DigitalDjigit said:
There is very little of that bleep stuff around. I think pretty much all of it was already named in this thread, 3-4 labels and a couple compilations encompass pretty much all of it. It would be kinda hard for a revival to happen.
Have anyone mentioned Ubik yet? The
System Overload EP is pretty great. But their album
Just add People isn't all that.
DigitalDjigit said:
The Germans...they didn't do much techno either, until 1992. I really cannot name a single artist aside from Westbam and Acardipane (who released through Belgian channels) that made anything that was notable until 1992. I think Germany only became a big player on the techno scene with the hardtrance (Harthouse, Overdrive) stuff and hard acid (Jammin' Unit & Dr. Walker, Labworks) shortly after. I do remember one now, that Force Legatto - System track, that only highlights Germany's conspicious absense and the ebm-type sound there were into.
But the EBM-thing is the whole point... When rave arrived Germany
allready was a major techno player, simply because they
allready had a techno scene - clubs where they danced to heavy EBM-stuff. What happened in 90-92, in addition to early stuff from PCP and Force Inc and Air Liquiede etc., was that acid/rave (mainly belgian New Beat) and EBM/industrial had a kind of power struggle of who was to dominate the scene, and that resulted in an odd, but really fascinating, fusion of the two styles (as well as a fraction of the EBM-scene going in its own direction, Germany is still a leading country for this kind of music). You could say that EBM played the same role in Germany as hip hop/dub did in England. And to say that this isn't notable is ridiculous. Genetic material from EBM live on in hardcore/gabber as well as trance and the neo electro of today.
There's several good compilations with the early german electro/EBM-tinged rave sound. The best is probably the first of the "Techno Trax"-series. This is what got me into techno. It contains the Force Legato track as well, even though it's far from the best example. Eventually, Force Legato was one Oliver Lieb, later to gain some fame, and a lot of condenscending remarks from detroit purists, as trance (if you could even call it that) producer Spicelab. One of the great unsung heroes IMO.