As some of my friends with really unusual taste (hail to Beli!) provided me with different kinds of music I couldn't possibly hear on the radio or TV, they taught me to appreciate various musical styles and expressions. They made me listen to many good records, as well as some really weird and boring ones... I could recommend many artists, but one worth mentioning would most certainly be the musician I heard about in 80s and who still impresses me with his work. His name is Stephan Micus and his music is as opposite to electronic as it could possibly be. But that is not the point. His music is unexpected, rich and it radiates with intelligent and pleasant vibe. Most warmly I recommend The Garden of Mirrors which is in my opinion one of his most beautiful records.
Very unrelated to Stephan Micus, the second half of 80s hatched many new bands playing a new, different kind of electronic music. It sounded hard, composed and quite aggressive, something descended from the DAF line. And it simply delighted me. It was long awaited refreshment in my life. I was hypnotized by Front 242 (oh, I remember the evenings in my favorite club, when everybody would howl along: no sex until marriage !!! ). And I have become permanently influenced by Nitzer Ebb 's brain smashing rhythm&bass lines. I also liked Clock DVA very much, though they were considered kind of a dark side of the Kraftwerk, and as I mentioned before, I was never a Kraftwerk fan. I guess I just liked the dark side of it...
And then a whole wave of different kinds of electronic music flushed the Europe ...
The more new electronic bands I got to hear, the more seemed to me like it's a kind of music that could beat down the frontiers. Literally... And maybe even open a window of opportunity for people like me, who were living far from world's musical centres, with English as a second or even third language (if...). Laibach and Borghesia emerged and become known worldwide just as to confirm the theory. As far as I know, none of the big names of the movement ever become rich and famous. They always remained quite deeply underground but enjoyed extremely devoted support of their fans. And there were just enough of them to make the influence of that underground electronic sound on the main stream music quite significant.
As the time went by, we all witnessed the main stream absorbing, modifying and exploiting the underground sounds and ideas, transforming them into flattened and consumable commercial products. Anyhow, unintended and almost unnoticed, something happened while 80s were just about to give it up to the 90s. Thanks to the influence of the underground electronic scene, a new kind of general musical perception has been developed in the Europe and that created a space for new music, regardless of its origin... The new rule has been established: "It works as long as it sounds right" ... The language has also become less important. Those are, I believe, the most significant parts of the heritage of the electronic movement in the 80s. They laid the foundations for the musical globalisation...
