Electro Falco reviewed by SHH

The Bridgehouse, a club nestled within an industrial estate around the back of Canning Town, is renowned for its hardcore punk gigs. Tonight, a soggy Sunday in February, it got an unexpected dose of electronic Euro-glamour courtesy of Electro Falco.

Electro Falco is Alexys B (the drummer from Inertia and Circus of Horrors) and Reza Udhin (bass player with Killing Joke and Inertia), a musical couple brought together by a passion for Electronic Body Music and a complete conviction of the genius of Falco.

Best known in the UK for his hit “Rock Me Amadeus”, Austria’s Falco in fact racked up 9 studio albums and huge success throughout Europe before his untimely death in 1998. He is still the only artist to have had a German language number one song in the USA. (Beat that Kraftwerk!)

Electro Falco have no trouble demonstrating their hero’s genius. Their style may be somewhat removed from the mid-tempo techno-pop of the original versions, but all the tunes shine through, reinvigorated by their new EBM stylings.

Der Kommissar may have lost its famous choked bassline. Its furious rhythmic replacement, conjured from the full force of Reza’s synths and sequencers replacement, powered perfectly Alexys’s Germanic rap and the monster chorus which, on Alexys’s strict orders, was sung by all present! The song had an energy that would have been impossible in the past.

For us Argentine electronic pop fans, hearing “Der Kommissar” and “Rock Me Amadeus” was a special moment: these songs were the first hits in a language other than English or Spanish which we heard – promising a whole new world of pop music to our (very very very) young selves!

Electro Falco is much more than a tribute band. Alexys and Reza may have a serious Falco fetish but they are not interested in simply recreating the great man’s work. Instead they transform Falco’s biggest moments into something new and exciting. And yet, still unmistakably, fantastically Falco.