Ich Bin

The brand new parisian label Poutre Apparente is proud to announce the reissue of 90’s superb cybernetic electro renewal classic tape from South Corsica band, ICH BIN: Minimal wave beats, broken electronics, radical synthetizer and possessed vocals finely inspired by great philosophical ideas appeared in Europe since the industrial revolution. Colder than the coldest corsican winter, like Kraftwerk meeting Suicide in North Poland.

Warehousemen in a secret petrochemical factory in the north of Corsica, the four members of ICH BIN began to play together in 1988 with materials recovered on a failed boat transporting electronic instruments manufactured in Korea. They developed year after year this so particular manner to play and sing probably coming from the physical and mental state of the musicians regularly exposed to a great dose of chemical emanations during their work in factory.

“Actually, we almost never played in Corsica », remember the members of the band, « apart from our very first concert for this festival in 1988 called Calvi, c’est fini where we opened for La Ricotta, a polyphonic fusion band from Corte. The only response we had to our music was a dozen of Pietra (Corsica number one beer) bottles thrown at us in the first minutes of Danger”… “We recorded a tape at studio Leoneti shortly after this disastrous experience. It was basically a four-track session, with raw versions of Industrie Lourde and Body Building. We sent one copy to Radio Pays who returned it back to us saying things like « Sorry, but we don’t understand, it doesn’t sound very corsican »”. Some tapes were also discreetly sent to a small network of K7/fanzines in France, but most of them were shocked or didn’t even reply, at the exception of belgian label Pneu who released a brilliant cd-r in 2002.

End of 80’s, beginning of 90’s were the apogee of Grunge music and Noise rock from the US à la Jesus Lizard, Unsane … etc. and the electronic sound of ICH BIN was totally deviant. They were far ahead from 10 years of the electro-punk/electro-clash revival of the beginning of the 21st century. Considering Corsica like the last french industrial post-nuclear area wasn’t hype at all at that time. And still really isn’t. This can partly explain the perpetual misunderstanding about the band. Unfortunately, they splitted in 2003 after a last concert at a Christmas party, mainly for political reasons. They definitively stopped playing music after this gig. All of the members still live in south of Corsica nowadays and work in different restaurant-hotel-swimming pool complexes.