The Sound of Belgium

In the late 1980s, the Belgian electronic New Beat music movement conquered dance floors worldwide, and all of a sudden Belgium was on the map. This eclectic predecessor of house music appeared to materialize out of nothing, but according to the makers of The Sound of Belgium, it was the product of a historical search for identity that apparently went back to the Battle of Waterloo and the aftermath of the First World War. At the beginning of the 20th century, the tiny nation was known for its jolly dance evenings with the electric organ, no street without a café, and libertine fairs. The introduction of the long-play album led to a plethora of discos and record stores that the avant-garde was more than happy to bask in. When the computer came along in the 1980s, music labs popped up all over the place, producing more records than ever before. The infectious, stomping electro-funk made its way around the globe and influenced fashion and youth culture. Young people from all over Western Europe spent days on end skimming the fat from the eternally open Belgian discos - until the arrival of drugs like ecstasy, after which dozens of clubs were closed down for good. In this lively music biography, eyewitnesses from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s reminisce amidst an abundance of pleasantly nostalgic archive footage and of course a soundtrack packed with beats. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)