Electronic body music
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| Electronic body music | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | Industrial music, electronic dance music |
| Cultural origins | Early 1980s, Belgium, United Kingdom, Canada |
| Typical instruments | Synthesizer - Drum machine - Sequencer - Keyboard - Sampler) |
| Derivative forms | Goa trance - New beat - Industrial rock |
| Subgenres | |
| Aggrotech - Futurepop (complete list) | |
| Other topics | |
| Notable industrial artists - Subgenres of industrial | |
Electronic body music (EBM) is a music genre that combines elements of industrial music and electronic dance music. Emerging in the early-to-mid 1980s, the genre's early influences range from the industrial music of the time (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV) to the early dance scene (Portion Control, 400 Blows), straight-ahead electronic music (Kraftwerk) and electropunk (DAF, Liaisons Dangereuses). In the 1990s, the usage of the term widened to include artists influenced by other styles such as synthpop and trance.
History
Early EBM
The term was coined by the Belgian band Front 242 in 1984 to describe their music [1]). Another term that has been used to refer to EBM is "techno-industrial" [citation needed]. Through the 1980s and early 1990s the style, now sometimes referred to as "Old-school EBM" [citation needed]) in contrast with more recent examples of the genre, was characterized by harsh and often sparse electronic beats and became popular in the underground club scene, particularly in Europe. In this early period the most important labels were the European PIAS and Antler-Subway and the North American Wax Trax!. Early bands besides Front 242 include Die Krupps, Nitzer Ebb, Borghesia, The Weathermen (with a strong Funk-influence), Klinik (more Industrial), Bigod 20, A Split Second (a Belgian Electro-Rock/New Beat project), à;GRUMH..., Severed Heads, Cobalt 60, Signal Aout 42, Insekt and Front Line Assembly. Older style EBM also had an influence on many new beat artists [citation needed].
Developments
By the mid 1990s, EBM began to borrow more heavily from synthpop with the early releases of such bands as Leaether Strip, Covenant, :wumpscut: and VNV Nation combining harsh industrial beats with synthesizer-driven melodies. This evolution of EBM has been termed by fans as electro-industrial [2] (or elektro for short, not to be confused with the hip-hop subgenre electro), although many still refer to it as EBM or sometimes "new-school EBM". Other notable new-school EBM bands include C-Tec, Stromkern, Funker Vogt, E-Craft, Bio-Tek, Suicide Commando, Tactical Sekt, Feindflug, Unter Null, Dismantled, and Velvet Acid Christ.
Another variation of EBM that developed in the mid-1990s and resurfaced more reccently is aggrotech, later known as 'terror EBM', which combines the basics of electro-industrial with harsher song structures, aggressive beats and lyrics, usually distorted, of a militant, pessimistic or explicit nature.
By the late 1990s many of these middle-era EBM bands (notably VNV Nation, Covenant, and Apoptygma Berzerk) were incorporating more influences from synthpop and trance. VNV's Ronan Harris and Apoptygma's Stephan Groth called this new style futurepop, a term now more widely used to describe their later music and that of similar groups.
Other more recent bands such as Ionic Vision, Spetsnaz or Proceed have gone the other way by producing older style EBM releases in the new millennium.
Artists
Older style EBM
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Later EBM
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See also
- List of EBM artists
- List of industrial music subgenres
- List of non-goth musical artists popular within goth subculture
- New Beat
External links
- electric-tremor - History of EBM in Belgium.