Electronic Body Music

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
and Plank produced the third record of proto-EBM fellow travelers Killing Joke (which tbh doesn't live up to their first two, but whatever)

you could look at Killing Joke as approaching a white answer to disco from a similar direction as EBM

i.e. Keine Ahnung, the first German EBM project following DAF etc not under the direction of Plank, directly references Chic in their biggest song

and Jaz from Killing Joke has talked about how they were obsessed with Chic when they recorded their own first record in 79

the basslines, the mechanistic element - and Killing Joke is basically Chic with all the swing taken out, the guitar grinding instead of chicken-scratch
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
of course there similar currents going on elsewhere, mainly in Europe, as synthesizers etc become affordable

most people here will know tracks like these, but


and so on - Nag Nag Nag, Warm Leatherette, yr usual suspects

another simultaneous arrival at a similar place is Craig Leon's awesome Nommos LP
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I remember it (from late 80s, going to clubs with names like Hard) as being tiring to dance to - it was missing something, a wiggle in its walk, that house had. Belgian teknohaus took the sounds and vibe of EBM but added the wiggle.
Yeah that's why that Charles Manier one kills it I think - it's EBM with an extra helping of groove in it.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
but EBM is yeah, a very specific, German take on that world of early synthesizer pop music

they mostly abandon it pretty quick, tho it's carried on with people like Torsten Fenslau

but Belgians especially pick up the torch, whence eventually New Beat

and the Dutch a bit later on leading eventually to gabber
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
DAF formed in 78 - their first LP, only one not produced by Plank, is basically a German take on Chrome and/or a late 70s update of Faust and Neu!
Didn't Julian Cope say that Der Mussolini was basically a re-working of Super from Neu 2 although I've gotta be honest I don't really hear that myself.
Certainly I've always thought there was something pretty similar to the sound of Chrome and DAF.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
most people here are probably already familiar with Conny Plank but if you aren't, look him up

besides essentially creating EBM, he also produced all the early Kraftwerk records overseeing their transition from hippie jamming (Tone Float) to recognizably "Kraftwerk" electro-pop (Autobahn), was intimately involved with the Kluster/Cluster/Harmonia guys, was involved with the Neu! dudes, produced Music For Airports, produced all the important Ultravox records and so was a key architect of synthpop (as opposed to just diy minimal wave biz), and a ton of other things. a true giant who unfortunately died young of cancer.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Do you see any link at all to Suicide?
yeah of course, they're the original electropunk, and a specific template for tons of duos to follow

idk about DAF specifically, again they sound more like Chrome until Plank got ahold of them

but Suicide looms enormously over the entire galaxy of diy late 70s and early 80s synth music, especially its more aggressive end
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
yeah of course, they're the original electropunk, and a specific template for tons of duos to follow

idk about DAF specifically, again they sound more like Chrome until Plank got ahold of them

but Suicide looms enormously over the entire galaxy of diy late 70s and early 80s synth music, especially its more aggressive end
The do indeed... I somehow have them as separate from the scene in my head though, maybe they are too unique or original to be part of a scene.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
maybe they are too unique or original to be part of a scene
they are

the scene they belong to is the arty NY proto-punk - Television, Blondie, The Ramones, etc

but no one else in that scene was doing anything remotely similar to them at the time

tbh I don't think anyone on Earth was really doing what they were doing at the time - a few years later, tons of people, but ca. early-mid 70s, no one
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
you could compare mid-70s Kraftwerk - ca. Autobahn and Radioaktivitat - but even that's yunno, missing the aggression, different vibe

Suicide is that rare thing, sui generis
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
New Beat is indeed a totally silly scene with a pretty low filler to killer ratio, all made by like six guys under a million aliases

basically like Italo but with a much lower hit rate, tho the misses tend to be just mediocre rather than cringe-inducing awful

but occasionally it fuckin' nails it, usually when it gets more acid, roots of goa kinda direction

 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
some more random jams I like in this area

some of the late 80s/turn of the 90s Italian guys made some pretty hard New Beat type warehouse techno biz

this project has the hilarious conceit of being like, Incan Andes techno (pan flutes!), but it smacks you right in the face

this is Stefano Cundari who was a big Italo-disco guy, and it interpolates "Happy House" in the middle, fucking ace

on a modern tip, I always thought this dude was a corny electroclash guy but this is fuckin' hard (the video is cornball arty af tho)

I found this one thru conceptronica actually, the only track I've actually liked out of that tendency
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
and this is a very special random YT find that I love very much, some true 80s regional oddness

these dudes come out of the - as discussed in some other thread - febrile 80s Yugoslav postpunk scene

and they started off playing more like yr typical postpunk white avant-funk

then they put this one v wild wot do u call it record - supreme EBM/industrial/electro but with a blazing hot mess of guitar wizardry over everything

kind of like what early Wax Trax was getting into at the same time but way better than all of that except maybe early MLWTKK

truly deranged power electronics vocals, razor sharp beats, unusual melodies, and yeah that guitar

 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
if you do check out Demolition Group, make sure it's those 1986 cassette versions (which I posted)

the rerecorded a very inferior LP version of the same album two years later

apparently after that they jumped on the grunge bandwagon and became a Slovenian Nirvana, very strange career arc

I guess you could kind of compare them to a more electronic late 80s Faith No More too

like if ca. The Real Thing FNM was on Wax Trax but still had Jim Martin shredding maniacally over everything

anyway I love em
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
New Beat is indeed a totally silly scene with a pretty low filler to killer ratio, all made by like six guys under a million aliases

basically like Italo but with a much lower hit rate, tho the misses tend to be just mediocre rather than cringe-inducing awful

but occasionally it fuckin' nails it, usually when it gets more acid, roots of goa kinda direction

Ah my girlfriend has that Something Scary one on twelve I think. She plays it a lot.
 
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