New Zone

y-1, May 17, 2005

Up until techno became a global scene (what happened between 1992 and 1994 according to my calendar), there have been many regional scenes with their own codes, pushing their own styles forward. Some scenes grew large and influenced and gradually assimilated smaller scenes. The regional scenes were followed by stylistically different, but globally similar scenes.
A small scene which maintained their style for quite a long time was the Frankfurt Technoclub. Its tricky to argue what made their style unique; Id put it like this: The Technoclub people had their very specific idea of what is fine electronic music to dance to and perfected that idea in their productions. In the Frankfurt case it was a clash of British synth-pop and Italo-disco that brought the first spark, soon aroused by the arrival of EBM. In the late eighties, under the influence of Belgian New Beat, the Frankfurt scene finally took off.
Judged by its output on records, 1989 to 1991 were the Frankfurt Technoclubs heyday. Considering that during that time conventional hardcore and techno were growing inside Germany as well, the Frankfurt scene had quite a strong standing.
New Zone releases are excellent examples of the sound of Frankfurt. The labels standard was high, and the tunes were generally hard for the time. The EBM connection shines through on most of their records, while the tunes are mainly instrumental and sample-spiced and have a trancey quality. All New Zone records aimed at the dancefloor, yet not without being experimental at times.
I personally havent heard a record from another label that can give me the same kind of kick as when for example listening to Blind Vision - Dont Look At Me.

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