Electronic Essex Boys
Essex's Nitzer Ebb were a strong example of Mute's midfield
artists - unlikely to score in the charts, they were nevertheless very
popular in the underground niche that they occupied from the early 1980s
to the mid-90s. The central duo of 'Bon' Harris and Douglas
McCarthy were influenced by the early EBM of Die Krupps and
Front 242, along with the electropop of fellow Essex boys Depeche Mode.
The Ebb made harsh, danceable aggressive electronic music that in its
earliest guise was a big hit in clubs, particularly on the nascent Balearic
circuit. Their first releases were through Power Of Voice Communications,
where early cuts such as 'Murderous' and 'Get Clean' were body-slamming
4/4 gems; arpeggiating basslines, minimal progressions and metallic percussion
sounds. Picked up by Mute in time for their debut album, That Total
Age, their first single for the label was the Daniel Miller
/ Flood-remixed 'Let Your Body Learn'.
Their later work edged into slower, more electro territory, a move which saw the funk doctor himself, George Clinton, remix one of their tracks. Later still, they started to use guitar-sounding synths, giving tracks on their penultimate LP Ebbhead (produced by Alan Wilder of Depeche Mode and Recoil) a digital rock sound. Their final album, the inappropriately-titled Big Hit, saw the band leaning further into US leftfield rock, a progression which seemed to promise a new, exciting direction for the duo and their new drummer, Jason Payne. However, it was to be their last album, and there seems to be no signs of reconciliation. Biba Kopf, in one of Mute's Documentary Evidence booklets, described them as a 'beerhall putsch'. With Big Hit, the revolution was over after just five albums.
Good news, though. NovaMute have released three 12" remixes of celebrated Ebb tracks, and Mute are at last putting together a long overdue career retrospective CD and DVD package, which will hopefully see some of their unobtainable POV tracks once again see the light of day.