The first two Style reports, Spacesynth and Space Disco, were about genres that were new to me. This time I look at the West Coast Sound Of Holland, a genre that has accompanied my life and this radio show for decades. For example, the first blog post on this website in 2011 was a Beverly Hills 808303 track review.

Until recently however, I did not know that the Den Hague scene can be subsumed under the term West Coast Sound Of Holland. XLR8R has a good article on it. It started with the famous Bunker label and “Europe’s answer to Underground Resistance” – the collective Unit Moebius. The first Bunker record came out in 1992, the opener was the 17 minutes techno anthem Panta Rhei. Apparently, the high frequencies were inspired by animal signals that the label owner knew from former biology studies.

Another producer who was around early is Rude 66. Here is Out In Style.

There are two Dutch producers who are known for their zillions of projects: Ferenc van der Sluijs and Danny Wolfers. Sluijs, a former Unit Moebies member, is known under many names, most popular is probably I-F. Here’s the track The Man With The Stick:

With his project Beverly Hills 808303 he set new standards for dirty acid. Here’s A2 of The American Lie:

Together with Intergalactic Gary, he’s part of the brutal italo disco duo The Parallax Corporation. The following track, Anti social tendencies, was released on the famous Disko B label.

Wolfer’s is best known as Legowelt. Here is track from the Klaus Kinski EP, named after Herzog’s great movie Fitzcarraldo:

One of his dozens other monikers is Gladio, here’s Slavemarket:

Because he has so many projects, let’s checkout another. Here’s Polarius with the track Apollo Park.

That’s enough of Wolfers! Just kidding – I’m showing you one more project: Salamandos. Time for Jacking With Jesus:

Another highly influential producer is disco king Alden Tyrell. Here’s the title track from the fantastic Disco Lunar Module EP. It was released in 2004 on clone.

Alden Tyrell is part of the duo The Hasbeens, together with DJ Overdose of Novamen, they delivered this Italian Disco classic:

make the world go away (pleas baby)
and take this weight off my shoulders (i need u 2)
say the things you used to say (cmon baby)
and make the world go away (i need u 2)

DJ Overdose also does solo stuff. Here’s a cool track called Mindstorms:

With DJ Technician he did two split EP’s. The first one from 2016 was aptly called DJ Overdose X DJ Technician, here’s DJ Technician’s track Sync:

As mentioned before, DJ Overdose is also part of the duo Novamen, check out Freak Of The Week:

The other part of Novemen is Mr. Pauli, here’s the great Italo Disco track At Night:

I-F’s labels brought us many more artists, f.e. Electronome who released Bass Commander in 1998 on Viewlexx. That guy started a label himself – Nu-Vorm Records, but it was very short lived, having only two releases. But of those, one was by nobody less than Ultradyne.

Syncom Data began in 1995 with a couple of releases on Bunker. In 2005 they started their own label SD records. Here’s a track that appeared on their own label, Beyond The Stars (SD Mix).

Fastgraph is also around since the 90s. Here’s his tune Attack Vectors.

Ghetto Down is a funky track by Cosmic Force:

The next guy in our report has a very good style, as you can see:

They guy in the picture is Andreas Gehm, also known as Elec Pt. 1. Here’s 3030303, obviously an acid song:

We end this post with the 16 minutes spacey synthesizer song P.H.A.S.E.R. by Freak Electrique.

The West Coast Sound Of Holland has been with me for two decades now. The style was and is highly influential far beyond the west coast itself. Few other genres have so much creative output – and concerning wit, it might even occasionally surpass Detroit Electro, although because of its punk heritage it often doesn’t reach the same production quality. Which is, of course, part of its allure.