Bizarre Inc.

America is currently in the midst of what is every raver's worst nightmare - the blatant commercialization of techno. The major labels are picking up all the underground acts, dozens of new compilations are hitting the shelves in mall record stores, and a rave movie is in the works. But thankfully there are bands like Bizarre Inc who are looking towards the future rather than cashing in on the trend. While much of the current crop of rave bands are doing insanely fast hardcore dance music, Britain's Bizarre Inc are slowing things down a bit, bringing more house and disco influences into the sound. The group's debut album, Energique recently got stateside release on Vinyl Solution/Coulmbia.

The original incarnation of Bizarre Inc was comprised Dean Meredith, Mark Archer, and Gareth Hunting. Personality conflicts between Meredith and Archer led to that group fizzling out, with Archer going on to form the successful Altern 8. Meredith then teamed up with Andrew Meecham, who had been a rival DJ at school and did some engineering for Bizarre Inc in the past. Club DJ Carl Turner was then enlisted to round out the reformed group.

Within two months of sending off demos, Bizarre Inc landed a deal with Vinyl Solutions. Their first single, "X-Static" was released in late 1990, and the group had their big breakthrough the following March with "Playing With Knives." With its fusion of techno noise and piano breaks, the track introduced a formula that was repeated in countless other dance tracks. But imitations do not bother the group.

"If they sampled our record, then it's a bit naughty, but if they're just copying the formula, then I supposed that what dance music's all about," says Meechan. "We didn't pay much attention to it."

Rather than continuing on in the same vein, the group took some time out to think about where they were heading. "We got bored with what we were doing so we decided to not do anything for a while and then sort of rethink our strategy," explains Meechan. "Then we came up with "I'm Going to Get You" which is sort of more mellower Bizarre Inc, which is something we're into more now."

The time away from the spotlight resulted in Bizarre Inc's first full length album, Energique. The lp combines the singles with new material. The format may be different, as an album is designed to be listened to at home as opposed to danced to at a club, but Meechan says that didn't have any impact in its' creation. "We just did what we wanted to do," says Meechan. "Several new tracks on the album we just did because we like them. We don't want to be pigeonholed into a style of music because there's different sort of styles on the album."

Much of the material on Energique is instrumental, but when there are vocals, they are real, not sampled. The group has gotten away from lifting vocal lines from records, as they find working with vocalists just as easy. Session singers Angie Brown and Yvonne Yanni appear on the album. According to Meechan, the group has no plans to add a full time vocalist because they prefer the freedom to use different voices on different songs, depending on what type of sound is needed.

Meechan says that the DJing the band members do is a big help when it comes to keeping the sound fresh and avoiding repetition. "You can see what's happening, you can see what the people are into, so it helps a lot with the style of music, it's all to do with night clubs and dance music, so I think you need to have a big record collection and know what the score is."

Bizarre Inc has yet to play a proper live show in its' current incarnation, opting instead to do short personal appearances that are little more than the vocalist singing along to a tape. The early attempts resulted too many technical problems to make short performances worthwhile. But the group is looking forward to going on the road sometime in the future.

"It's just odd really when you go on stage and you're not playing live, you thing 'oh, I wish the keyboard was plugged in'," says Meechan, who comes from a back ground of playing in rock bands. "I do miss playing completely live, but hopefully in the near future that will all change and we'll get proper gigs"