The VSS - Nervous Circuits

 Label: Honey Bear

Year: 1997

For my money (currently under $70 at press time), The VSS were the only band to really pull off this particular strain of sub-sub-genre music. Or, at least the only one to do it and manage to create memorable songs, that is. 

They managed to take the spastic punk skitter of a band like Antioch Arrow (who had taken it from Circus Lupus), and marry it up with the icey industrial synth-damage of a band like Front 242 (or maybe it's more like the pre-punk dystopian synth-damage of Throbbing Gristle....or possibly it's more like the "Electronic Body Music" synth-damage of Kraftwerk...or maybe music is just a linear continuum of...synth-damage?), and come out the other end with an other-worldly mix that could agitate as easily as it could hypnotize.

This is their first full length, and a more grating record than their second album, but a good place to start in case you're looking to reacquaint yourself.

DL