Various ‎– Aktion Mekanik

I personally view this as an MCD by Crash Course in Science as I already have almost every single other track on other albums or compilations. Consequently my rating is 5 stars. Cardboard Lamb alone would justify paying the price for an album.

My initial review (see above) was probably not very helpful for the target group of a compilation like this (at least three people disagreed with my view). Here is an amendment:

Newbies to minimal electro and early EBM will find lots of classics and several must have tracks on this compilation. Overall an excellent introduction to the genre. If you want to dig a little deeper, my first recommendations would be the legendary Various - This Is Electronic Body Music for EBM and Various - Call Of The Banshee for minimal electro. Should you then develop a serious interest in minimal electro I suggest that you check out these labels: Genetic Music, Wierd Records, Minimal Wave.

You will probably recognise that the minimal electro scene is still very much alive and has profited a lot from the huge success of electroclash.

If you develop a liking for EBM, I have to say that the EBM scene has more or less vanished during the 1990s. New genres have emerged (for instance electro-industrial, later replaced by "hellectro" and future pop, techno-industrial, and blends with other styles), but have failed to impress anyone outside a very restrictive and largely secluded scene. EBM is basically dead. The dilemma is that many of the remaining fans of the genre are bored with constant repetition but are also afraid of any progress, because they think that every new development of the past has just watered down what had originally been exciting about their favourite musical style. It's also fair to say that blends with other styles failed to inject new blood into the genre, because the so-called new developments came from styles that were already outdated themselves and were incorporated on a sometimes frighteningly low level of technical sophistication.

As their heirs have failed so badly it is no surprise that most of the leading original EBM bands are still active today or have staged comebacks in the last couple of years (for instance DAF from Germany, Front 242, The Klinik, Vomito Negro and Signal Aout 42 from Belgium, Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly from Canada, Nitzer Ebb and Portion Control from the UK).

This compilation is a MUST HAVE for anyone that loves early Industrial/EBM. From start to finish this release is filled with ghost songs from the past. It can really strike a nerve!!! Although they're are some staple songs on here, it is nice to hear a compilation that has some underated artists as well...

When this compilation came out in 2003, I just discovered the EBM and Dark Electro sounds of the 80s, when I wasn't born or respectivly a little child. This release definitly expanded my taste of music to another direction. If you collect such sound already for years, you will hardly find something new on this CD (except the fine audio quality on most tracks). But everybody who likes to be introduced to this music should have a compilation like this. Tracks like No More's "Suicide Commando", The Normal's "Warm Leatherette or DAF's "Verschwende Deine Jugend" are too essential to be ignored and still burner on the dancefloor.

It's great to see a renewed interest in this kind of music, but it would have been even better for the track selection to have focused more on tracks that aren't as well known, or tracks that are harder to come by.

Tracks like "Warm Leatherette", "Assimilate" and "Push!", while historically significant, are already on tons of other compilations.