Schicksal

Schicksal is the alias of Rudi Huybrechts, born in Hoboken, a small town near Antwerp (Belgium). As a teenager he spent some time studying music and piano, but got quickly tired of the rigid way of teaching. With the money earned from his first student job Rudi bought a Roland SH-101 synthesizer. The year is 1982 and he is just 15 years old.

Rudi decided to name his project Schicksal (best translated as “Fate”) which was the word Jews used in WW2 when they were deported by German soldiers. Heavily inspired and impressed by Front 242 first album “Geography”, DAF’s elektronische körpermusik “Alles Ist Gut” and of course Kraftwerk’s “Man Machine” and “Computer World”, Schicksal started experimenting with synths and drum computers. All this in a tiny 3x3m bedroom.

The tracks included on “Perpetuum Cycle” are from these years. Everything home produced with only a tape recorder and some gear. You can definitely feel the vibe of this period and the place where the songs were created: the old industrial town of Hoboken, the culmination of the cold war and the aim of a young musician to combine melody and harmony into minimal electronic music.

In 1988 the hype of New Beat started in Belgium. Rudi persuaded Marc Grouls, the resident DJ of discotheque Prestige in Antwerp, to play the track “24 hours” that he just composed. What happened? All the people on the dancefloor just got wild and the next day Schicksal signed a contract with Maurice Engelen for the release of a maxi-single on Subway Records (SUBWAY 48).

The day of the production for “24 hours” started a little bit chaotic. Rudi forgot at home his floppy disks with all samples so he had to drive back and forth losing some hours of expensive studio. In the evening, Jos Borremans, aka producer Chris Inger, left Rudi alone in the studio and he secretly recorded some synth tracks on the mixing desk with a Roland D-50. Chris thought these sounds came from Rudi’s Akai sampler and so were used to create the B-side “Manipulation$”.

Schicksal is still active and keep looking for that perfect bodybeat!