Once more unto the breach...
Since the first North Sea Body Music (NSBM) EP crashed upon the shores of the more discerning dancefloors of Terra Firma in 2013, much has happened to Emile Strunz. Firstly, he made his live debut in Rotterdam headlining a show alongside cult electro act, Das Ding. Shortly after ‘Elan Vital’ from NSBM #1 was picked up by Andrew Weatherall for his Inter France broadcast, his mother tragically, horribly, succumbed to an aggressive cancer. He relocated in a bid to escape the harsh social and economic conditions of his native North East and to heal his grief, and successfully negotiated several challenges, barriers and tests to be appointed (in his daytime persona) as the spin doctor for the highest ranking official at Leicestershire Police. He then played shows in Newcastle, at the Institute for Contemporary Arts in London, and in the middle of the New Forest, refining his performance to incorporate live percussion.
However, the confrontational polemic persona of Emile Strunz was deemed to be at odds with the sensibilities of the English Establishment, and he was accused of everything from holding extreme political views to being ‘a producer of pure pornography’, as his reputation was smeared and he was removed from this position and his main source of income on the grounds of “a breakdown of trust and confidence between employer and employee”. Battered, bruised, and betrayed, he returned to the calm of the New Forest to regroup, refocus, and rebuild.
In January, his epic 10 minute body-beat opus to addiction, desire and temptation, ‘People who you know (who can’t say no)’ was released on Ali Renault’s VIVOD imprint, and played by Erol Alkan on his Friday night show on BBC Radio 6 Music describing it as “an amazing record”, playing it in its ecstatic entirety. Emile then toured Russia playing to packed venues in Moscow and St Petersburg before preparing for two London gigs, first playing live alongside Timothy J Fairplay and Scott Fraser with Andy Blake and Amy Alsop on DJing duties, before he appeared alongside the legendary Test Department, closing the “Still The Enemy Within” event to mark the 30th anniversary of the miners’ strike. A further live show at Stoke Newington’s Waiting Room followed, before Emile jetted off to play the Magic Waves festival in Berlin.
Emile now returns with a second instalment of North Sea Body Music and three tracks of hypnotic, hard-hitting dancefloor tension.
‘Merck 274350’ – a Situationist reading of the impact of a chemical compound first synthesised before the First World War which transformed the social, cultural and economic landscape of the UK is body music writ large. With its propulsive piston-driven basslines, industrial-strength percussion, and a Germanic vocodered mantra, this Teutonic Panzer Tank of a track takes absolutely no prisoners – an electronic matter of fact statement inspired by the passing of time, fate, circumstance, and synchronicity. Holland’s misanthropic high priest of psychedelic , doomy, dark house & techno, Drugcvltvre, delivers a trippy interpretation, turning the track into a lysergic love letter to this iconic chemical catalyst, maintaining the dynamic bassline of the original but adding a nagging 303 line to deliver an explosive 3am dancefloor device.
‘One Step Closer to Heaven’ begins with a metronomic, rhythmic New Beat stomp and a nagging insidious synth refrain that recalls the more electronic side of New Order. Muscular synth riffs drop in and out of the mix, taking the track into dark EBM territory and ramping up the pressure before the influences of Giorgio Moroder and Cerrone come to the fore, propelling the track into a rapture of hypnotic celestial electronic disco.
So dip your toes once more in the North Sea Body Music of Emile Strunz and take One Step Closer to Heaven.
