Belgium

Got my finger outta the dike & headed over here for some beer. So many great brews, so little time. Farmhouse saison. Gueuze lambic. Oud bruin. Finally I just stumbled into a dive…

Dive is a Belgian industrial band formed in 1990 by Dirk Ivens. 

In 1978, Dirk started as singer & guitar player in the punk band Slaughterhouse. They broke up a year later to form the more new wave unit called The Few.

By the 80s, Ivens influences (bands like Suicide, D.A.F. & the  whole UK electronic scene) had affected his music & he appeared  from on several compilations, now usingthe name Absolute Body Control. ABC’s first single "Is There an Exit?" became a local underground hit. After numerous line-up changes, ABC became the duo of Ivens & Eric Van Wonterghem. In 1985, Ivens & Van Wonterghem teamed up with Marc Verhaeghen of The Klinik & Sandy Nys of The Maniacs to form the "supergroup" Absolute Controlled Clinical Maniacs. They soon shortened the name to The Klinik. Nys & Van Wonterghem left to work on their own bands, while Ivens & Verhaeghen remained members until 1991, when Dirk left to concentrate on his solo project Dive, on which he had already been working.

In 1990, Dirk released a his first solo album under the name Dive. It was released on his own label Body Records. The album is primitive, harsh & experimental, with the sound of abused drum machines pulsating through the songs. Dirk is considered to be one of the founders of the power noise genre. Many releases followed in the next 15 years, often in collaboration with groups like: Sigillum S; Controlled Bleeding; Kirlian Camera; &  Diskonnekted , or individuals such as: Ivan Iusco; Rafael M. Espinosa; & Francoise Duvivier.
In 1996 Ivens started a new project, called Sonar, to create a more rhythmical noise combined with dark soundscapes, reminding one of laboring machinery & droning planes. With playing gigs & festivals worldwide; his Daft , Minimal Maximal, & Body Records labels; another side project, Blok 57; combined with his impressive discography makes Dirk one of the leaders of the Belgian electronic scene.

Concrete Jungle is Dive's 1993 studio album, with lyrics inspired in part by a 1991 auto crash of the bands tour bus that left Dirk Ivens, his wife, members of the band Vomito Negro (who were on tour with Dive) & others hospitalized for several months.

On Concret Jungle, Dive are: Dirk Ivens – voice & electronics; Eric van Wonterghem – electronics; Ivan Iusco – electronics; with Wendy van Dusen - voice & lyrics on "Welcome to Hell IV".

 Dive – Concrete Jungle, Minus Habens Records MHCD018, 1993. 

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Tracklist –

Slippin’ Away

Mindtorture

39 Stitches

Crosses are Burning

Take Your Dreams Away

Broken Meat

Mother

Welcome to Hell IV

Concrete Jungle

Lust

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February 2008. Will Z & Majnun were tired of their band. They had been working on their first opus, Lord Space Devil, since December 2000. They had unfinished & unreleased tunes, experimental & conceptual ideas. They just needed to quit what they were doing & finish it up, so they did. & Cosmic Trip Machine was born, named in tribute to 60s & 70s psychedelic records.

In the studio, Cosmic Trip Machine discovered musical freedom & were immediately addicted. They quickly finished Lord Space Devil, a psychedelic concept album.

Cosmic Trip Machine sez Lord Space Devil is:

"... an experimental psychedelic folk album with songs that release themselves of any constraints & explore differing sonic boundaries (odd instruments, studio effects, imaginative rock inspired by Indian music & B-movies)..."

Cosmic Trip Machine is one of Belgium’s finest psychedelic bands, these night-trippers sound like Aphrodite’s Child jamming with Gong imagining a psychedelic horror soundtrack wandering through a free-flowing erotic surreal delirium with enough sitar, cosmic electronics & wailing acidic guitar leads to blow your head off.

Lord Space Devil starts as a slowed-down Meat Puppets (Up on the Sun era) dirge & becomes an amalgam of lysergic guitar riffage, backwards tapes & percussion, Syd Barrett Floydisms & West Coast mantra, sitar-driven heavy psyhe instrumentals, light pop psychedelia, electric folk, 1960s garage tunes, British psychedelic blues, short experiments/sketches for future songs, Donovan, Tom Rapp, & a million more trippy flower power details. However, where many hippie-dippy bands rely on extended jams, this release contains 18 varied & succinct (jamless) tracks, which except for the title track & the “Last Song” never pass the four minute mark.

On Lord Space Devil: Will Z – lead vocals, acoustic guitar, bass, keyboards, sitar, theremin, flute, & percussion; & Majnun – electric guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals, sitar, E-bow, percussion & effects.

 Cosmic Trip Machine - Lord Space Devil cdr, 2008. 

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Tracklist -

Lord Space Devil

Floor

Go Down Streets

Mantra#27

Sorry Edgar for the Spelling

Giallo

Another Venus

Plastic Hippie

Light Beyond Death

So Sad

Strange is Laughing under View

Time

Mariachi

Chiaroscuro

Lonely Grave

Conversation

In the Haze of Drugs

Last Song

Enjoy,

NØ