 242 coined the term “EBM – Electronic Body Music - to describe the musical of their second album “No Comment” (Another Side/1984), inspired by a variety of artists such as Suicide, Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, Wire or Joy Division. In a similar fashion to the germano-hispanic combo Liaisons Dangereuses or D.A.F., the band distilled a blend of disjointed electronic bass lines, steep minimalist rhythms and mechanical vocals chanted with a martial attitude, perfectly succeeding at the time to encompass and blend icy cold wave with disco groove on an industrial background. The original EBM (which, when I was a teenager, was called “Techno Music”) raged all over the 80’s indie clubs. But it started to lose its appeal with the arrival of the more commercial sounding New Beat (1988) and the more aggressive “Aggrepo” (1990). Although, around 1987, English duo “Nitzer Ebb” carried the torch with panache, signing its album “That Total Age” on Mute Record and, just like Front 242 had done before them, landing a spot as opening act for a DEPECHE MODE tour. At the same time when electronic music reached the masses in the mid 90’s rave parties, the domination of machines in FRONT 242 music started to wane with the introduction of guitars and drum kits as early as 1993. Disappointed, the bulk of their fans felt betrayed by those changes and the arrival of crossover bands from the US (Ministry, Revolting Cocks, NIN) or Canada (Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly). Totally hackneyed since the end of the 90’s following the appropriation of the EBM name by unscrupulous German record labels which flooded the market with increasingly mediocre bands producing cliché dark-techno-trance soup (VNV Nation, Suicide Commando, Combichrist), the genre was eventually totally discredited in the eyes of purists. Like me, many of them turned to producers such as The Hacker, Terence Fixmer, David Carretta or Millimetric, all emerging from the Techno scene and who remained faithful to the European roots of electronic music in general and EBM in particular. Now totally ruined by thousands of retarded bands eructing stupid onomatopoeia over bass lines heard thousands of times, the EBM genre has wilted over the first decade of the century, losing both its futurist and visionary aspects to turn into some low-end electro-punk for beer drinkers in Doc Martens. At the dawn of yet another revival from Los Angeles (Youth Code, High Functioning Flesh…) or Dallas (//Tense//) let’s render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars: EBM is essentially FRONT 242, DAF, The Neon Judgement, Absolute Body Control and Nizer Ebb! All the others are just pale imitations (And One, Covenant…) or pure plagiarism (Gesaffelstein, Maelstrom, Mr. Magnetik…) of their aforementioned elders. _Pedro (Unknown Pleasures Records)_ https://youtube/watch?v=-zk0ltg24HY
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 06:00:40 +0000
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