Glamor is undead — 13 Belgtronic Standards

Belgium has some history when it comes to electronic music. Industrial, EBM, House and Techno have all had Belgian people in their pioneers. This connection faded away over the last ten years. But there is a growing electronica scene and Glamor is undead is a compilation whose aim is to put back Belgium on the electronic music map. The people behind it even coined a great word to qualify this new Belgian scene: Belgtronica.

The concept? Having different belgian artists composing exclusive tracks on which Fleur Olyslaegers would sing her “favourite songs of love gone wrong” (in other words, classics such as I wanna be loved by you,  Diamonds are a girl’s best friend or My funny valentine).

While a few of the artists on Glamor is undead perform some beautifully crafted, feather-light clicks_and_cuts music, most of them focus on more beat oriented tunes (which ain’t bad). Some even venture on dreaded electroclash fields. You know, that kind of “let’s do it like they did in the 80’s, add just a few house elements and let’s update the sexual imagery to the 21st century”.  Thankfully, they are not the majority here.

Talking about problems, there is a big one: the vocals. That Fleur doesn’t sing is not a problem. What is more disturbing is that she seems to want to sound jaded, tired and drunk but only sound like someone who tries hard to be that. On some of the tracks, the vocals and the music just don’t marry well, as if they had been conceived separately and mixed together carelessly.

Some tracks and artists worth mentioning are Audiostore (very soft glitches, beautiful tune), Daiphlux (quite a nice song but a little disappointing when you know their other works –which I have to investigate in a little more). The ubiquitous Köhn offers a very nice abstract track, mixing sparse rhythms, keys, noise, cut and paste compositional work. I’m told his albums on (K-raa-k³) are magnificent, I guess I have to get them.  Bohr and bug sounds a bit like a paced-down, noise-free Venetian Snares or a less “epic”, “heroic” Martin Horntveth. A bit in the same vein (though not quite...): Phonotype.  Thee vaporizer track features a very nice melody buried beneath their idm/abstract rhythms. That melody alone warrants them to be mentioned.
The absolute star is Styrofoam. Signed to Morr Music (label of Lali Puna, connected to The Notwist), it’s probably the better known act to feature on the CD. The song starts with a beautiful melancholic melody which, after a few seconds, becomes the background for a glitchy beat. You can hear that Styrofoam has been working on songs lately: it’s one of the only tracks in which vocals and music mix well. Hats off.

Some people seem to think that 13 belgtronic standards is not a representative panorama of the Belgian scene. Might be, but what the hell? There is enough good material on this to have people interested. And I’m pretty sure some of the artists on this will get better known thanks to the comp.