fractalign

What is E.B.M you might ask ?
Electronic Body Music is one of the most influential and at the same time under rated genres to have emerged from electronic music. Why is E.B.M so influential you might ask ? Here are some names.

Frontline Assembly, Nitzer Ebb, Ministry, KMFDM, Front 242, Trent Reznor, Meat Beat Manifesto, Cabaret Voltair and Skinny Puppy. All are well known artists and respected artists strongly associated with industrial music.

There is something else they have in common, all have created E.B.M based music and in the case of Front 242 and Cabaret Voltaire helped to create the E.B.M genre. The roots of E.B.M can be traced back to the Netherlands and Germany in the early eighties and Front 242 used the term to describe their 1984 ep "No Comment". While E.B.M is an off shoot of Industrial it has over the years diversified and in doing so created sub genres of it's own.

While Dark Electro and Electro industrial remain closely tied to E.B.M's roots, Future Pop takes on a very different sound. Acts like VNV Nation, Covenant and Assemblage 23 who helped pioneer Future Pop, create music that transcends the darkness of E.B.M with out losing any of the lyrical impact.

Two of the most influential electronic genres may never have existed, (at least in their present form) if it not for the influence of E.B.M. , Techno and Goa Trance. While Techno emerged from various different genres including house, electro, and funk, Goa Trance owes its existence almost solely to E.B.M. It can safely be argues that with out Goa trance there would be no psy trance either and by that context psy trance would not exist without E.B.M either.

E.B.M remains as strong as ever at least in the underground, with newer styles such as Aggrotech also evolving (in part at least) out of E.B.M, the genre continues to attract a new generation of artists. Record labels such as the Belgium based Alfa Matrix, show case artists as diverse as Unter Null, Neikka RPM, Ayria, Leather Strip, Psy' Aviah and Diffuzion.

While E.B.M will never be a house hold name, festivals including "Wave Gothic Treffen" and "Amphi" in Germany, feature numerous E.B.M artists. It can be argued that the birth of there Cyber Goth also influenced by E.B.M.

To anyone familiar with E.B.M, I should offer my apology for my simplistic explanation. I have left a lot of influential artists out, this is not out of ignorance, more to do with the fact that to include more would have made the thread far too long.

The purpose of this thread is to educate readers to the significance of E.B.M so if you think there is any thing missing feel free contribute, there are loads of different things I have not covered such as E.B.Ms cross over influences on other music genres, so I look forward to hearing other's thoughts on such things.