I was an exchange student in Belgium back in 1988-89, and I came home from Belgium with two records (and lots of stories!): New Beat Take 2 and New Beat Take 4.
I still have Take 4 on vinyl. If you look really hard at the top right corner, you can see that I bought that gem of a record for 379 Belgian Francs! Oh yeah. That’s an OG New Beat record! Bought with a currency that no longer exists! By a teenager! In 1989!
This is all Charlotte de Witte‘s fault. She is a rising (if not completely risen) superstar in today’s techno world, and I decided to take a listen. Her driving tempos and thumping beats were initially a little too much for me, but then I settled in, and what initially felt like a headache became an obsessive trance-like state. I couldn’t stop listening. And then, I started reading more about her. What stood out is that she’s Belgian. Also, she made my ears bleed.
So, here I am, diving into the Belgian rave world: New Beat, Electronic Body Music, Techno, and, go figure: Trip Hop. Probably the only person I know who will dig this list is my good friend Dan Wade. I wanted SO bad to put Skinny Puppy and Nitzer Ebb on this list, Dan, but, alas, they aren’t Belgian.
Part of the fun putting this list together wasn’t the streamable music I found, but the amount of stuff that isn’t available to stream.
For example… I have a 1993 Front 242 album called Evil Off, but because they’re so unbelievably cool, the album is actually called 05:22:09:12 Off. I was a frickin’ Computer Science major in 1993, and it didn’t dawn on me until 2026 that the numbers 5, 22, 9, and 12 are the ordinals for EVIL. I’m just not cool enough, I guess.
And the New Beat compilations are awesome, too. They seem to be available only on CD or vinyl. Check out their stuff on Discogs. Dan, You won’t be disappointed.
Hooverphonic deserves some special mention because they don’t exactly fit on this list, except that they DO. I mean, they’re Belgian. And, they are awesome. A New Stereophonic Spectacular from 1996 is a masterpiece. And, here’s a little piece of trivia: The drum beat in Sarangi sure sounds like a tricked out sample of the beat from Funkadelic’s Good Old Music on their 1970 self-titled album. I mean, WhoSampled says it’s so, so it must be, right?
So, there you have it. The Belgians win! And just in time for the World Cup!
Track List
Confetti’s – The Sound Of C
A Split Second – Flesh
The Klinik – Memories
Rhythm Device – Acid Rock
Front 242 – Welcome to Paradise (V1.0)
Front 242 – Serial Killers Don’t Kill Their Girlfriends (not available to stream)
Yves Deruyter – Outsiders
Push – Universal Nation
Charlotte De Witte – Satori
Hooverphonic – Sarangi
> DEATZ BEATS 
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