Vo Ese

Vo Ese started in 1979 with tape loops, an old plastic keyboard (orange and from the 70ies) and an abused acoustic guitar (mainly played with chop sticks, with marbles floating around on the strings :-) In Fall 1980 a Korg MS-20 was added to the collection of instruments, then a Boss DR-55 drum machine and an Electro Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man Echo... a real drum kit was borrowed (and kept for a long time), too. Tracks were recorded Sound-on-Sound style with two tape decks, no mixing board (using the tape decks Mic In for the instruments and the Line In for the other tape deck). Tobias and Lars were mainly influenced by Punk/Electropunk/New Wave/Industrial (as in TG/Cabaret Voltaire) and Bowie/Eno/Cluster/Kraftwerk/Wolfgang Riechmann... Other favourite bands were Flying Lizards, Swell Maps, Vibrators, Magazine, Wire, S.Y.P.H., early Human League, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, The Residents (!), Chrome, Tuxedomoon and many more. Slowly their working methods got a bit more intricate, an Ibanez RM-60 mixing board was acquired and occasionally a Teac 3440 4 track Reel-to-Reel was used as well. The recorded results were played to friends and school mates, with mixed responses - the music was just a bit too odd. From 1979 to 1983, Vo Ese played each year at their School's annual party - leaving audiences stunned and sometimes beguiled (at the 1980 event, one of the few remaining audience members said he had never heard music like that before - and was positively shaken up by it). Finally a Roland TR-808 provided more sophisticated rhythm tracks and was quickly becoming a favourite instrument for the two, who adopted new technology whenever there was a chance to acquire some new instruments on their shoe string budget. ...more soon...