Düsseldorf is undoubtedly one of the pioneering projects in EBM stylistics in Poland. Started in 1989 in Katowice by a singer Adam Białoń and a keyboardist Adam Radecki, the group were an expression of their fascination with experiments in style of early Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire and Front 242. Making music was only a departure point. Later emerged ideas for happenings of typically industrial character, taking place in industrial buildings. What dominated there – apart from voice and spoken manifestos – was the music of machines, “played” live and being 100% acoustic (i.e. gears, wheels and other mechanisms that make sound). In addition to performing, the group published leaflets, experimented with photography and recorded a lot of studio music, gradually departing from the initial assumptions of primitive, spontaneous industrial rhythm and sound. In 1993 the band went on hiatus to realize themselves in different projects. After a 20-year break, Düsseldorf have been revived.
Labeling the band as EBM is an oversimplification – in their music one can hear echoes of new wave and early industrial, completed with Suicide's synth-punk rhythm, minimalistic and aggressive beats associated with DAF, march-like energy bringing to mind works by Laibach, poesy of lyrics in the spirit of Soft Cell, and all of that flavoured with very punk motility. Düsseldorf are a synthesis ad quintessence of what was most interesting about postindustrial music of the 1980s.
