Cold wave (music)

The front cover of Sounds with the caption "New musick: The cold wave", issue 26 November 1977: it is a picture of Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk.

The term "cold wave" appeared in the 26 November 1977 issue of UK weekly music paper Sounds.[8] The caption of its cover picture, showing Kraftwerk's Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider was "New musick: The cold wave". That year, Kraftwerk released Trans-Europe Express.[9] The term was repeated the following week in Sounds by journalist Vivien Goldman, in an article about Siouxsie and the Banshees.[10] In 1977, Siouxsie and the Banshees described their music as "cold, machine-like and passionate at the same time", and Sounds magazine prophecised about the band: "[they] sound like a 21st century industrial plant [...] Listen to the cold wave roar from the '70s into the '80s".[10]

A scene of French, Belgian and Polish musicians, dubbed "cold wave", emerged between the late 1970s and early 1980s.[1] The French scene was also known as "la vague froide,"[7] which was a term coined by the French music press to describe the sound of the band Marquis de Sade.[11] According to Vice, the most notable acts were Marquis de Sade, Asylum Party, and Twilight Ritual.[12] Brave Punk World author James Greene cited Marquis de Sade's 1979 album Dantzig Twist as "a classic" of the genre. He also referenced KaS Product as a group that "pushed cold wave to icier places in the early 1980s and ended up one of its preeminent voices."[13] In The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Music and Culture (2019), Eric S. Strother identified Ruth, Charles de Goal, Marquis de Sade, KaS Product, Asylum Party, and Resistance as "significant early cold wave groups".[8]

According to Pieter Schoolwerth, who was involved in the scene during 1980s, coldwave artists and cassette labels communicated through an underground cassette culture; Alain Neffe's Insane Music label in Belgium was heavily active in European cassette culture. Schoolwerth also stated that Al Margolis of New York's Sound of Pig Tapes and Chris Phinney of Tennessee's Harsh Reality Music, who were active in the industrial/experimental music scene, were largely responsible from introducing minimal synth and cold wave artists to the United States.[11]

Wierd Records is credited with establishing interest in the style in the US, while The Liberty Snake Club did much to popularize it within the UK.[7][14] The Tigersushi Records compilation So Young but So Cold, compiled by Ivan Smagghe, is one document of the scene.[15] Crack journalist Tom Watson referenced Angular Recordings' Cold Waves and Minimal Electronics (2010) as a "crucial" compilation.[1]

Wierd Records' weekly Wednesday night party in New York was described by The Guardian journalist Louis Pattinson as the locus of the cold wave and minimal synth revival of the early 2000s.[7] Artists who performed at these parties included Blacklist, Xeno & Oaklander[7] and Led Er Est.[16]

British-German Lebanon Hanover, an influential band in the resurgence, formed in 2010.

In the early 2020s Belarusian band Molchat Doma, have found success[17] through their sound which is deeply rooted in the cold wave sound and aesthetic.[18] A similar group is the Russian group Ploho. The gloomy post-punk style of the post-USSR territories of Belarus and Russia simultaneously became associated with "Russian doomer music" playlists.

The Ukrainian band Sexual Purity creates a purely electronic, EBM-influenced variant of Cold wave, characterised by an emphasis on dark basslines and gloomy, sensual female vocals.