Stuff You Gotta Watch: The Sound of Belgium
Hands-down one of the best electronic music documentaries ever made, The Sound of Belgium takes the long view on a tiny European country with an outsized influence on electronic music. With all the momentum of a tightly curated DJ set, the doc takes us from the pipe organs and beer kegs of Belgium’s bucolic past right up to the ‘90s police raids that brought the hardcore rave scene crashing down.
With an unbeatable soundtrack (and dead-clever editing), director Jozef Devillé shows how a dedicated clique of ‘70s diggers laid the groundwork for New Beat, a scene whose fans demanded the hardest, darkest, and most avant-garde electronic material available.
When that sound imploded, it made way for the mentasmic abandon of Belgian techno and records like T99’s ‘Anasthasia’—and the effect on nightclubs is massive, as seen in spectacular archive footage from legendary spots like Bocaccio. At this point in lockdown, it’s almost hard to watch.
Review by Chal Ravens. Check out the full archive of the Stuff You Gotta Watch column.