September 7–14, 2000

music

Gone Berzerk

The dark dance of Norway’s Apoptygma Berzerk.

by Helen H. Thompson

Without a doubt, Stephan Groth is among those who pioneered — nay, defined — EBM as a genre within the ever fluctuating boundaries of electronica. This, of course, begs two questions: Just what is EBM, anyhow? And why should anyone care who defined it?

Groth is frontman and mastermind of Norway’s Apoptygma Berzerk, and the simplest way to define EBM (electronic body music) is as industrial dance music. The term was cribbed in 1984 from a liner note on Front 242’s debut release, and Groth picked up the ball in 1989 and ran with it.

Now, you’re not going to mistake EBM for something out of Trent Reznor’s library of pain. The word "industrial" gets tossed around a bit loosely these days, a far cry from its roots in Einsterzende Neubauten and Throbbing Gristle. But if you were a punk then, you’d have heard some of this stuff: nihilistic, noisy, a bit lacking in the usual energy departments. But punks will slam to anything, even the Smiths.

Industrial nowadays is the thickly textured synthetic marches that dominate the European alternative charts and that fuel the dance floors of such local nightspots as Shampoo’s Nocturne and Transit’s Temptation.

EBM is dance music. It’s riddled with techno. It’s peppered with disco. But it’s remixed through filters that can make an opera singer sound like he’s chewing aluminum cans. It provokes a kind of dance in which your limbs resemble what your knee does when whacked with a rubber hammer. It’s industry with melody, gothic with a beat, techno that’s not afraid to hit hard and leave you thinking.

And Groth, little-heralded here in the States, is one of the dominant forces in what he now calls "Future Pop" across the Atlantic, where he plays gigantic music festivals in packed stadiums. In Europe, entire magazines are devoted to EBM and related genres. Apoptygma Berzerk is so big that its latest release debuted at number one in the German alternative charts.

Make no mistake, EBM is hard electronica. These days there are so many flavors of electronica that it’s all too easy to loop them through crazy circular definitions, marriages of styles and subsequent departures that yield such orphans as trance, techno, trip-hop and, well, EBM.

They are sufficiently related enough that, chances are, you’ve heard Apoptygma’s "Starsign" or "Kathy’s Song" on other dance floors as well.

Meanwhile, for the past five years, band after band has jumped on the EBM groovewagon, often under the tutelage of Groth, who believes in paying forward. "I get inspiration from working with other people, but the main importance is to help out other artists, just like a lot of artists helped me out in the beginning."

Thanks to Philadelphia-based label Metropolis Records, more and more of these European acts are turning up in stateside record bins. Walk onto the main dance floor of Shampoo on a Wednesday night and you’ll see their names pulsing across an LCD even as their rhythms thunder out. Funker Vogt. :wumpscut. Project Pitchfork. Velvet Acid Christ. Front Line Assembly. Covenant. And so on.

But Groth has moved on with Apoptygma: While the synth-pop and techno influence is still readily apparent, he’s downplaying the harder dance into a smoother, trancey feel for his newest album, Welcome to Earth (Metropolis).

"I’ve always tried to keep the ApB sound as fresh and modern as possible," says Groth of this evolution. "I have my roots in synthpop, EBM and Italo-disco, but I’ve been listening to trance and techno since 1991, so it’s very natural for me to mix all these styles."

Known endearingly to their U.S. fans as Apop, the band’s name is almost an afterthought. "It’s a work title we made up in 1989 when we recorded the first demo. Suddenly, we got a record deal, and we didn’t come up with a new name, so it stuck."

ApB is primarily a one-man operation, but Groth tours with a band. Apoptygma (www.apoptygma.eu.org) is currently making the rounds as a four-piece outfit, with Groth on vocals, HanGeir Bratland on keyboards, Fredrik Darum on guitars and Ted Skogmann on drums and guitars. According to Groth, the increased organic presence will give the studio work more texture and edge. "Europe is still the main market for this kind of music, but the scene seems to be growing very fast in the U.S. I think that Americans are a little more into guitar-based industrial, but that’s fine with me since ApB now has two guitarists."

One of the key distinctions of ApB’s brand of industrial synthpop is Groth’s deeply emotional lyrics. Whether brandishing sociopolitical commentary or tiptoeing about the delicate emotional balance of personal relationships, Groth isn’t afraid to communicate with his audience. He also tends to theme his work, juxtaposing visual imagery with lyrical content so that listening to an album, in his words, is more "like reading a book."

"I share a lot of my emotions and what I’ve gone through. I get mail from people all the time saying I’ve described their situation perfectly. Some claim it’s been a great support listening to ApB songs through a difficult time in their lives, and that’s really nice, knowing I’ve actually meant something for the real people."

Apoptygma Berzerk will perform Wed., Sept. 13, with VNV Nation, Carfax Abbey and DJs Dysfunction and Plague at The Trocadero, 1003 Arch St., 215-922-LIVE, doors open at 8 p.m., $15, $20 day of show, www.trocaderotheatre.com; Afterparty will take place at Shampoo, between Seventh and Eighth on Willow St., 215-922-7500, www.ShampooOnline.com.