Front 242: Body Pioneers - Page 3

"Headhunter" opened many a dance floor to the bracing thrill of industrial music. "By then a lot of people had become used to hearing weird, noisy synthesizer sounds. There has been a double curve going both ways reflecting the popularity of our type of music: one curve goes up from the artists toward the audience as we have gotten better, and the other goes down from the audience toward the artists as their ears have adapted. It seemed to come together on 'Headhunter,'" he avers.

Though not possessed of a standout track as galvanizing as "Headhunter," the band's next album, Tyranny For You, is its most consistent and carried their formula to its logical conclusion. Highlights are "Rhythm of Time" and "Tragedy For You."

In the '90s the band experimented with screeching metallic guitar (06:21:03:11 Up Evil) and techno/trance (05:22:09:12 Off). After a hiatus to pursue solo projects, the band reunited in 1997 to tour and record new music - artistic spelunkers delving ever deeper into the machine.

Codenys worries that with the rise of technology, that exploration has become too easy. "The technology is so powerful, and there is such an abundance of factory-made sounds available, that it is easy to make 'music' within an hour. But behind the technology is an artist, and behind the artist is a man. I still believe that the start of everything is the quality of the man, who will develop the artist, who will make choices within the technology. I regret that the power of the technology can annihilate a person's ability to develop his human sensitivity and his 'man-power.'"

Article Author: Eric Olsen

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