This month, 36 years ago, British EBM/Industrial act Nitzer Ebb recorded their first eight songs which were featured on the A-side of their first ever release/demo tape Basic Pain Procedure (August 1983). On the B-side they put a live recording of a concert in Chelmsford from 9th December the same year. Initially it was meant to attract the attention from record labels but the tape was also sold at their live concerts. Two years later they would meet producer, Phil Harding, who produced their 1985 debut single ‘Isn't It Funny How Your Body Works?’ and helped them set up their own label, Power Of Voice Communications.

Besides ‘Crane’, which was re-recorded and placed on the B-side of their first 12”, and the song ‘Home’, which was re-worked into K.I.A. for the 1988 Belief album, it seemed all other tracks where archived, never to be heard again...

Luckily, for NEB fans around the globe, Basic Pain Procedure was officially re-released in it’s entirety, to celebrate it’s 30th anniversary, on CD, USB and tape in June 2013. The vinyl re-issue version however, only features the eight original studio recordings and thus not the live 1983 performance.
Basic Pain Procedure - Tracklist

A1 Faded Smiles
A2 Tradition
A3 The Home
A4 Star
A5 The Passage
A6 The Book
A7 Crane
A8 Trust Ran In Colours

B1 Tradition
B2 The Home
B3 Star
B4 The Book
B5 Crane
B6 Violent Playground
B7 A Whiter Shade Of Pale
B8 Smear Body

Check out the unique live footage of the song Crane performed in the early 80s...

www.discogs.com/Nitzer-Ebb-Basic-Pain-Procedure/release/4093263

On their 2018 demo In Splendour & Sedation, bassist I.R. and guitarist S.M., both of whom are singing, and drummer M.K. cultivated an atmospheric, heavy and heady mixture of post rock with doom that sounded both familiar and fresh. E-L-R also already caused quite a stir on tour with Amenra.
As individuals, they are deeply rooted in their environment; as a group, they share a shamanist quality and acute spiritual awareness with Austrians Our Survival Depends On Us or Finnish folkists Hexvessel. According to I.R., their "music is very visceral. We want the listener to delve into our sphere and become entranced in order to feel our energy."
The first common project of their collaboration with E-L-R is titled "Mænad" and offers - apart from guest appearances by Ryanne van Dorst (Dool) and Colin van Eeckhout (Amenra) - panoramic post doom for your inner cinema: a tale in different stages wherein emotions are constantly shifting like landscapes in passing. "It's mainly our own interpretation of texts and poems, combined with things we lived through ourselves," explains I.R., "often describing sceneries and events or feelings." Summing up their sound, she speaks of "hypnotic rhythms suspended in a haze of eternal reverberation."

Listen to what that means - Below you can find the album opener!

E-L-R European Tour Autumn/Winter 2019

* with Amenra & Ylva
** with Hundred Year Old Man
30.09.2019 Le Grillen, Colmar, FR
04.10.2019 Up in Smoke, Z7,Pratteln, CH
19.10.2019 Bergmal Festival, Dynamo, Zürich, CH
03.11.2019 Jubez, Karlsruhe, GER*
04.11.2019 Z-Bau, Nuremburg, GER*
05.11.2019 Rockhouse, Salzburg, AT*
06.11.2019 A38, Budapest, HU*
07.11.2019 Mixtape5, Sofia, BU*
08.11.2019 Quantic Club, Bucharest, RO*
09.11.2019 Form Space, Cluj-Napoca, RO*
10.11.2019 Collosseum, Kosice, SK*
11.11.2019 Fleda, Brno, CZ*
12.11.2019 MMC, Bratislava, SK*
13.11.2019 Zaklete Rewiry, Wroclaw, PL*
14.11.2019 Progresja, Warsaw, PL*
15.11.2019 Brugge, Minsk, BY*
16.11.2019 Melna Piektdiena,Riga, LV*
17.11.2019 Tapper, Talliinn, EE*
18.11.2019 Aaniwalli, Helsinki, FI*
20.11.2019 Fryhuset Klubben, Stockholm, SE*
21.11.2019 Stengade, Copenhagen, DK*
22.11.2019 Kulttempel,Oberhausen, GER*
05.12.2019 Record Junkie, Sheffield, UK**
06.12.2019 Firebug, Leicester, UK**
07.12.2019 Nambucca, London, UK**
08.12.2019 Rebellion, Manchester, UK**

www.facebook.com/bandELR

BIMFEST has announced the first selection of confirmed bands for their now 18th edition, taking place in December 2019!

As we are accustomed to from BIMFEST, they don't exactly drop the biggest and / or most obvious names but still they succeed in gathering an interesting line-up every single year.

This year the following delicious bands are already on the BIMFEST 2019 menu:

THE DEVIL & THE UNIVERSE (A) retrieved their name from two cards they selected from the 78 piece tarot card set as utilised by the most famous occultist of the 20th century, Aleister Crowley. ”The Devil” and “The Universe” were the cards pulled and thus a name for their musical-magical-transcendental composition and transformation project was chosen. Two musician friends, one goal! Ashley Dayour (Whispers in the Shadow) and David Pfister (Neigungsgruppe, Sex, Gewalt und gute Laune) set out to create music from magical systems, give up their musical creativity and allow the legitimacy of magic and religious mechanisms to form musical rules. Getting back to the tarot card reference, imagine allotting certain chords or rhythmic sequencing to certain cards. The pulling of the cards then becomes an exercise reminiscent of automatic writing. A beloved methodology of Surrealism, this exercise permits emotion and expression to emerge without the influence of the “critical self”. At the end of the process, Ashley Dayour and David Pfister were confronted with a homogenous collection of songs that were custom-made for the soundtrack of the cinema of the mind. The process and its system dictated and created not just phonetic anarchy but also examples of sound perfection.

ENZO KREFT (BE) released two obscure but widely acclaimed minimal synth cassette-albums in the early eighties, creating a dark and atmospheric sound, using lo-fi overdubbing techniques with synthesizers, rhythm boxes, tape loops and an electric guitar. His debut album "Me Is" (1983) has become a worldwide collector's item, containing his well-known tracks "Beauty Queen" and "Erotic Fantaseesz". This year, Kreft released his brand new and already critically aclaimed album "Control".

MOTOR!K (BE) is a brand new Belgium based band founded in 2018 by Joeri Dobbeleir (Guitars/Synths), Dirk Ivens (Guitars, Fx) and Dries D'Hollander (Drums). Stepping out of their comfort zone and leaving their musical habitat these key members challenge new experimental fields inspired by the Krautrock movement from the 70s but with an updated touch. Step into their world and let them take you by surprise. After their debut tape, released earlier this year by Wool-e Shop sold-out they were quickly spotted and signed by the renowned Berlin based Out Of Line Records. Their debut album has now recently been released as 12” vinyl and CD.

RADERKRAFT (NL) Somewhere between minimal synth, electro punk and new wave floats the irresistible sound of Raderkraft, a.k.a. Amsterdam-based musician and producer Willem Stinissen (1980). Equally cold and catchy, playful and hypnotising. Armed with throbbing analogue synths, staccato drumcomputer beats, quirky German vocals and miraculous visuals, Raderkraft takes you from the Autobahn straight into the galaxy. This summer Raderkraft dropped his boiling new single 'De Witte Streep'. This Dutch EBM track is an answer to Doe Maar, one of the most popular Dutch pop bands ever, and their song 'Heroïne’ from 1983. Just like that song, 'De Witte Streep' is a throbbing ball of frustration about a (fictional) friend who is addicted to drugs - cocaine in this case.

REIN (SE) Stockholm based all female Electronic act/artist REIN is raw, energetic, electro built from the seeds of early EBM. Formed in 2015, REIN is the lead singer, co-producer, writer, Joanna Reinikainen. Live on stage she brings two girls on drums together with her high octane fearless energy. In 2015 she became known on SoundCloud after she put out three demo songs: ”There Is No Authority But Yourself”, ”Born to Die” and ”Concrete Jungle”. With the release of her first EP 'REIN' (2016) she came to the attention of one of the main Swedish radio stations (P3 Sveriges Radio) and renowned music journalist Fredrik Strage. On her second EP 'FREEDOOM' (2017) she explored a broader and political electropunk vision, touching subjects like feminism, anti-racism, anti-capitalism and about being a misfit. She was nominated at P3 Guld Music Awards Gala 2017 for "Best New Artist" and "Best Dance Of the Year" 2017. REIN's debut album is in the pipeline as we speak!

STURM CAFÉ (SE) emerged in Gävle, Sweden 2001 when childhood friends Jonatan Löfstedt and Gustav Jansson decided to start making music together with sounds derived from synthesizers, drum machines and Akai samplers, sequenced by an Atari 1040ST computer. They managed to create their own distinct sound blending ideas of early 2000s Electronic music with inspiration from the early EBM/Industrial scene. Their music has one foot firmly in the bass driven EBM world, while the other stands in the more catchy melodious Neue Deutsche Welle. With 3 albums, numerous singles and EPs Sturm Café have gathered a strong and loyal following around the world. It is not uncommon to hear songs like ‘Stiefelfabrik’, ‘Koka Kola Freiheit’ and ‘Scheissnormal’ at the darker clubs in Europe and Latin America.

ZWEITE JUGEND (D) is the duo Eli van Vegas and Marcel Lüke, also known from their other project Combat Company. With this project the boys are celebrating their "Second Youth" and they do this with a quite deliberately DAF-ish sound in order to honour their heroes Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft. Their second and recently released album is named 'Elektronische Körpermusik', another hint that leaves little room for misunderstandings... Zweite Jugend is old school and hardcore EBM!

To keep the tension growing two headliners and two more bands are still to be announced in the coming days.
We are so excited!
Meanwhile the very limited Early Bird Combi-tickets are on sale on www.bodybeats.be

Dirk Ivens (Guitars / FX) is a man who wrote history. Since 1980 he has been an influencial force in EBM and Industrial being part of bands such as Absolute Body Control, The Klinik and Dive building a monument of brilliance that will survive his time. Now he has joined forces with two like-minded souls, Joeri Dobbeleir (Guitars / Synths) from The Whereabouts of J Albert and Dries D'Hollander ( Drums / Percussion) ex-Suburb Songs to celebrate the influences of their favourite music.

Krautrock of the 70s is one of the roots of electronic music. As the German counterpart for the larger than life Prog Rock, the freedom of this music was the right approach for the unlimited possibilities of the synthesizer right up until today. MOTOR!K want to pay tribute to this development and celebrate the roots of the music that they have loved and admired for such a long time. The debut album is a maelstrom bringing the listener into a trance and letting them forget all their everyday sorrows – perfect and drug-free inebriation.

MOTOR!K LP/CD
Tracks:
1. Static
2. Sliding
3. Colder
4. Stellar
5. Neutrinos
6. Static (Reprise)

www.outoflineshop.de/motor-k-motor-k-limited-edition-lp-cd.html

Recently we received the sad news of the death of Rüdiger Frank (born in 1967), singer of German gothic rock band The Tors Of Dartmoor. Rüdiger Frank left Printed At Bismarck's Death in 1989 with keyboard player Heiko Muter (who died in 2001) to form a new gothic rock band: The Tors Of Dartmoor, named after an English rock formation in a mystical landscape.

I got to know The Tors Of Dartmoor in 1991, shortly after the release of their grand debut "The Obvious Darkness". I remember very well taking this CD in the store, intrigued as I was by the band's name as wel as the cover-artwork with a photo of a ruin. The seller told me that this was the latest gothic sensation from Germany. Sold! I absolutely loved this album with classics such as "Waterking" and "Meet Moshe Dayan" (a song they wrote still with Printed At Bismarck's Death). Since then The Tors Of Dartmoor has been number 3 in the list of my favorite gothic rock bands, after The Sisters Of Mercy and Fields Of The Nephilim and just before Love Like Blood.

I was delighted when The Tors Of Dartmoor came to play in my hometown of Antwerp in 1992 at the Phantom Festival in the Limelight (the poster also included The Lance Of Allotment, Dive and Die Krupps). I will never forget the performance of The Tors Of Dartmoor and I still remember perfectly how it began. A tall guitarist and bass player came on stage and started to play the first song. When, after a few minutes, everyone started to wonder where the singer was, a small jerk suddenly came out of the backstage door, a kind of troll king who controlled the entire performance. What a voice and what a presence! Rüdiger Frank suffered from dwarf growth and never grew taller than 1.34 meters. But as small as he was in stature, as big was his act and his stage presence!

And this not only with his gothic rock bands, because in Germany Rüdiger Frank was also a well-known and celebrated actor. He played numerous roles there, including that of God in the piece "Mefistofele" and of Riff Raff in the musical "Rocky Horror Show". In later years he was known for his double role in the world's first steampunk opera "Klein Zaches, genannt Zinnober" and until very recently as Herod in the rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar".

After the unparalleled debut "The Obvious Darkness" (1991) the albums "House Of Sounds" (1993, tip: "Welcome To The House"), "Third Second" (1996, tip: "Gypsy") and“ Chapter VI ”(2004) which still had a bunch of strong songs but which, as an album, unfortunately could not match the level of their debut.

Recently Rüdiger Frank was also active in the Romeo Is Bleeding formation, which made music inspired by Tom Waits. Unfortunately he could not finish a long-planned solo album. Rüdiger Frank had had health problems for a long time and was only 52 years old. I will cherish my copy of "The Obvious Darkness", signed by the four band members at the Phantom Festival in 1992, forever. [Henk Vereecken / Dark Entries]