VNV Before VNV ?
So I am hangin out at Otis, chatting with Dave, and working my way through the hard trance that I had him put aside for me. As I listen through the tracks, discading most as crap, I come across this Schwarze Puppen outfit outta Munich. As I cue up the first track, I do a double take. Man that sounded awfully familiar…. I start playing the track, and my jaw hits the floor. This has got to be mislabled VNV nation. I double check the label, and stare in bewilderment at the vinyl spinning in front of me. There are some lyrics here and there in german, with a different voice, but other than that, this track is “Joy” with a slightly heavier drum beat and some extra fill. I quickly scan through the rest of this EP and realize that this German group is so damn close to VNV Nation, that you would swear that the music was written by Rowan. I stop the vinyl and take a close look at the label, looking for some indication that this is supposed to be trance remixes of VNV songs. Nope, in fact the copyright dates 2 years PRIOR to the release of “Praise the Fallen”. Holy crap! This is wierd. The similarity in the musical style is eerie.
Needless to say, I bought it, along with a bunch of what Dave refers to as Euro Crap Head Bangin’ Trance (*laugh*), and I can only describe as pseudo EBM trance and take it all home to listen to it.
On closer examination, there are differneces in melody and timing, but man are they ever close. I am still shocked. There must be some sort of muse that inspires both german trance guys, and ebm acts. Considering how close Aquagen is to Suicide Commando, and the similarities between TranceControl and some of Apoptygma’s stuff off of Welcome to Earth, I am beginning to suspect that all of these guys are drinking in the same bar… Probably Tresor. *laugh*
So, I am going to be doing some transfer of Vinly to CD and playing with remixing some of these trance tracks into a harder EBM style over the next few weeks.
On a related note, my remix of safety dance isn’t going to well. Everything I do seems to so seriously change the character of the song, that it isn’t even recognizable. The last three attempts have been pathetic. Oh well, back to the drawing board.