SIGMUND UND SEIN FREUND

Duo from the Flemish town Meulebeke that provided the world with electro-wave, industrial & noise-music from the middle of the nineteeneighties.

The group itself introduced itself in 1985 to the world the words : "A contemporary sound - a creative process of pure emotion. At the same time danceable, moving, aggressive, alienating. A combination of structure and improvisation. Hard, shocking, wild, chaotic, ominous. Music that can be experienced both as positive or negative, but that always causes an intense reaction. Despair and orgasm - therapeutical ?".

With this, the band connected with a complete movement of bands and projects that were experimenting with this kind of music in that same period : Front 242, Poésie Noire, the Neon Judgement, Parade Ground, à;Grumph, A Split Second, The Klinik ... With the exception of those first three, this story did however happen mainly in the fringes & underground parts of the music scene.

Initially Sigmund & his friend limited themselves to live-gigs and cassettes, published on their own, with extracts of those live performances. The band caused quite a bit of controversy from the beginning : in the magazine Humo there were big discussions growing on between supporters & adversaries. Fact is that they managed to get the opening spot for industrial groups such as Laibach, SPK, Psychic TV ... all the way to the Amsterdam Paradiso, without even having released a record.

In 1987 they signed a record deal with Antler and simultaneously released two 12-inches ("Secret" en "Sacred"), as they said themselves a result of two strictly separated periods. In "Mad In Belgium" n°6 these weren't welcomed very enthusiastically : "Many an outsider - who have yet to discover noise - will label this sound pulp as revolutionary. SIGF however is nothing more than as an exaggerated Throbbing Gristle-cliché on wet Belgian days."

A year later, the full-LP "See Emily Play" - no relation to the Pink Floyd album btw - was announced by Antler as "Blues as it is supposed to be made in this miserable decade : almost unendurable tensions, horrifying emotional eruptions, a palette of mainly strident and sluggish sounds, a intensity that borders on the self-destruction".

Later on there the band produced another album on Antler (Love Lust Leave) and two CD's on the Manifesto-label, on which the band seemed to evolve in the direction of gothic on "Gasp" of 1993. In 1992 they were interviewed by Paul King on MTV's "120 Minutes" in a special about Belgian rock.
The group continued to tour the underground circuit all throughout Europe for many years.

GroepsLeden :
- x1 (guitar, vocals, special effects, electronic rhythms)
- x2 (synthesizers, tapes, trumpet, electronic rhythms)

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Albums :
- Live at the studio (K7, 1985)
- Live-Tracks (K7, 1985)
- Amsterdam 18/4/86 (K7, 1986)
- Secret (12", Antler, 1987)
- Sacred (12", Antler, 1987)
- See Emily Play (LP, Antler, 1988)
- Innate (MLP, 1988)
- Glory To the Newborn King (12" Antler 1989)
- Love Lust Leave (LP, Antler, 1989)
- In Theory & Practice (CD, Manifesto, 1992)
- Gasp (CD, Manifesto, 1993)

Websites :
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