Electronic Body Music

IdleRich

IdleRich
Fuck it let's have an EBM thread.... dark and pulsing with a cool name (until EDM ruined it), there's obviously an overlap with industrial and new beat and minimal synth etc in aesthetic if not in actual structure. I know that a load came up in the tune of the day thread but I think there is still enough left unsaid to do a special thread for it.
The original stuff is cool - normally the best is from Germany or Belgium I guess... DAF, Neon Judgement and so on. As Padraig said it is like 60 garage in that purist collectors are kinda chasing the sound for increasingly diminishing returns - also cos there are loads of random one off bits (often on tape) that is being released on more and more comps.
Anyway, here are some I like
I guess you could call this one first wave...


And there was cool stuff in the 90s too


This just brutal


And (Padraig again) mentioned this tune which is a more modern take on the sound. I haven't DJ-d as much as some but over the years I've played a fair few times in quite a few places and this has to be one of the tunes I've played the most. Proper saver if things aren't ahem going as you hoped. Charles Manier is the same guy as James T Cotton I think.


And one more modern ebm pastiche type thing which I think is about Ian Curtis or something.


Anyone else listen to this kind of gear? It's a funny one for me cos it gets samey quickly but lots of the tunes are so good that in isolation that when I hear them I get in a cycle of getting excited digging into the sound... and then getting fed up again until next time.
 

version

Well-known member
You heard Tzusing? There's a lot of EBM influence in his stuff. His mixes are wicked too. Love this one I found via his RA podcast.

 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I have heard that before in fact... though I think only cos you posted it here. EBM goes to the disco sort of thing - a bit like the b-sides to that Memory Boy I guess but they are not on youtube.
 

version

Well-known member
Join in the Chant's the first thing I think of when I think of EBM. Also newer people like Powell, Not Waving and Tzusing as they were where I first heard the term. I dunno that they're strictly EBM, but it's in there.



 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Ed Dmx did this one called Body Destruction which was definitely ebm influence but I can't find it on youtube.


Probably something lots of people have a crack at doing once or twice.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Join in the Chant's the first thing I think of when I think of EBM. Also newer people like Powell, Not Waving and Tzusing as they were where I first heard the term. I dunno that they're strictly EBM, but it's in there.



Definitely Nitzer Ebb are one of the main ones I reckon.
Powell I do quite like and he definitely kinda comes from that sound but he takes it off in slightly different directions rather than just banging out ones with that same kind of pulse. Although... what's happened to him?
One of the mixes of JITC is by Daniel Miller... which in a roundabout kinda way reminds me of this EBMed up version of Warm Leatherette

 

IdleRich

IdleRich
What does Nitzer Ebb mean anyway? In my mind - and I think I read this somewhere - it's just nonsense words to try and sound German. I've been thinking that for years and maybe even telling people that too... but it sounds so stupid, can it be true?
 

version

Well-known member
Powell I do quite like and he definitely kinda comes from that sound but he takes it off in slightly different directions rather than just banging out ones with that same kind of pulse. Although... what's happened to him?
He got into theory and now does this multimedia project with a couple of artists.
 

version

Well-known member
What does Nitzer Ebb mean anyway? In my mind - and I think I read this somewhere - it's just nonsense words to try and sound German. I've been thinking that for years and maybe even telling people that too... but it sounds so stupid, can it be true?
Just stuck it into Google Translate and it didn't come up with anything, so I think you're probably right.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Oh yeah, I read something about Powell recently in fact cos I bought one of his albums in a second hand shop a few months back and thought "hang on what happened to that guy?" and looked it up... and obviously it wasn't that memorable.
 

version

Well-known member
Yeah, the new stuff doesn't grab me either. It's just your usual squiggly, experimental fare. That being said, if that's what he wants to do then fair play to him for ditching XL and just doing it. He was in quite an enviable position doing albums for a label like that and he's seemingly dropped it in favour of releasing this stuff via Bandcamp and running his own site.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Ah I mean I didn't remember what he was doing at all, not sure I've checked the new music in fact.
Doesn't he have his own label though?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I mean he's got somewhere to fall back on that is fairly successful I think... but obviously it's not XL.
 

version

Well-known member
He runs a label called Diagonal and currently has that project I mentioned for his own material.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I reckon he's right to not just do pure pastiche stuff but I actually thought he had his own sound. Dry and going off in directions you didn't expect but still effective.
 
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