Formed in 1981, Belgian industrial group Front 242 helped pioneer aggressive electronic "body" music throughout '80s with Skinny Puppy and Ministry. Front 242 produced two of the genre's most important albums (Front By Front, Tyranny For You) and arguably, the genre's most important single, "Headhunter."
The machine-only Front 242 sound emerged out of necessity from a popular music vacuum in Belgium, according to founding member and co-producer Patrick Codenys. "Since there is no strong rock tradition in Belgium, there isn't a pool of musicians like in England or America. Since you don't have a drummer or bass player, many people in Belgium (and also Germany) began to work with machines. Everyone in the band was an entity working on his own. We met in the early-'80s when we were living in Brussels and buying our stuff at the same shop."
Driven together, the intrepid little band jumped with both feet into a brave new world. Reveals Codenys, "We were determined to create music with machines and create a new kind of aesthetic from those machines. It was very exciting. We had art backgrounds and were very curious. There was a lot of 'sounds' research, things we weren't used to hearing. We had to fine tune our machines [synthesizers] to try to find the right sound within the machine. It was difficult because the music was very stiff. In the '80s the technology was much less flexible. We had to fine tune the sounds in preproduction by going very far into the process inside the machine before we entered the studio."
In developing an aesthetic, the band established some strictures. "There were no rules, so we created our own: Never, ever use the built-in factory sounds. Create sounds that no one has ever heard before, and then try to integrate them into the music. We developed the kind of abilities musicians develop on their instruments: a dexterity for going in there and pulling out the most incredible sounds. Eventually you become as good with knobs and cursors as with keys."
The band's self-discipline didn’t preclude a relationship with their chosen "axes." "Any musician wants to 'possess' his instrument - to know it fully. It's not different for people working with machines, except that with normal instruments, there are rules and chords and notes. When I got my first synth, it took me a half-hour to get any sound out of the thing. It took me two years to know what a tuning was, because I was just doing noises, or sounds, or even notes without knowing there was a tuning," he confides.
Like Depeche Mode in techno-pop, Front 242 faced stiff opposition. They used that opposition to toughen their music and their resolve, according to Codenys.
"The first three-to-five years we were doing music, we had no recognition. We were hated by a big chunk of the press and music business. It was very, very hard. Ours is not a kind of music that you can easily impose upon people. Most people would rather hear melodic music. The situation turned us into fighters because you have to stand behind something. The people inside the band are normal though, thank God. We have a lot of humor. But when you present an art, or a concept, it's important to stand behind it, and have a strong image."
Article comments
1 - Tom Johnson
06:21:03:11 Up Evil still ranks as one of the best electronic albums I've ever heard. Not a single guitar on the album, yet even with (relatively) primitive electronic equipment they were somehow able to elicit realistic squawks and squeals that had even a guitar magazine shaking its head in a review they did of the album at the time.
On a side note: I was hoping for a review of their new album, Pulse, as I have yet to hear anything conclusive about it . . . has anyone out there heard this thing?
2 - Eric Olsen
Sorry Tom, haven't heard "Pulse" yet, but glad to see they are still at it.