CRASH COURSE IN SCIENCE and SEVERED HEADS play Antwerp on October 23rd
Since 1979 Australian (industrial) music pioneers SEVERED HEADS has thumped out a noisy disco sound that's inspired dance styles from EBM to Chicago House. Back in '79 there were no samplers, no computers, and the Severed Heads style grew around the same tape recorders and oscillators that fueled the avant garde music of the 20th century. Their exact genre is impossible to define - club singles like Dead Eyes Opened and Greater Reward jostle with aggressive noise-scapes and psychedelic virtual reality installations. Although contemporaries with ‘old school’ acts like Kraftwerk and Yello, Severed Heads continue to create and mutate ‘new school’ sounds.
A Severed Heads show is somewhere between an arcade game and a live gig. The big screen and the big sound combine the cinematic and the ecstatic. "We are a balance between the old and new", explains head Head, Tom Ellard. "Too much nostalgia will make you fat, but too much newness frightens people. For us it's OK - we've reached the point where ten years or ten minutes doesn't matter anymore - we're timeless".
CRASH COURSE IN SCIENCE (CCIS) is an legendary electronic musical group that was also formed in 1979. The band was formed as a way to explore performance art and music, which the members desperately needed to express. Choosing toy instruments and live drums out of necessity, CCIS began to experiment with a series of recording devices. The toy instruments gave way to crude drum machines and 'Frankenstein' type-homemade instruments. As a result, CCIS came upon a sound they could call their own.
Their most know artefact is probably 'Signals From Pier Thirteen' which was released in the USA and UK/Europe in 1981. The songs 'Cardboard Lamb' and 'Flying Turns' quickly became club favorites during the early 80's. This record has been regarded as influential to the techno industrial genres and was an early inception of what is now known as the ‘electro’ sound. After numerous re-releases the original 12" still highly sought after by collectors and fans today.
An remarkable and Interesting detail, the BodyBeats organization were also responsible for BOTH bands resurrection as they invited SEVERED HEAD to reboot for their fourth BIMFEST in 2005 as they did with CRASH COURSE IN SCIENCE for their eight edition of BIMFEST!
Info & tickets:
www.bodybeats.be
www.bodybeats.be/en/tickets/23-10-crash-course-in-science-severed-heads
