Nitzer Ebb - Influences and Legacy

Influences and Legacy

Sonically, Nitzer Ebb evoked the sequenced teutonic basslines and barked commands of Virgin-era DAF in its early days, and took the energy of post-punk bands like Killing Joke and Bauhaus to create a new aesthetic. As the group grew in confidence and ability, it began to develop the Nitzer Ebb sound—a blend of unusual analogue trickery, minimal song structure, heavy drum beats and percussion, and Douglas McCarthy's soulful vocals—either shouted, sung, or spoken. Its sound was captured perfectly in one of the band’s publicity slogans from 1987—"International Funk Aggression"—despite being hard and heavy, its tracks were always very danceable.

Nitzer Ebb's musical weapons of choice included the Roland SH-101, a WASP synth, the Roland System 100, the Sequential Pro-One, the classic Oberheim Xpander, and the Yamaha TX81Z, and with this arsenal of analogue, digital FM, and extremely large modular synthesizers, created a sound that still stands up today. Along with a phalanx of Akai samplers, Nitzer Ebb was able to create a minimal yet expansive and accessible electronic sound, that saw it develop from the sparse electronic basslines and beats of That Total Age to the widescreen technicolor funk of Showtime and Ebbhead.

Nitzer Ebb was seen as a totality, comprising music, art and culture, manifesting itself as a Nitzer Ebb Produkt (an homage to the band Kraftwerk), which saw all advertisements, fliers, record sleeves, letterheads, T-shirts, and other objects all sharing a collective identity that was heavily influenced by Russian Constructivist art, Italian Futurism, totalitarian imagery, and Expressionism. Long-time collaborator Simon Grainger was an unofficial member of Nitzer Ebb and responsible for the austere look and feel of this visual aspect of the band, which aimed to provoke reaction, to critique, and even to poke fun at such stern stark powerful imagery. It also perfectly reflected the uncompromising style of the group's music.

Nitzer Ebb was a large influence on Detroit Techno: Derrick May publicly acknowledged this fact before the group opened 2007’s Detroit annual electronic music festival. A diverse range of DJs and producers, from Richie Hawtin (featured on Richie Hawtin’s Decks FX & 909 mix CD, on which “Let Your Body Learn” was mixed with Hawtin’s own hit “Minus Orange”) to Tiga, have also acknowledged the influence that Nitzer Ebb has had on their careers. Indeed, the group’s tracks (usually in their original form) are still heard across the world's more discerning dance floors, and have been consistently listed in a wide range of DJs’ Top-10s in the dance-music magazine Mixmag. Another influence can be heard in the first self-titled album of a German band Oomph!, who are considered to be one of the founders of the music style Neue Deutsche Härte represented most famously by another German band Rammstein.

The single "Murderous" has been sampled by other electronic music acts, such as Information Society (on "Now That I Have You") and Kode IV (on "Success").