Join in the Re-enchantment
Remembering and forgetting Nitzer Ebb
This week saw the passing of Nitzer Ebb frontman and co-founder Douglas McCarthy. It’s never great when one of your subcultural contemporaries passes away, and (on a purely selfish level) I was even more disturbed that McCarthy was a few years younger than myself. He had been battling various demons and illnesses for a while and had recently stepped back from the re-invigorated Nitzer Ebb that had resumed touring. The band had reformed in 2006 and were making the most of a renewed interest in ‘Electronic Body Music’ (EBM) as the second and third decades of the third millennium saw the young and old alike scratching around in the niche detritus of the 80s and early 90s for inspiration and nostalgia satiation.
It is incorrect to say that Nitzer Ebb were the forgotten men of the 80s, and we can point to their influence on Surgeon/Regis and Downwards Records, and also their role in the late 90s and early 00s fashion shows of Belgian designer Raf Simons. However, as a band they never ever seemed to fit in, and were pretty much outcasts in the music press of the 80s. It wasn’t until they reformed that their name was considered again, and a quick scan of the Quietus and Electronic Sound websites sees next to nothing in terms of a typical examination of their legacy such as is given to their 80s contemporaries.
The genre of EBM that Nitzer Ebb may (or may not) have considered themselves a part was also something of a niche engagement. I recall the early ‘Belgian Beat’ records arriving in Sheffield record shops in the mid-80s, the hard beats and fast bpms, the parade ground delivery of vocals. Some regard this as being birthed by early industrial and then the more regimented sounds of Cabaret Voltaire, but Cabaret Voltaire offered something more when they ventured towards the dancefloor. Basing this on my experience of attending clubs like Sheffield’s Leadmill, Manchester’s Hacienda and Nottingham Garage, typical Cabs tracks like ‘Sensoria’ and ‘Yashar’ would be played out to a mixed crowd who had come to dance – the tracks had machine-funk breakdowns that gave you space to breathe and express. The relentless pummel of EBM bands like A Split Second and Front 242 was too much of a gamble. These tracks were just not played in any of the clubs I frequented. Likewise, Nitzer Ebb. I have seen mention of their breathless and buoyant ‘Join in the Chant’ sending a club crowd into a frenzy, but it wasn’t something I’d ever encountered, and I’d remember it if I did.
Even though I felt I shouldn’t, I liked Nitzer Ebb. I’d bought their singles ‘Murderous’ and ‘Let Your Body Learn’ on the off chance after seeing them in the bargain bin at Derby’s BPM Records on The Strand. The latter of those two singles was a proper stormer. At the same time I could see the things that the post-punk and pop media found so discouraging and concerning: the Nietzschean narrative, Teutonic influences and over-identification in a time before philosophers like Slavoj Žižek joined forces with Laibach to explain things and make it all ok, the funk-less driving and pounding that removed the contextual nuance of a prior influence in Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, the by-rote inclusion of clonking metal bashing, etc.
Nitzer Ebb didn’t really fit in, but nothing fitted in around 1986 and 1987. Maybe because they appeared so perfectly formed and pre-planned, with Constructivist iconography and a great look, I was hoodwinked and the music press was suspicious. My music from around this time was all over the place: pretty much everything by Swans, Einsturzende Neubauten, Mark Stewart and Butthole Surfers, Conflict’s Ungovernable Force, the weird jazz-type LP by the rebranded Flux (of Pink Indians), Schoolly D and Renegade Soundwave on the newly formed Rhythm King imprint, Jackdaw with Crowbar on Long Eaton’s Ron Johnson records. I wanted things with a bit of drive and spirit, and NME directing me to the post-post-punk of jangly C86 was not the answer. A year later and a new chapter of dance music was taking hold to define the next decade and (temporarily) wipe the 80s clean. Nitzer Ebb were both part of this and excluded from it.
Journalist Dave Henderson launched Underground magazine in April 1987, and you can see the flux of styles scrambling to gain a foothold. Even here Nitzer Ebb were rarely included in a positive sense, though their music was thoroughly new and original. About the closest you get is a piss-take of their NEP logo. It’s also interesting how much Mute Records have a hold on things. As well as their main label they have the Rhythm King imprint exploring new avenues in hip-hop, funk, house and electro, and also the Product Inc line which allowed non (or less) electronic music to have a home (Swans, Pussy Galore, World Domination Enterprises). Nitzer Ebb, though appearing to have their own label Power of Voice Communications, were part of the mainstream Mute family. Their sound kind of fits in with Mute’s electronic pop (they opened for a major Depeche Mode tour), but at times the sheer aggressiveness trips over in UK82 punk – listen to ‘Let Beauty Loose’ on their debut LP from 1987, the urgent vocal delivery and short duration reminds me of Discharge’s ‘Realities of War’. It is certainly not dance music for a rave-movement-to-be…
Whereas I can vividly remember where and when I bought records, I cannot say the same for letting them go. Deeply repressed memories. At one point I had pretty much a full set of Nitzer Ebb 12s up to and including the period of their first album. And now they are no longer there, even though I have a few crates of my 80s records trudged from house to house (and seldom played). That mid-80s period was so difficult though. Most of the purchases are gone.
But Nitzer Ebb returned to haunt me. I was reviewing records at the end of the 90s, and received a trio of Welt in Scherben records, a side-project by Thomas P. Heckmann. Even though described as a revival of and tribute to the Sägezahn (saw-tooth) sound, it was clearly a straight-up homage to Nitzer Ebb. At some point in the more recent past I acquired a second-hand CD copy of That Total Age, the original 1987 release. It felt like a relief and reconciliation to be reunited with the band. And finally, in 2024, Cherry Red produced one of their relentless box-sets entitled Control I’m Here – with the subtitle ‘Adventures on the Industrial Dancefloor 1983-1990’. It gave the impression that the EBM scene had more presence than it actually had.
Where am I going with this? Musicians from our 70s and 80s are passing away with regularity. Our contemporaries. They don’t go on forever. I guess, for me, Mark Stewart and Terry Hall departing were the ones who first brought it home. They were still making music, enthused, engaged and engerised – not simply a burn-bright too-fast-to-live mentality.
And we now have social media, where everything is about the person drawing attention to themselves. A musician (or writer, or director) dying can quickly seem like an obligation to talk about yourself – whether it’s your apparent grief, or your (re-imagined) cool-standing connection to the deceased. It might feel like I’m doing this here. I’m not claiming some kind of authenticity. I’m hoping it’s a genuine tribute to Douglas and his vocal work with Nitzer Ebb. It is also an anti-tribute to tributes in general in the age of social media.
Not wanting to end on a grumpy note, here are a couple of heartfelt tributes to Douglas and the band.
Chris Low talks of a place where clubbers go wild to ‘Murderous’ and ‘Join in the Chant’.
Post-Punk Monk is a bright light in the lost art of being self-deprecating.
Great piece, Ian. I never got into Nitzer Ebb, Laibach, etc., just a tad too jack-booty for me. I did like Neubauten and that side of things, though. You mentioned Pussy Galore and World Domination Enterprises in the same sentence - this, perhaps, is a clue that you, too, were at that fabulous LSE gig in early 1988? Seen thousands of gigs, but when a conversation on "gigs of your life' starts up, I always drag this one out. I'd seen World Dom open for The Shamen and Husker Du at T&C Club and hated them. But two songs into their PG support and I was a fan.