Click here to go to New Beat
menu page: (by Richard Noise, NME)
VARIOUS ARTISTS
New Beat, Take One -- AB Sounds
(Subway LP -- Belgian Import)
REVENGE! After suffering years of ridicule as our laughably unfashionable European
relative, after endless Belgian jokes and Plastic Bertrand slurs, the lowest of the low
countries is striking back hard at the heart of Britain's hip junta.
In London clubs where the Acid House sound of Chicago once ruled and where everything
American was held in reverence, a tiny elite force of DJs are now programming the
relentless sound of Belgian 'New Beat' music and declaring people like The Erotic
Dissidents and Jade 4U to be messiahs of the modern dance.
But what exactly is this New Beat of Belgium? Well, to understand its destiny one has, of
course, to appreciate its history. Futurist electro-pop never died in the neon nightclubs
of the Benelux. and while Brits were wearing distressed denim and proclaiming the virtues
of the Super Heavy Funk, our Belgian counterparts were still clad in black garb and
grooving to dark- minded synthetic pulsebeats.
In an Antwerp disco laserium called the Ancienne Belgique (hence'AB Sounds'), futurism
mutated into a new strain of club music, one that, unlike the evil body-noise of Front
242, had a smile on its face, a silly porno groan or a trash movie sample within
push-button reach. That, and a rhythm devoid of dynamic yet apocalyptic in impact.
lmagine the bastard offspring of Phil Oakey and Patsy Kensit, of S-Express and Ultravox, a
bald guy in naff shoes with a fetish for synthesizers, and you'll be achieving a
comprehension of In-D's electronic dreamdrone 'Virgin In-D Skies' or the merry
ejaculations of Taste Of Sugar's 'Hmm Hmm'. New Beat is the ultimate soulless machine
music, the robot dance of Kraftwerk's 'Showroom Dummies' stripped to its ribcage, to its
rhythmically methodical conclusion.
It's because these Belgians chanting their twisted slogans over a barbed box-beat are so
alien to our blinkered concept of cool that they're brilliant. If all the people adopting
this skeletal New Romantic groove as their new club soundtrack are falling for an elite
con trick (as they probably suspect themselves in this year of dance scams) well . . . who
cares? Why not just, as The Erotic Dissidents suggest here, 'Move Your Ass And Feel The
Beat', why not submit to the infectious melody of the New-Beat anthem, Split Second's
'Flesh'?
Why not enjoy the EEC's revenge on the British trendy, settle in with some 'AB sounds' and
wait for 1992. Get right on one, Bertrand!
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