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New Beat

Belgium, Marc Ickx, 1985

A Split Second

A Split Second began in Belgium in 1985 as the solo project of Marc Heyndrickx, known as Marc Ickx, with Peter Bonne, or Chrismar Chayell, helping produce the early demo. They are often credited with sparking new beat, the slow, heavy sound that came from Antwerp DJs, Marc Grouls among them, playing records at the wrong speed. They released on Antler in Europe and on Wax Trax! and Caroline in America, and reached the Billboard dance chart. A self-titled mini-album came out in 1986, followed by more albums into the mid-1990s. They returned to the stage in 2009, headlined Belgium's Bodybeats festival in 2012 and reissued their first demo on vinyl.

Patrick De Meyer, Who's That Beat?

Tragic Error

Tragic Error was a Belgian new beat project led by producer Patrick De Meyer, who also worked as Fatal Error. Discogs also lists Wim Perdaen as a member. Their records came out on the Belgian label Who's That Beat? from 1988, recorded at Turbo Studios, and were licensed to labels in Germany, Spain and Mexico, with Phil Wilde mixing some of the early material. Later records came out in the Netherlands into the early 1990s. Like much new beat, the music was built on slow, pounding drum machines and heavy synthesizers. De Meyer moved on to T99 with Olivier Abbeloos, which had chart success around Europe in the early 1990s and released one album. A remix pack of Tragic Error material came out on Body Music Records in 2017.

Menen, Disco Smash, 1988

Amnesia

Amnesia came out of Menen, a Belgian town near the French border, at the height of new beat. Their music was written at home by Novak and produced through Disco Smash, a local record shop that also ran a production company. Their first album came out on Indisc in 1988 in a black sleeve with the band's name punched out of it, and singles from the album were licensed to Germany, Britain and Spain. Two people credited on the records, Nachtergaele and Vangarsse, never actually played on them, according to Discogs, and Novak himself was dropped after the first album. Discogs files the records under new beat, acid and hard beat. More singles followed until about 1990, when the scene that made them gave way to techno.

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