Electronic body music
Related: electronic music - body - industrial music - Belgian music
Definition
Electronic Body Music, more commonly known by its acronym EBM, is a musical genre combining elements of Industrial music and Electronic dance music. The genre's early influences run the gamut from the noisy industrial music of the time (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV) to the Radical Dance scene (Portion Control, 400 Blows) and straight-ahead electronic music (Kraftwerk, DAF). The term was coined by the Belgian band Front 242 in the early 1980s to describe their music, and they are considered the first EBM band. Through the 1980s and early 1990s the style was characterized by harsh and often sparse electronic beats and became popular in the underground club scene, particularly in Europe. In this early period the most important labels were the European Pias and Antler and the North American Wax Trax; early bands besides Front 242 were Die Krupps, Nitzer Ebb, Borghesia, Neon Judgement, A grumph, Skinny Puppy, Severed Heads and Front Line Assembly, among others.
By the mid 1990s EBM began to borrow more and more heavily from synthpop, with the early releases of such bands as Covenant, Wumpscut, VNV Nation, and Funker Vogt combining harsh industrial beats with synthesizer-driven melodies. By the late 1990s many of these middle-era EBM bands (notably VNV Nation and Covenant) were moving more and more towards synthpop, leading to some confusion and debate over the meaning of the term "EBM." While the term is still debated between "purists" who prefer to apply it to music more reminiscent of 1980s-era Front 242 and fans of a more modern style who allow for less adherence to its industrial heritage, today the term typically is used to refer to a sound similar to that of the middle-era bands. In any case, the genre is distinguished from plain synthpop and from the newly named futurepop by the retension of some degree of harshness and industrial elements. Notable among current EBM bands are Wumpscut, Funker Vogt, E-Craft, Bio-Tek, Suicide Commando, Feindflug and Ionic Vision. --http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Body_Music [2004]
Belgium
Electronic Body Music is the heavy variant of electro. Beats and bass are strong which gives the music an industrial feeling, hence the other name for this musics: Industrial. The style was big in Belgium from 1985-1988 with bands like Front 242. http://phobos.plato.nl/e-primer/theroots.htmJo Casters
This front man of the electronic pop group Poésie Noire and one of the founders of new beat, has always been a visionary. "Very early already I played this American stuff in the Belgian Congo club in Leuven. But it's true: early techno and house sounded so alternative that they remained marginal." It is around '81 that Casters becomes fascinated by electronics. In his band Poésie Noire he combines guitars with synthesizers and the first drum machines, inspired by the electronic body music of Front 242 and The Neon Judgement. According to Jo Casters new beat is a simplified form of that electronic body music.
Poésie Noire
Poésie Noire was a great belgian band. In despite of that we haven´t been able to find any information about them on the world wide web. Let us try to do something about that together. If you do have any information about Poésie Noire, please mail it to us, and we will try to make this page as good as possible.
Poésie Noire won the Belgian rock contest Breekend in 1985. In the next year the group played support to Dead Can Dance and the Sisters of Mercy and also a lot of gigs on their own. From that point the saga continued...
Originally the Poésie Noire had seven members, but soon there were only three, Johan Casters, Marianne Valvekens and Herman Gillis.
Unfortunately Poésie Noire ceased to exist in 1992. Antler-Subway waffled on the release of the album "Delirious" and released Poésie Noire from their contract. The band then signed on to EMI-Belgium (a much larger label) and changed their named to TBX. EMI-Belgium released "Delirious" under that name, but it didn't do too well (their music isn't meant for mass consumption). It was deleted from the EMI-Belgium catalog shortly afterwards.
Not being released didn't stop the genius! Jo and Marianne continued and still continues to make music together.
During the end of the nineties, Jo worked in a company that co-ordinates musical mega events and Marianne worked in a large company who helps people to find a job. The Millenium make them change their careers. Jo has started working as A&R for the Roadrunner (now Mostiko) division of Arcade/CNR and last news were saying that Marianne is writing a great book. For now, we don't know more about this!
CDs
- Aktion Mekanik (2003) - Various Artists [Amazon US] [FR] [DE] [UK]
1 Nitzer Ebb - Warszaw Ghetto (4:48) 2 Crash Course In Science - Cardboard Lamb (2:27) 3 No More - Suicide Commando (3:20) 4 Normal, The - Warm Leatherette (3:19) 5 Fad Gadget - Coitus Interruptus (4:39) 6 Klinik - Hours + Hours (5:32) 7 Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft - Verschwende Deine Jugend (3:48) 8 Invincible Limit, The - Push ! (3:551) 9 Skinny Puppy - Assimilate (3:47) 10 Crash Course In Science - Flying Turns (3:00) 11 Liaisons Dangereuses - Mystère Dans Le Brouillard (3:49) 12 Front 242 - Kampfbereit (3:20) 13 Neon Judgement, The - TV Treated (5:00) 14 Psyche - The Crawler (2:16) 15 A Split Second - Flesh (Remix) (2:43) 16 Snowy Red - Euroshima / Werdance (4:15) 17 Terence Fixmer - Aktion Mekanik Theme (6:22)With all the hassle going on around artists from DJ Hell's label Gigolo like Tiga, Vitalic and Terence Fixmer... this last one has been able to created an incredible collection of legendary New Wave, Industrial and Punk classics for Belgium Techno label Music Man. For those who are familiar with the underground scene of the 072 area, this collection is simply creme-de-la-creme, cause this includes almost every bomb played by DJ's like Dr. Nutcracker [in his legendary and defunkt 'Nutcracker' Radioshow... R.I.P.], Electronome, IL Disco, Koert Notario, etc. in the late nineties on weekly basement parties. It may surprise you hearing tracks like for example No More's "Suicide Commando" ripped by DJ Hell for his "Munich Machine" album. Nonetheless this holds classics by A split second, Front 242, Liaisons Dangerueses, Psyche etc. which have been influential to numerous people like Carl Craig, Derrick May, Juan Atkins, Mad Mike to name only a few.
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