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The Sound of Belgium (Documentary) Canvas TV 13-10-2013
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| tiestoworld |
The Sound of Belgium (Documentary) Canvas TV 13-10-2013
Website:
http://www.tsob.be
http://www.canvas.be
Broadcast:
Canvas TV
22:00 (GMT+1)
Time: 75Min
The Sound of Belgium explores the rich but untold story of Belgian dance music. the dance halls with Decap organs to the golden days of Popcorn and New Beat to Belgian House and Techno.
A chronicle of unique popular music, The Sound of Belgium goes in search of the spirit of a nation and the people that danced to it.
At the end of the 80s, Belgium was taken by surprise by the New Beat, a once immensely popular, almost surreal type of dance music. Its unexpected but short lived success didn’t only leave a mark on a new generation of musicians in Belgium in the years to come; It’s eclectic mix of sounds and styles actually had its seeds in earlier decades.
Now is the time to tell the story that has been widely ignored by ‘serious’ music critics and the mainstream media in general. This is a documentary that goes in search of the spirit of a nation, by exploring the history of Belgian’s popular music and the people that danced to it.
Dutch:
Documentaire over de geschiedenis van de dansmuziek in België, van de kermis tot de New Beat. Velen herinneren zich de New Beat, een surreëel elektronisch muziekgenre van eigen bodem dat in de jaren '80 wereldwijd succes kende. Maar dit genre, dat plots alle dansvloeren veroverde, kwam niet uit het niets.
De eclectische mengvorm die New Beat eigenlijk was, had al veel eerder zijn oorsprong. 'The Sound of Belgium' onderzoekt hoe een klein land in het hart van Europa een uniek geluid ontwikkelde en zichzelf zo op de wereldkaart plaatste. Tegelijk vertelt de documentaire een alternatieve geschiedenis van België. Aan de hand van archiefbeelden, clips, hits en interviews schetst de film een muzikaal beeld van België, van de vooroorlogse kermissen, over de dansnamiddagen met Decap-orgel in de jaren '40, tot de grote discotheken in de jaren '80. |
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| Titanium |
| Is this documentary going to be in English? Sorry I can't click on the link from university |
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| Trance-MB |
| quote: | Originally posted by Titanium
Is this documentary going to be in English? Sorry I can't click on the link from university |
The teasers show English subs:
Cool, no words needed:
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| Trance-MB |
10 minutes to go and like Lisaya said to me: "brings back a 'zillion' memories"
edit:
WOW that was interesting, especially after the New Beat part every single track I can remember from back then.
No English subs on this one, Dutch subs were needed to translate French and English. It will appear on Youtube I bet.
And the part I posted above wasn't in it, probably too much material for a much longer documentary. |
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| Trance-MB |
Very interesting how the speed of playing 45 rpm singles too slow twice had massive influence on the Belgium music scene. First on Popcorn, then on New Beat:
From Wiki as in the documentary:
| quote: | | The European New Beat sound originated in Belgium in the late 1980s, especially in 1987 and 1988. It was an underground danceable music style, well known at clubs and discos in Western Europe. It is a crossover of electronic body music (EBM, which also developed in Belgium) with the nascent Chicago originated acid and house music. New Beat is the immediate precursor of hardcore electronic dance music (at the time known as rave), which developed in the neighboring Netherlands and elsewhere around 1990. The genre was "accidentally invented" in the nightclub Ancienne Belgique in Antwerp when DJ Dikke Ronny (literally "Fat Ronny") played the 45 rpm EBM record "Flesh" by A Split-Second at 33 rpm, with the pitch control set to +8. In addition to A Split-Second, the genre was also heavily influenced by other industrial and EBM acts such as Front 242 and The Neon Judgement, as well as New Wave and dark wave acts such as the likes of Fad Gadget, Gary Numan and Anne Clark. Mega-nightclubs such as the Boccaccio soon made the genre a major underground success. |
Also very interesting how the Mega-clubs got closed in a short time using razzia's by the police. This track now gets a different load as I wasn't aware of the closing of many clubs in the 90's at our neighbors:
THE sound of Belgium IMO:
If the track was before the closings someone predicted the future ...
By the way, here is the documentary, without English subs, but with French subs :) ,well that helps... :
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| Trance-MB |
This is also a nice video about New Beat in Belgium, all text in English:
Part two (Belgium pitched down...)
| quote: | Radio Soulwax presents: THIS IS BELGIUM PART TWO: CHERRY MOON ON VALIUM:
Even though these Belgian records sound very "now", they are actually 20 years old and were meant to be played at a much, much faster speed. At the time this was the devil's music for us, but we have learned to listen through the claps and distorted kicks and discovered that if you slow these really dark and heavy techno records down all the way to about 115 bpm, it suddenly makes them sound less frantic, ballsier and a lot sexier. Belgium at its best when pitched down. The covers of these records are quite generic and don't really lend themselves to animating , so we figured we would bring you the visual aspect of this musical genre that you can't not be fascinated by: the dance. We were very lucky to have found some people who can still do the typical moves, and with them dancing in front of the record sleeves (and sometimes inside of them) we bring you our ultimate tribute to a glorious period in our Belgian musical heritage. We feel very strongly about this hour, and would like to show that quite often, the best things in life are already right in front of us, we just have to open our eyes (and ears) to them. We stand corrected! |
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