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"...enjoy the ride on the frozen carpet of suicidal needles."
Spheremag The Peoples Republic of Europe is a harsch industrial/powernoise/teknoid industrial outfit from the Netherlands. They blend in elements of funk, disco, hiphop, dancehall, EBM, techno and the likes in harsch powernoise. This explosive cocktail of influences made them into one of the leading powernoise acts in the world, and an act destined to explode every dancefloor. tPROE started out on the 4th of june 2000, when [K] bought a version of Cubase VST 3.5 and started experimenting with it. On this and the following days the first demoalbum "Cumulonimbus" was made and released on CDr. This album contains 6 darkambient noise tracks, and received some good attention. In the following years tPROE released more demoalbums. tPROE never believed in short demo's for promotion and started releasing albums from the start. The second demo album "Thirst" marked the shift to rhytmnic noise. Some tracks were darkambient like on the first album, and others were already hard stompers like the latter work. On the third album "Steel and honour" the shift was complete, and apart from an isolated track here and there tPROE became a powernoise/rhytmnic industrial band. In this time tPROE started playing live as well. XLII joined on steel percussion and some shows were played. Highlight being a bandbattle in Haarlem, where the organisation did forbid the jury to choose tPROE as winner because "The music was to extreme". After this tPROE released the fourth demo album "Among the ruins" and the live album "The siege of Alkmaar". Especially the first one did sell extremely well. The decision was made to release the next album as a real CD. In these days [NOIR] joined the band for live vocals. In 2004 the first album "Juche" was released which was a concept album about North Korea. Critics were favourable, though many thought it odd tPROE didn't critizise the DPKR's regime. The breakthrough came with the second CD "Monopoly of violence". Several songs on this album made it into clubhits, and there were again frowns because of the inclusion of the coversong "Pulling on the boots" from the Romper stomper soundtrack. In these years tPROE also started playing bigger festivals like Summer Darkness, Noise:nation and Noise central fest, and started playing bigger gigs with well known industrial acts like Terrorfakt, Winterkalte, Mono no aware and others. After this tPROE released two more albums. "Under stress" did consolidate the status of tPROE, and "Lubrication" did smash up the clubs once again. In 2008 tPROE was offered a labeldeal with the Denver, USA based label
Vendetta music. On this label the fifth album "Singularity"
was released to much acclaim. In this time [NOIR] left the band to concentrate
on his own Aryan cock-rock band "Jugend"
and Statik and Puck joined the tPROE for live shows. In 2009 tPROE released
the 6th album "babylon" and did tours in Europe and the USA
bringing sonic destruction worldwide. "Babylon" which incorporated
even more influences outside standard industrial became a favourite
of many, and some even claimed it was up there among the classic albums
in industrial music. In 2011 TPROE released their final album for now
for Vendetta Music. The critically acclaimed "Machine District"
did very well, and was so influential in its mixing of industrial, Techno
and modern dance, there is even a danceparty named after the album in
Denver. |
FAQ:
What are your influences?
Our main influences start right at the beginning of industrial music. One would expect us to be influenced by Throbbing Gristle, but that is not really the case. Cabaret Voltaire through its various incarnations is a profound influence on tPROE. After that we picked up influences from EBM acts like Front 242, Nitzer Ebb and Leather Strip. We are also heavily influenced by techno like Underground Resistance, Jeff Mills, Adam Beyer, Richie hawtin and the likes. Funk is also a big influence, and especially the P-funk made by Parliament, Funkadelic and Bootsy Collins. And offcourse the ant-zen/hands production stuff like Asche, Converter, Winterkalte, Mono no aware and suchlike. There is much more. We listen to all kinds of music and really don't care what style it is, as long as it is good music.
Where does your bandname come from?
It's from an episode from mission impossible made in the 70's.
When will you be playing my town/country/state?
We don't know mostly. For us to get to play near you we will have to get booked by promotors in your area who are willing to put a show up for us. Those are the people who are capable getting us out there so if you want to have us play your area, those are the people to bother.
Can we book you for shows/DJ sets?
Sure! Drop us a line at newdarknessrec (a) lycos (dot) com and we can talk about conditions and the likes.
Are you a communist band?
No we aren't. The original image and name were just there to play around with certain ideas and images and to have a dark and desolate image. In reality we can be described as a libertarian and nihilistic. We do not care (much) about what people think and we are not inclined to take sides.
Do you do remixes for other bands?
Yes we do. Contact us at newdarknessrec (@) lycos (dot) com and we can talk about conditions. I am usually quite busy, but if you're project is relatively "known" we can do a remix trade, otherwise we will be asking a moderate fee. But be advised that we like to take things out of context, and if we feel your song deserved for instance an old skool disco sound, we will get out the linndrum pluginn and the conga's.
Do you also make other music besides TPROE?
Yes we do. Statik also has his own band "Statik sky" which is electro industrial somewhere near Soman and SAM. I also play bassguitar in the new wave band "Fertile reality" and also used to make idm under the "Kratarknathrak" name, and am currently doing that under the "Higgs Foton" name where i also mix in influences from easy listening and bossanova.
Where do you come from?
We come from the Netherlands. We all reside in the circle of cities known as the "Randstad". In general we are tied to the Leiden/The Hague area.
Is industrial dead?
No, it just smells funny.
What's the story behind "gothic ass"?
I hate bad music which drives on image to sell, like visual kei and several other things, among which Ext!ze. I was aware of them because people were already joking about them. When they released the "Gothic pussy" single i joked about making a "Gothic ass" version. When i saw them "live" at the WGT we were laughing our asses off together with a lot of other people, and i decided when i got home to actually make and release "gothic ass". After 4 hours in the studio it was finished, and the rest is history. It has become a big clubhit, bigger than "gothic pussy" and Ext!ze now even doesn't dare to play that song live because of "gothic ass".
We were however introduced to them by Thomas Rainer and they seemed like nice guys, so we hope they will one day amaze us with good music and a more funky image.
Why are not all your albums harsh industrial?
Because we also like to make other stuff. But if you see an album which has a mention of "Cumulonimbus" in the title, that particular one is a darkambient album and not an harsch industrial one. So if darkambient is not your thang, avoid those and you will be fine.