Electronic body music
| Electronic body music | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | industrial music, electropunk |
| Cultural origins | Early 1980s, Belgium, United Kingdom, Germany, United States, Canada |
| Typical instruments | synthesizer - drum machine - sequencer - keyboard - sampler |
| Derivative forms | goa trance - new beat - aggrotech - futurepop |
(complete list) | |
| Other topics | |
| notable industrial artists - subgenres of industrial | |
Electronic body music (acronymed and mainly known as EBM) is a music genre that combines elements of industrial music and electronic punk music.
Emerging in the early-to-mid 1980s, the genre's early influences range from the industrial music of the time (Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire), European electropunk (DAF, Liaisons Dangereuses, Portion Control) and straight-ahead electronic music (Kraftwerk).
Characteristics
The style was characterized by hard and often sparse dancable electronic beats, clear undistorted vocals, shouts or growls with reverberation and echo effects, and repetitive sequencer lines. At this time important synthesizers were Korg MS-20, Emulator II, Oberheim Matrix or the Yamaha DX7.
Etymology
The term electronic body music was coined by the Belgian band Front 242 in 1984 to describe the music [1]) of their EP No Comment, released in the same year.
A few years before, DAF from Germany used the term "Körpermusik" (body music) in an interview to describe their dancable electronic punk sound.
Another term that has been used to refer to EBM is aggrepo, an acronym of "aggressive pop", mainly used in Germany in the late 1980s.
History
In the early 1980s artists like Front 242 or Nitzer Ebb (both influenced by acts such as Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft, Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle) started to combine German electropunk with elements of the british industrial music. The result of this mixture was a straight dancable sound that was called EBM back in 1984. EBM became popular in the underground club scene, particularly in Europe. In this period the most important labels were the Belgian PIAS, Antler-Subway and KK Records, the German Techno Drome International, Animalized and Zoth Ommog, the North American Wax Trax! and the Swedish Front Music Production and Energy (later Energy Rekords).
Other artists besides Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb were Die Krupps, Bigod 20, Vomito Negro, Signal Aout 42, Force Dimension, Electro Assassin, Insekt and early Front Line Assembly. A few other groups were A Split Second (a Belgian electro-rock/new beat act), AAAK, The Weathermen, The Klinik, Borghesia, The Neon Judgement or Ministry. These acts produced some genre-typical songs, although they were not EBM groups.
Some EBM artists also had an influence on many New beat and Goa trance artists (e.g. Juno Reactor, Astral Projection, Eon Project).
Developments
Between the early and the mid 1990s, many EBM artists split up or changed their musical style and began to borrow more distorted industrial elements or elements of rock music or metal. The album "Tyranny for you" and following albums from the pioneers Front 242 initiated the end of the EBM epoch of the 1980s. Nitzer Ebb, one of the most important artists, became a simply electronic rock band. Without the strength of its figureheads, electronic body music finally faded by the mid-1990s.
New groups, e.g. Leæther Strip, :wumpscut: or Plastic Noise Experience, combining harsh distorted beats with synthesizer-driven melodies. This evolution of the dying EBM genre has been termed by the music press and labels as hardcore electro or electro-industrial [2] or especially in Germany and South America as elektro for short (not to be confused with the hip-hop subgenre electro). Other notable artists of this era include Allied Vision, Psychopomps, Controlled Fusion, early Decoded Feedback or NVMPH. A second developed genre at this time was dark electro. Dark electro combined sinister electronic soundscapes with grunts or croaking vocals with a special attention to despair. Important artists were yelworC, Mortal Constraint, Trial or Tri-state.
An outgrowth of these genres that developed in the mid-/late-1990s and resurfaced more recently is aggrotech, which combines the basics of electro-industrial and dark electro with harsher song structures, aggressive lyrics and straight techno-influenced beats, usually distorted, of a militant, pessimistic or explicit nature. Some acts are Funker Vogt, Tactical Sekt, Hocico, newer Suicide Commando, Feindflug, Dismantled, and Velvet Acid Christ.
By the late 1990s a few bands (notably VNV Nation, Covenant, and Apoptygma Berzerk) were incorporating more influences from synthpop and trance. VNV Nation's Ronan Harris and Apoptygma Berzerk's Stephan Groth called this new style futurepop, a term now more widely used to describe their later music and that of similar groups.
Other more recent bands such as Ionic Vision, Spetsnaz or Proceed have gone the other way by reproducing the old EBM style with some releases in the new millennium.
Notable EBM Artists
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Samples
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See also
External links
- electric-tremor - The History of EBM in Belgium (written by Ionic Vision)