Minimal Wave Records

Hard Corps were not French, they were ac­tual­ly from Brix­ton, South Lon­don. Hugh As­hton, Robert Doran and Clive Pier­ce, were in­troduced to chan­teuse Re­gine Fetet, who, hav­ing never sung be­fore had an en­ig­matic, fragile, human voice which, quite by fluke of na­ture, mated per­fect­ly with the sound the three British sound en­gine­ers were creat­ing. Work­ing in uni­son with a heavi­ly ac­centuated French vocal, the re­sult was mag­nifi­cent and uni­que.

A 12"white label, re­leased by Sur­viv­al Re­cords, con­tain­ing the ham­mer­ing rhy­thmic at­tack of Dirty and the soft­er, melodic, pulse of Re­spir­er (To Breat­he) was cir­culated around Lon­don’s dance floors. In no time a wave of at­ten­tion hit them and throug­hout 1984 and into 1985 they dominated the in­depen­dent pop charts.

John Peel cham­pioned them on his in­fam­ous late night Radio One show and they head­lined at his ICA Rock Week in the Mall, Lon­don. By 1985 Hard Corps had sig­ned with major label giants Polydor. This en­ab­led the band to work with a co­u­ple of their favoured and re­spec­ted pro­duc­ers, Mar­tin Rus­hent (known most­ly for his ex­cep­tion­al work with the Human League) and De­pec­he Mode pro­duc­er and Mute Re­cords sup­remo, Daniel Mill­er. These sess­ions pro­vided the pub­lic with just one single due to the labels non-promotion, Je Suis Pas­see, a sweep­ing ar­range­ment of breathtak­ing be­auty, com­bin­ing pump­ing sequ­ences and sheer power of em­o­tion of Re­gine’s voice.

The band went on a major tour with The Cure in 1985 and De­pec­he Mode in 1988, be­fore fin­al­ly dis­in­tegrat­ing. A com­pila­tion of their work, Metal and Flesh was re­leased on Con­crete Pro­duc­tions label in 1991.