#003 - à;GRUMH...

Hmmmm... Again a Belgian EBM artist. Again "never-heard" about this artist either, the name is interesting though - à;GRUMH... (pronounced: "ah-groom"). Also this band was run by duo and they were active between 1981-91, so resemblance to the previous artist A Split-Second is huge. Music is though little bit different at least. à;GRUMH... is more like electro version of British post punk band of the Eighties. Especially 1989 released A Hard Day's Knight album fits into that definition.

I'm not that fond of this post punk genre, but I have to admit that every once in a while this sounds also really good. This kind of music has suffered quite a bit soundwise lately (80s sound is just 80s sound and at least I've gotten used to little "newer sound") , but at least those later à;GRUMH... releases sounds still surprisingly good. Check out for example this Danger Zone track from A Hard Day's Knight album.



Some links:
http://www.agrumh.com
http://www.myspace.com/agrumhebm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%80;GRUMH...
http://www.last.fm/music/%25C3%25A0%253BGRUMH...
http://open.spotify.com/artist/66Z87JFJTR7XoLbJtdi5Pf

#002 - A Split-Second

I've had some plans to get to know to EBM (aka electronic body music) also quite some time. I've never had real understanding what the hell is this genre about. That electronic body music is not giving any hints to me at least. But another term used to describe this same thing opens many doors. Industrial dance, now I get it. So in practice I've listened a lot of EBM without knowing it.

Next band found from Spotify is Belgian A Split-Second, a duo by Marc Ickx and Peter Bonne. They split up 1991 and Ickx continued on it's own with A Split-Second..But anyway since 2000 this group is more or less featured only in compilations. One remix album, called Transmix, found from Spotify has been released in 2001 containing duos songs between 1986-1991 remixed Nicolas Mansy and Chrismar Chayel. I have to say I like this quite a lot. Even though I like more harsh sound, this is anyway really catchy stuff. Those originals versions are actually even better than these little more blnd remixes.

Original version of their second single Rigor Mortis which is available also in Youtube is actually really good.


Some links:
http://www.myspace.com/asplitsecondofficial
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Split-Second
http://www.last.fm/music/A+Split+Second
http://open.spotify.com/artist/6WbuR30ggh1SSVgLx4JygQ

#001 - ...and Oceans

Lets start from the beginning of that list. Order is alphabetical, so we will start with Finnish band called ...and Oceans. This band is somewhat familiar to me already earlier, but since bands the roots are in black metal, which I'm not that keen on, haven't actually checked their stuff earlier. I knew they have some industrial elements in their music in the latter part of their career.

The band was active between 1995-2006 and released five albums during that time. On industrial-wise I'd say they reached their peak on A.M.G.O.D.  and Cypher albums. Unfortunately Spotify is not having those albums in their lists (at least at the moment, it seems that Century Media hasn't put their catalogue available in there). But Spotify has their last Season of Mist album The Symmetry of I - The Circle of O , which already shows some real industrial interest on the second part of the album. Dark and depressive sounds are getting closer the ambient genre, but it really is powerful stuff.

But the overall sound of ...and Oceans is not that ambient stuff that can be found on that album. from this video you can more like "the sound of ..and Oceans" in the latter part of their career.You can actually find quite a lot of music from those last two albums from Youtube.

Aphid: Devil Flower: Fruits of Lunacy from their last album Cipher (2002)



...and Oceans later became band called Havoc Unit which we will check later also. They have actually released a split EP with ...and Oceans, that's strange.


Some links:
http://www.myspace.com/andoceans1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...and_oceans
http://www.last.fm/music/...and%20Oceans
http://open.spotify.com/artist/0rWmH68lIyVOGYhhvayFzu

Here I go!

So how to begin this kind of journey? Thank god for Wikipedia. People are normally wondering what did we do before Internet, but I'm actually wondering how did we find any information before Wikipedia. It's just so nicely packed in one simple portal. Now I just searched Wikipedia and found a "Portal:Industrial music". Quite nice place to start this voyage. So just did some browsing and now I have a list of bands (actually 470 different band names) that I'll start checking. And the existence of Spotify enables me to explore this world quite nice way.

Many familiar names already on that list of course, but loooooooooots of never heard names also, who the fuck are Aetherfx, Bahntier, Colab, Genkaku Allergy, Mariae Nascenti, Novy Svet, Radio Kuolema (must be Finnish, but still never heard), Sol Invictus, The Cassandra Complex or Vampire State Building. Well anyway that's suppose to be the whole point in here, to find out new bands, styles, sounds and just something interesting.

I'll try many different styles of industrial related bands. Goth, metal, electro, pop, ebm, ambient, rock and even hip hop (I think hip hop is not that far from this industrial anyway, listen to Dälek if you disagree). So anything will go if it's even remotely attached to industrial, no matter what the subgenre is.

Here I go!