All new Front 242 sideproject Lederman (The Weathermen) / De Meyer (Front 242) launched!
LEDERMAN / DE MEYER is the amazing and unexpected artistic fusion of two prominent figures from the cult Belgian electronic music scene.
Talented and humble musician and producer, Jean-Marc Lederman, was not only a member of FAD GADGET and GENE LOVES JEZEBEL but also founded the electro-pop project KID MONTANA and THE WEATHERMEN (known across the world with their interstellar hit "Poison"). He also composed lots of music for movies and video games under various pseudonyms and collaborated with a plethora of artists including Alain Bashung amongst others.
On the other side, author and performer Jean-Luc De Meyer, started his career with UNDERVIEWER before joining FRONT 242 from 1981 and then successively forming C-TEC, COBALT 60, MODERN CUBISM and 32CRASH and collaborating on record or on stage with many other artists (IMPLANT, HAUJOBB, PUNISH YOURSELF…). His unique and characteristic voice is unmatched and instantly gets recognised by any true self-respecting EBM-industrial-electronic music lover.
Watch the livecast video replay on Facebook.
On their “Eleven Grinding Songs” debut album, Lederman's keyboards are, as always, raspy, melodious and absolutely unpredictable, making it hard to imagine what direction each title will take. Songs starting with peaceful atmospheric intros grow into thick and exciting cuts (“Atoms In Fury”, “Heartbeat”…) while other straight binary dance tracks gradually morph into complex and rich tunes widening the stereo image spectrum to the maximum (“Back To Nature”, “Tout Me Fait Rire”…).
These quite eclectic and uncompromising song arrangements appear to be the perfect fertile ground allowing De Meyer’s dense and inhabited voice to unfold across different registers going from pure icebreakers to boiling volcanoes through melancholic whispers and other poetic grunts. The texts are dark and introspective, punctuated by sarcasm and self-mockery. And the care given to the lyrics definitely sets this project apart, miles away from the overused “first-degree” universe of standard alternative electro / EBM bands.
Among the album highlights we can definitely mention “A Tribe of My Own”, “Flowers and Birds and Bees” and “Not Really There”, three dark, oppressive yet very danceable tracks all bound to become new anthems in the best darkwave clubs.
“Eleven Grinding Songs” pushes the human in front of his anxieties, his deviances, his obsessions, his beliefs, his hopes and his defeats. A poignant and fascinating mechanical deconstruction jointly orchestrated by two artists reaching the top of their art. Play it loud!
Today it’s exactly 32 years since Siouxsie and The Banshees released their second single from their seventh studio album Tinderbox. The single Candyman was released as 7” and 12” on 28 February 1986 and is about child abuse. It became Siouxsie and the Banshees' 13th top 40 hit, peaking at number 34 in the UK single charts.
The 7” has the track Lullaby on the b-side, the 12” also featured Umbrella on the b-side.
Transformation is at the core of Chris Corner’s music and outlook. Ever since leaving wildly successful 1990s trip-hop group Sneaker Pimps, Corner’s process of becoming IAMX, beginning in 2004 has been theatrical, transcendent and communal. Androgynous and visceral, IAMX has metamorphosed from small-town blue-collar kid to international pop star in the 1990s to creator of raw art that disrupts gender and genre in the 2000s. Fueling electronic experimentation with punk energy and confessional lyricism, Corner’s goth and industrial sound, fashion, performances, videos and persona are larger than life, iconoclastic and shockingly intimate.
In addition to his success as a songwriter, producer and touring artist, IAMX is one of the most licensed musicians on ABC TV’s runaway hit show, How To Get Away with Murder. By the end of 2017, IAMX had synced 16 of his songs to its soundtrack, becoming one of the most recognisable composers on television thanks to the show’s creator Pete Nowalk, being a superfan of IAMX.
Another superfan turned collaborator is postmodern tattoo and makeup powerhouse, kindred spirit Kat Von D, who sings on four songs on the brand new album Alive In The New Light and shares IAMX’s avant-garde fashion and design sense, epic stage theatricality and gender-bending proclivities. IAMX’s provocative aesthetics are not limited to his music and fashion. As a video artist, he crafts IAMX’s stunning live visuals and most of their music videos, as well as videos for other acts, most notably his close friend Gary Numan.
IAMX isn’t clear where this newfound liberation will lead him. Rising from a humble working class background to capitalistic celebrity, then down to the depths of despair and back into a new light, IAMX’s armour is now more permeable and his imagination more stimulated by Los Angeles’ unrelenting optimism. For Chris Corner, turned IAMX, the transformative journey that began in his bedroom as a young kid in the North East of England and found its way into the California desert continues. The I AM in IAMX may imply stasis, a fixed state of being, but the X signifies the variable in mathematics, and IAMX the person is in no way done evolving.
IAMX is currently on tour presenting his new album Alive In The New Light and will perform at De Casino (St-Niklaas, Belgium) on Thursday March 1st.
Annex, without a question one of the best Goth/Postpunk bands from the growing Texas scene in the US, has just released the new LP "Melu". The album contains 11 killer tracks and it can be streamed in full via the band's Bandcamp page, and purchased on vinyl from the Her Corrosion web shop.
Swiss Electro / EBM / Industrial band DEO CADAVER re-releases first (and only) album to stop illegal bootlegging.
DEO CADAVER was an electronic dance music duo (later trio) based in Geneva, Switzerland and active between 1987 and 1994. Daze Dasen (electronic drums, samplers & sequencers) and Marco Marchi (sequencers & vocals) met in high school in 1985 and played drums, bass, keyboards and vocals in several local Post-Punk / New Wave bands. In 1987, at the young age of 17, they decided to form an Electro / EBM / Industrial duo, following on the footsteps of local heroes The Young Gods and bands like D.A.F., Front 242, Skinny Puppy, Laibach and Einstürzende Neubauten.
Over the next few years, they gradually developed their own sound and epic theatrical live performances, played live and designed soundtracks for theatre and performance companies, toured across Switzerland and Europe, sometimes opening for their idols The Young Gods or Laibach, and released this unique CD album in 1991.
Joined in 1992 by second keyboardist T.V.O., they went on performing many live shows but only published a commercial K7 'DEO CADAVER live' in 1993 (which will also be released in digital format very soon) and in 1994 merged with several other pioneers of the Swiss Electronic music scene to form the experimental performance collective MXP, which continued until 1998.
Nowadays, Marco is a top IT specialist and quit making music in the 90s, but Daze has enjoyed a global career as Electro deejay and producer Plastique De Rêve, released records with many top labels of the genre (Gigolo, DFA, Turbo, Kitty Yo, Space Factory, etc.) and played in many clubs across the world. He is now also half of Future Disco duo NOO with Sami Liuski of Bangkok Impact and Putsch 79 fame, releasing several singles and a digital compilation album on Optimo Music over the last few years, and is also about to release the first album of his solo dark ambient / experimental side-project called "Ange Du Bizarre".
Poorly distributed at the time and only sold at concerts and in local record stores, DEO CADAVER's album has been praised in reviews as 'lesser-known but on par with the best of its genre' and has been long sought after by EBM fans and collectors before the age of internet. In 2016, after many years of having been already bootlegged by various illegal internet sites, DEO CADAVER's album was even illegally re-released via Bandcamp by people unknown to the band. After discovering this and having it removed, they decided to make this album available again, both physically (a few hundred copies of the sealed original CD remain) and as a digital album with a few additional bonus tracks that show some of the band's productions before and after the release of the CD in 1991.
If you like the old school EBM sound you should definately check them out!
