The Belgian electronic body music group Front 242 is one of my all time favorite bands. Anything before the album Tyranny for You was incredibly original and creative. Like many great bands that continue to make music there is a cut off where things changed. The early albums which focused on Jean-Luc De Meyer vocals and military aesthetics had me fully hooked. Anything after that time period I simply can’t listen to. The canon of “good stuff” they recorded is large so I’m really not complaining. In the late 80s I collected every piece of 242 music and memorabilia I could find. Back then there was no eBay so Manhattan record stores were the hunting ground. The most rare thing I own is a Front by Front DAT Cassette. Every few months I still check eBay to see what 242 stuff is there. Once I saw the arm bands then someone bought them and I never saw them for sale again. Some friends (Pet Duo) of mine went to see them live in Berlin last night so I decided to look around online for old 242 stuff. Amazingly I found a blog called Front 242 Collector that has great photos of the arm bands and all sorts of finds.
“this is without a doubt one of the most collectible and hardest to come by Front 242 items: the Front 242 armband! Back in the day, before Transmission 242 there was the 242 Propaganda Unit. This was one of the “Propaganda Supports.” You can see 242 sporting this armband on the Official Warfare Tour and in videos. The armband was offered for sale in the Propaganda Unit catalogue (I will post this someday as well). The cost for the 242 Armband was 50 BF in Belgium, 70 BF in Europe, and 100 BF in other countries (+ postage). Today, when they do come up for sale, expect to pay upwards of $200-$250 at times! The armband is made of leather with beautiful “242″ stitching and attaches to the arm with velcro. The Propaganda Unit logo is stamped inside and I believe they were numbered? This example happens to be #63.” – target242
For more info: target242.blogspot.com
This entry was written by , posted on December 30, 2011 at 6:13 am, filed under music and tagged Belgium, EBM, electronic body music, Front 242, Jean-Luc De Meyer, Richard 23. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I was interviewed for Industrial/EBM web portal Side-Line. If your into this type of music the forums are a great place to hang out.
“Chesler, who lives in New York, released a new album this year, “Joyless Pleasure”. You may expect the remixed version of it to be soon out as well. In between recording sessions we asked him a couple of questions…” – side-line.com
Read the full interview: side-line.com/id=47205_0_2_0_C
This entry was written by , posted on December 14, 2011 at 4:03 am, filed under interviews, promotion and tagged EBM, industrial, interview, Side-Line, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Nitzer Ebb’s early and wonderful EBM track Isn’t it Funny How Your Body Works? reproduced by a DIY modular system. So here’s my proposal to the builder Henrik Nydell… make me some original patterns and I’ll scream for you! Imagine taking that beast live?
“My DIY MFOS modular – the Modulator – playing Isn’t it funny how your body works by Nitzer Ebb. The 16-step sequencer’s gate outputs trigs two ADSRs for bass drum. Clock out is sent to slave 10-step sequencer and to two ARs controlling filter cutoff and VCA. 16 step seq CV out gets patched to both VCOs. The stereo auto panner is used during the last few seconds.” – hnydell
For more info: nydell.se/projects/modulator
This entry was written by , posted on November 10, 2011 at 5:26 am, filed under music, synthesizer and tagged EBM, electronic body music, modular, Nitzer Ebb. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I’ve listened to Nitzer Ebb’s first two albums That Total Age and Belief countless times. If I ever want to get revenge on someone in their car blasting hiphop I play the track Let Beauty Loose full volume. It’s exciting to see some very early footage of the band. A few years ago I got to meet the lead singer Douglas a few times. Just as when I met Depeche Mode and Front 242 I purposely kept the talking short because I didn’t want anything to get in the way of how much I love their music. To be a great musician you have to be a great fan first.
“Here you go. I put this video together back in ’84 or thereabouts. It features clips from a couple of their early gigs (parts of which have already been uploaded) along with some library footage I had access to at the time.
This was filmed at “The Hermit Club” in Brentwood Essex, sometime in the early 80s. The fight was caused by someone off camera to the left, disconnecting Bon’s mic. He responded in a fairly reserved way by laying into the aforementioned geeza with an iron bar. Fight (off camera I’m afraid) ensues. You can hear Bon’s sister screaming. She was pregnant at the time and had been pushed to the floor. Happy days. They don’t play Crane anymore. Enjoy Folks.” – pipey1512
For more info: nitzer-ebb.de
This entry was written by , posted on July 11, 2011 at 10:48 am, filed under music and tagged EBM, electronic body music, Nitzer Ebb. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Before techno hit the world it was songs like Vomito Negro Raise Your Power that made me turn off the headlights of my 1987 Nissan 300ZX and speed faster than fast through the night. My Sunday Sounds message to you: Stay pissed people. Stay sharp or die.
“Raise Your Power Now. Raise Your Power!” – Vomito Negro
For more info: en.wikipedia.org/Vomito_Negro_(band)
This entry was written by , posted on May 8, 2011 at 3:24 pm, filed under music and tagged EBM, electronic body music, Vomito Negro. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Nothing was better than the underground 80s. Music was way out there lyrically and humans were taming electronic synths and drums in unique ways. I always thought and still feel EBM (Electronic Body Music) was a great genre. The bassline below in these videos are clearly EBM even though they are simply 16th note patterns. It’s the notes and feeling that classifies them.
“This thing can really make some nice EBM basslines!” – sampleandhold
photo credit: free-secret-life
via Matrixsynth
This entry was written by , posted on September 15, 2010 at 4:03 am, filed under synthesizer and tagged analog, Doepfer, EBM, electronic body music, sequencer. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The Horrorist Live – Malta 2010 from Oliver Chesler on Vimeo.
Well I finally have a few hours this afternoon to chillout. Day job plus night job took its toll on me. After my weekend in Malta I had to report to the energy business early Monday. I’m not complaining at all its just coffee isn’t working on me anymore. As you can see from the video above I did my best letting the people of Malta know where they live, “Malta!”. I know its silly in the video but at 2:00AM it worked just fine. I played a new intro and a new song during the set and I was pleased. I love surprising DJs who don’t know my show with my antics. Billy Nasty took it in stride and smartly played some good party techno after my set.
“Malta, officially the Republic of Malta (Maltese: Repubblika ta’ Malta), is a developed southern European country and consists of an archipelago situated centrally in the Mediterranean, 93 km south of Sicily and 288 km north-east of Tunisia, with Gibraltar 1,826 km to the west and Alexandria 1,510 km to the east.” – WIkipedia.org
The promoters of this event SHIFT are always fun and professional. Visit them here: shiftmalta.com
This entry was written by , posted on February 4, 2010 at 2:04 pm, filed under live performance and tagged EBM, live, Malta, techno, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
ReGen is a USA based EBM, Synthpop and Goth magazine. Since last October (2009) they have been putting out a free one hour mix of music. I like to grab it and scan through the audio to pick out a gem here and there. Where’s my black nail polish?
“An hour of the best in industrial, goth, EBM, synthpop and alternative and electronic music, downloadable every Monday provided by ReGen Magazine.” – regenmag.com
Subscribe now (iTunes link): click here
This entry was written by , posted on January 4, 2010 at 6:34 am, filed under music and tagged EBM, electronic body music, Goth, industrial, podcast, ReGen. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Here is the final version of a song I recorded for Andy De Decker. Andy is part of the Belgian band Ionic Vision. He put together a compilation to be released later this year all about sex. From a production standpoint one thing interesting about this song is many of the sounds were recorded into Ableton Live live from my iPhone.
Blow the Kiss – The Horrorist by thingstocome
“Cut the wrist. Blow the kiss. Blood bubbles. Trouble trouble. Trouble trouble!” – The Horrorist
For more info: www.dsbp.cx/ionic/
Photo credit: Amodiovalerio Verde
This entry was written by , posted on October 3, 2009 at 5:03 am, filed under music and tagged EBM, Ionic Vision, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Here’s a song I recorded in Berlin and finished in New York. It will be on a next Industrial for the Masses compilation on Out of Line music. Later I will release it with remixes and several other new songs on Things to Come Records.
I Stand With You by thingstocome
Here’s a few notes about the production: Sequenced in Ableton Live, Kick Drum is a Jomox MBase01, Bassline is Audiorealism ABL Pro, Melodyne created the vocal Harmonies (with help from my friend Richter), lots of horn and string samples through various hardware distortion pedals (external). It took about 3-4 weeks total to create.
For more info: Things to Come Records.
This entry was written by , posted on September 25, 2009 at 7:45 pm, filed under music and tagged EBM, electronic body music, I Stand With You, Out of Line, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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