on
Before the Russian/Ukrainian crisis we are facing today, the most prominent European conflict happened in the territories of ex-Yugoslavia in the 1990s. As we all know, the Yugoslav Wars were one of the biggest tragedies of modern times, bringing the war to Europe for the first time after World War II.
A unified Yugoslavia showed, for a brief period, in the 1970s, a relatively prosperous economy that rapidly collapsed because of a vast multitude of factors, including unemployment in the country and a constant high level of emigration to find work and economic stability abroad. With the end of Yugoslavia's Federal Republic, the area returned to its original fragmented composition.
Slovenia is the western part of the area. Because of its position at the borders with Italy and Austria, it's always been a place of mixing cultures and is more connected to the rest of the continent. In the pre-computer era and the analog world of the 1980s, this was probably one of the reasons why the influence of European music arrived more quickly in this part of the country. One of the most important bands of ex-Yugoslavia, Borghesia, formed in the Slovenian city of Ljubljana. The band survived the EBM boom, Tito's regime, and the Yugoslav Wars and is still active today.
The founders of the band, Dario Seraval and Aldo Ivančič, two philosophy and sociology students, were originally members of a theatre group called Theatre FV-112/15. They started producing beats probably inspired by the EBM music scene growing in Europe at the beginning of the 1980s.
Their music was highly influenced by the sound of bands like Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft (D.A.F.), Manufacture, and Front 242, but Borghesia added to the typical elements of EBM like Korg MS-20, Roland SH-101, ARP Odyssey, Emulator II, an aesthetic inspired by what was prohibited, tabooed, and repressed in their country.
Borghesia released their first album Ljubav Je Hladnija Od Smrti (in English, Love Is Colder Than Death), with the Italian label Materiali Sonori in 1985. The album followed the release of two cassettes, Borghesia in 1983 and Clones in 1984.
Ljubav Je Hladnija Od Smrti is an extremely dark album, perhaps composed having a premonition of what would have happened shortly to their country. It begins with a sample, probably taken from a porn movie, another of their characteristic sound elements. The band was eager to use early sampling techniques to construct tracks from cut-up radio noises and movie dialogues.
Track number 6 of the album, On, is the song we will focus on in our review. Its combined Korg PolySix melodies, funky bass lines, and a military-inspired drum beat made with the iconic Roland TR-808. And harsh, crisp sequenced rhythms that repeat in trance-like loops composed using a Roland TB-303 made them become, alongside D.A.F., Front 242, Pankow, Vomito Negro, The Neon Judgement, A Split-Second, The Klinik, and Signal Aout 42, one of the most influential bands of the genre.
