Words: Warlock
No, ‘Euro’ isn’t a currency, it’s actually an extremely short-lived genre that no one really knows about. It’s a bit like some obscure yet bountiful tiny island in the Channel Islands, or Diego Garcia – under the radar, but royally plundered over the years. But less of the metaphor, let’s get to the crux: Euro was the original, unsung rave music, period. Euro was the sound of 1991. The concept of a rave containing up to 20,000 people had recently been established by the summer of love but the music being played was coincidental: acid house and all it’s Ibiza derivatives. Now came the very first music purpose-built for such a gargantuan arena; designer music for a new generation. It’s truly where the blueprint of rave was established; the hoover noise, the stab, it was all born here.
Still, Euro wore its influences on its sleeve: the industrial sound of the late-80s, bands like Nitzer Ebb and Front 242, the deepness of Detroit, the early funk/acid of Chicago, and of course New Beat (which anyone one involved with Euro would prefer to forget). New Beat actually helped a lot of Euro producers learn their craft and hone their production skills – thank the Lord they didn’t take the charts by storm for otherwise we wouldn’t have had the underground wonders of Praga Khan and the like that followed. Check ‘Ibiza’ (pronounced ‘eebessa’) by Amnesia and Acid Rock (which was a techno version of ‘Smoke On The Water’ – thankfully times have changed) by Frank De Wulf and you’ll see the all-important link. Euro is the chosen name for this genre simply because the bulk of the music came from the European mainland. There was pretty much bugger-all from these shores, and if you were doing it here then you were ahead of your time. The main hotbeds of activity were Holland and Belgium: the former generally having a little more fun with it while the latter was coming up with some ultra-serious shit. The French also provided a few choice bits and the Italians offered some of their own very stylish and sophisticated interpretations of the sound too. The Germans were at it as well, but but they don’t figure so heavily in this run-down, as really their best stuff came later. See what we missed by not being connected to the land mass? Oh, and of course there was a small but highly significant Stateside connection in the form of Joey Beltram who really should’ve been called Joey Belgium, considering all the epic stuff he put out on R&S. And how can we forget CJ Bolland, another seminal blip to the Euro curve – an Englishman who moved to Ghent at the age of 2.
Euro was the original unsung rave music, period.
I remember going into Wired For Sound in Hackney to buy tunes and every week – without even trying – I would end up walking away with 50 quid less in my pocket and a hefty bag of pure quality tuneage. It was total bliss, I didn’t even have any money, but that was a small concern: the sheer volume of choice tunes every week was awe-inspiring. More signifcantly What I also remember about this era was other people being equally affected and bowled over by the music. I saw a lot of people where I was in East London (and it was happening elsewhere – Leicester, Birmingham, Stafford, Manchester etc) being so impressed and empowered by the output, the quality of production, the impact of the tunes, and then thinking, ‘Right. We can do this.’ In this way Euro kick-started a vibrant white label culture, albeit one largely sample-based. It really got a lot of people off their arses and onto their feet.
We all know by now that hardcore was important. It’s at the very centre Simon Reynolds’ much-debated theory of a ‘Hardcore continuum’. I’m not denying hardcore’s significance, but really the original essence of rave started with Euro. It’s one of the most formulaic forms of music ever conceived, but it completely justifies itself by embracing that formula and transcending it. It’s a pleasure to mix because it’s beats-by-numbers but even so, the music still charts some unfathomable depths (if you can see beyond its dazzling surface).
Euro kick-started a vibrant white label culture, and got a lot of people off their arses and onto their feet.
Euro is the purist form of rave; listen to it and you’ll see straightaway what I mean. It didn’t get all sophisticated and sleek like Detroit techno, it didn’t necessarily dwell on the funk like Chicago, it didn’t remain all cold and staid like industrial, it just went for it in a completely unhinged, inhibited way. That’s why I always had a hole in my pocket at the end of the week. It was the inspiration for a thousand genres after it, not just hardcore, but gabba, techno, trance, breaks, nu electro, bassline, fidget, whatever. And yet still there’s always been something refreshingly humble about Euro, even when it was off racing down the fast lane doing it’s thing.
There are even producers sampling Euro to this very day; often they don’t know it, they’re just sampling it 3 or 4 times down the line. This isn’t a bad thing; it’s beautiful really. The spirit of Euro lives on.
I have to confess I was partly inspired to write this piece by FACT’s 20 Best Hip-House as chosen by Greco-Roman’s Alexander Waldron. A spot-on article, it instantly made me realise that there was another mutant genre has been given a similarly wide berth over the years, one whose records are still available on Discogs for next to nish. Euro was its younger lunatic brother by about a year or two. And if you were inclined to file FACT’s 20 Bests into some sort of order, 20 Best Euro would fit neatly between Simon Reynolds’ 20 Best Bleep and Richard X’s 20 Best Hardcore.
Alright, let’s get down to it. There are a few fairly obvious tunes in this list, some that even made it into the UK top 40, but I respect their original intentions and that’s why they need to be included. And of course we’re also going to delve a bit deeper, and blow the dust off some almost forgotten little gems…
Warlock has put together a special mix of the 20 Best Euro records you’re reading about. Download it here.
01: DESTROYER
‘SENSES’
(TARGET, 1991)
A trio of utterly excellent and fat-as-you-like releases surfaced on Belgian-based Target records in ’91. Although they were Euro in every way, the tracks – including this one – were dominated by a big, bad-ass breakbeat. This was their unique brililance, and it offered a glimpse of the next step into hardcore. In fact ‘Senses’ is powered by the break from Addis Posse’s ’89 classic ‘Let The Warriors Dance’, which highlights the continual feedback loop that was already in effect.
02: DIGITAL BOY
‘ROTATION’
(FLYING ITALY, 1991)
The reputation of this boy (I imagine he’s a more senior citizen now) rests on three 12"s that were made up of uniformly cheesy Italian fare apart from every B2 track, which would be the maddest tear-out rave music you’d ever heard. You could almost credit him with the birth of rave, but everyone would scoff.
03: INCUBUS
‘THE SPIRIT’
(80 AUM, 1991)
Yes, another anthem indeed. Penned by a production crew that included Patrick Van Kerckhoven – who as well as running 80 Ohm went on to have a fair amount of success in the Rotterdam hardcore scene
a
s DJ Ruffneck. Punctuated by the line ‘Like a mighty wind, spirit come down, come rushin’ in’, this stormer plumps for the same ‘my sound’ samples also used by The Scientist and Beltram, and comes complete with those essential ‘rave Indian’ stabs. Sublime.
04: OUTLANDER
‘THE VAMP’
(R&S, 1991)
A genre-defining biggie. The dark organ stabs on this made it stand out, and its use of Todd Terry’s filched Bango break linked it with the past as well as the future. ‘Vamp’ was a considerable departure from Marcus Salon’s usual, more industrial new beat-style productions that you hear elsewhere on this EP.
05: HOLY NOISE
‘FATHER FORGIVE THEM’
(HITHOUSE, 1990)
This is actually less pure Euro in its design and more of a DJ mash-up, unashamedly sampling from here there and everywhere – with wonderful results. Holy Noise is also known as Peter Slaghuis; his surname is Dutch for ‘hit house’, hence the label name and also the producton moniker for his 1988 UK chart hit ‘Dance To The Sound Of The Underground’. Mental.
06: TRANCE TRAX
‘PMW-WAVE’
(BEATBOX, 1991)
Don’t be put off by the name. You have to remember that at this point, there was no such genre as trance, just a state of mind (lol). This one’s pure evil. Kinda reminds me of driving in torrential rain when you can’t see a damned thing: dangerous, thrilling, intense.
07: SECOND PHASE
‘MENTASM’
(R&S, 1991)
One of those moments when two random elements collide and explode into something new and utterly explosive. Crafted by Mundo Muzique and Joey Beltram this was huge and surely has to credited as the original hoover tune.
08: DJ PC
‘INSOMMNIAK’
(BITE, 1991)
A real epic, this one. Straight outta Belgium, it’s like the missing link between acid house, industrial and new beat. An infectious and generally lesser-known classic.
09: DILEMMA
‘ERASE YOUR MIND’
(MACKENZIE, 1990)
Plenty of Euro which was banging back in the day sounds cheesy by today’s standards, but ‘Erase Your Mind’ sounds as hard now as ever. No messing, deep, dark and twisted to the last, it absolutely pounds. Most Euro 12’s sported frankly awful B-sides, but this release comes fully equipped with two taser-like stunners in the form of ‘Space Paradox’ and ‘Hyperbolic’. A 12" worth every single penny, and then some.
10: BELTRAM
‘ENERGY FLASH’
(R&S, 1991)Recorded in New York, released in Belgium. Deep and otherwordly as you like, it’s really just pure techno, but it was, and remains, an integral part of the Euro story. No cheesy samples, but rather those trademark cries of ‘ecstasy, ecstasy’ carried along on a post-acid 303 riff.
11: CHANNEL X
‘RAVE THE RHYTHM’
(BEATBOX, 1991)
This is a perfect example of the ‘Euro-by-numbers’ formula. 8-bar mixable intro, rave stab breakdown, drop, clichéd female vocal, drop again, hands-in-the-air synth section, final bad-boy drop. It worked every time and there was a whole string of ‘em by the likes of Angel Ice, Digital Orgasm, M.N.O and so on. When you delve deeper you realise they’re pretty much all various guises and collaborations of Praga Khan and Oliver Adams. Bona fide floor-rocking material.
12: SET UP SYSTEM
‘FAIRY DUST’
(BIG TIME INTERNATIONAL, 1991)
These guys also had the formula locked down. Demonic hoovers and drones a plenty, this duo were responsible also for the chart-bound ‘Night In Motion’ under the name Cubic 22. Notable for the absence of any woozy hands-in-the-air passages.
13: HUMAN RESOURCE
‘DOMINATOR’
(R&S, 1991)It took me years to realise that ‘human resource’ was just a staffing and recruitment department of any large office; it was always more appealing to think of it as something out a sci-fi film…Anyway, this was large. Even if you didn’t know much about Euro, you would have known this one: “I’m the one and only dominator – erh ah erh ah”. I’m sure this sold a zillion copies and was numero uno all over Euroland simultaneously for the entirety of this brief genre. It was that big.
14: FREQUENCY
‘WHAT IS YOUR EVIDENCE?’
(LOWER EAST SIDE, 1991)So many of today’s big guns cut their teeth in the days of Euro. This is no exception. One Orlando Voorn at the controls and this track definitely holds true to his style today. A deep, emotive stomper of a track.
15: T99
‘ANASTHASIA’
(WHO’S THAT BEAT, 1991)
I’m sure you’ve heard this one. It got reloaded to death because of its uncharacteristic intro – you know, the one with the rave riff played in a, er, classical manner. Caned and caned and then caned some more.
16: FRANK DE WULF
‘MAGIC ORCHESTRA’
(MUSIC MAN, 1990)Taken from the revered B-sides series (this one from Vol. 2). I could have picked several De Wulf tracks, but this one stuck in my mind because it was booming out of London pirate stations such as Fantasy FM all through the sunny summer of 1990. More laid-back than some of the other stuff here but one that got sampled aplenty.
17: SONIC SOLUTION
‘MUSIC’
(R&S, 1991)One of the many successful alter egos of CJ Bolland, Sonic Solution’s favouring of big piano-like stabs and a heavy bass hint at the English connection. Also responsible for the monstrous Ravesignal series that were a big part of the Euro sound.
18: QUADROPHONIA
‘QUADROPHONIA’
(ARS, 1991)
Another one you heard absolutely everywhere, penned by the guys who gave you ‘Anasthasia’. This one is sleek rave business and with its tidy break chugging away, you can really hear that hardcore is just round the corner.
19: SPECTRUM
‘BRAZIL’ (REMIX)
(R&S, 1992)
I know, R&S again, but they were totally on it, a complete power-house. It’s the awesome remix by Lenny Dee you gotta check here; it shows that the Brooklyn don was very much down with the Euro sound. In fact, seek out the Mastermix he put together for Kiss FM that year – it’s a priceless snapshot of what was going on 1991.
20. PRAGA KHAN
‘RAVE ALARM’
(BEAT BOX, 1991)
Yep, the alarm was beginning to sound on Euro as more people realised there was indeed a formula to be milked, and that tunes could realistically penetrate the charts as demonstrated by the likes of T99, Human Resource and Cubic 22. This stadium-friendly banger just pips it, but it’s the beginning of the end.
Warlock
Warlock is a DJ, producer and boss of Rag & Bone Records.