VARIOUS ARTISTS – Underground Belgian Wave Volume One LP BE 2010 WR001 12 Tracks 46’42’‘
It must have been a life-long dream of Lieven’s to found a record label and to release the music he loves, so, finally he did it and comes up with his label Walhalla Records and its first baby, an LP compilation including cassette-only tracks from Belgian’s early-to-mid-80’s minimal electronics and hard electro scene, which had its very own sound derived from hard bass synth sequences, use of mainly the Roland TR-707 drum machine (though earlier bands had to use earlier gear like the Roland TR-606 or TR-808) and harsh manly vocals. Only a few bands made it out of the underground, like Front 242, The Klinik, The Neon Judgement or Vomito Negro, for example, but most of them remained in the underground, so it’s great to have Lieven remembering them and bringing them back to life on the spinning black wax: ASMODAEUS with „Radiation Dance“ and „Second Time is different“ that both come along with a TR-606 and dark synths, two hits reminiscent to Absolute Body Control; M. BRYO with „Shift“ and „Shrinking Room“, stripped down and dark minimal electronics as we know and love it from Mark Burghgraeve; RATBAU with „Show me how“ and „Moscow ist frei“ is pretty much hard electro/EBM-oriented stuff à la Typis Belgis and E!Truncheon (btw, where are they on this compilation?!); DANTON’S VOICE with „Easy Life“ is also more hard electro but the track itself with a two-chord progression is rather uninspired and boring to be frank; SCHICKSAL with „Time“ and „Saturday“ are somewhere in between the two worlds, very maybe too minimalistic in textures; EMOTIONAL VIOLENCE with „Spiders Web“ is very very reminiscent to Vomito Negro (TR-707, bass sequence, vocals), and „Feeling the Cold“ is fortunately a bit more poppy and will thus appeal to fans of Parade Ground or Second Decay; and VITA NOCTIS who close the compilation with the already well-known minimal electronic/toy instrument hit „Hade“. The sound quality is unfortunately rather pretty poor on some of the tracks, but better than nothing, no? At least Anna did not know the majority of those tracks, so there are pretty nice discoveries to make on here, especially ASMODAEUS. All in all, a pretty nice starter, and we shall be looking for the things to come.
