THE FIRST SINGER OF ULTRAVOX AND THE FIRST BRIT WHO MADE AN ALBUM THAT WAS FULLY BASED ON ELECTRONIC MUSIC. ‘METAMATIC’ (1980) IS THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE OF SYNTHPOP AND IMPORTANT IN THE LIFE OF APHEX TWIN.

 

An art student with a sense of adventure automatically ended up using electronic instruments in the 1970s. Denis Leigh, alias John Foxx, experimented with tape recorders and synthesizers at London’s Royal College of Art.

This resulted in a group, Tiger Lily, which was renamed Ultravox! (with an exclamation mark!) upon the arrival of punk. Island Records gave them a three-record contract and got them together with Steve Lillywhite, Brian Eno and German legend Conny Plank. 

With the latter, they recorded their first album in 1978 without an exclamation mark (in the name). ‘Systems Of Romance’ by Ultravox was very important for the New Romantics a few years later. Gary Numan, the ‘godfather of electropop’, quoted this record as his main source of inspiration. 

‘Systems of Romance’ was also the prototype for Ultravox part 2. After a rather unsuccessful tour of the United States, John Foxx left the band in 1979. He was replaced by Midge Ure. Ultravox made synthesizer pop huge in 1980 with the album – again produced by Conny Plank - ‘Vienna’.

However, it is Foxx who wrote the best piece of history. ‘Metamatic’ (1980) was the first British album that was integrally borne by electronic machinery and was also remarkably good. Wonder child Aphex Twin only expressed his admiration for the work of others a few times. ‘Metamatic’ is a rare exception. The song ‘No-one Driving’ briefly made it to the British charts, ‘Underpass’ and ‘Metal beat’ became evergreens.

 

Foxx then bid farewell to those rigid electronic patterns. Successor ‘The Garden’ (1981) was romantic and dreamy and his next work also strongly inclined towards ambient. These past few years, however, he again explicitly returned to this early stage. By the way, his record company and his website are called Metamatic.

 

 

DE BRASSERS (20u30)

 

De Brassers, from Hamont in Belgium, were an incredible intense, popular and rebellious post-punk band. They scared the shit out of the local catholic community of Hamont and were embraced by many as icons of the punk movement in Belgium around 1980.

De Brassers were a local mixture of the Sex Pistols (in the lowest gear), Joy Division and Cabaret Voltaire (because of the typical Korg MS20 sound). The band combined a criticism of bureaucracy and politics with experiences of psychological and existential tensions. 

The doomed sound they produced tells a lot about the dark atmosphere of the late seventies and early eighties: the fear of atomic bombs, cold war pessimism, police violence against squatters, the first cases of AIDS, and the grim years of Reagan & Thatcher. 

The main artefact of the band was the single “En toen was er niets meer” (And then there was nothing more). The song in Dutch even made it to the renowned New Musical Express who described de brassers as “mean and moody modern chaps”. Other songtitles speak for themselves: Kontrole, Twijfels (Doubts), Living on the Edge, Sick in your Mind, Rise and Fall …

It all ended in 1982 because of drug issues and problems with the police and justice.

But since a few years de brassers are performing again. They played amongst other things at Pukkelpop festival and supported contemporaries as The Stranglers, Wire and Public Image Limited. Don’t miss the hottest coldwave band from Belgium!!

 

 

DJ  ZEBEDEUS (23u30)

 

Sinner’s Day Resident DJ,

Joost Robberechts aka Zebedeus, 33 years at the top in the Belgian Wave DJ-List,

started listening to ‘Rudy’s Club’ in the seventies and became a frequent visitor of New Wave concerts and recordstores in the eighties.

If there is one DJ who can take you to the 80-ies atmosphere of Cold Wave, Dark Wave, Ska, Electronic, Punk ... it’s ZEBEDEUS.