Laserdance is a Dutch
italo disco
Italo disco (variously capitalized, and sometimes hyphenated as Italo-disco) is a music genre which originated in Italy in the late 1970s and was mainly produced in the early 1980s. Italo disco evolved from the then-current underground dance, p ...
studio project that had consisting of musicians Erik van Vliet and Michiel van der Kuy.
The studio project has been categorized as part of subgenre known as
spacesynth and has been generally considered as a major influence for the subgenre and has remained popular around
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
in the mid-1980s.
All of Laserdance's tracks are known to feature basic
analog synthesizer
An analog (or analogue) synthesizer is a synthesizer that uses analog circuits and analog signals to generate sound electronically.
The earliest analog synthesizers in the 1920s and 1930s, such as the Trautonium, were built with a variety of ...
s,
drum machines and
vocoder
A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation.
The vocoder was ...
s.
The name of the studio project comes from the first single with the same name published in 1984.
Numerous hit singles from Laserdance include ''Goody's Return'', ''Humanoid Invasion'', ''Power Run'', ''Fear'' and ''Shotgun (Into The Night)''.
Composer Michiel van der Kuy and producer Erik van Vliet are known to be key members of the studio project, while other members such as Ruud van Es, Rob van Eijk and Julius Wijnmalen, the composer of the recent studio album ''Strikes Back'' from 2000, have been involved as well. The very first single of Laserdance has been published in 1984 and the first album ''
Future Generation
Future generations are cohorts of hypothetical people not yet born. Future generations are contrasted with current and past generations, and evoked in order to encourage thinking about intergenerational equity. The moral patienthood of future ge ...
'' was released in 1987 with successful sales for the studio project and generated a lot of interest towards the spacesynth genre.
[
]
History
Producer Erik van Vliet started studio project under the title "Laser Dance" in 1984 by releasing the first single with the same name on Break Records label and later on Hotsound Productions. Erik van Vliet and Fonny de Wulf (the producer of Rofo) produced the single,[ that is based upon the song with the same name by Sponooch from 1979. Michiel van der Kuy himself joined the studio project and became the composer of the project by composing the second single ''Goody's Return'' in 1984.][
The first Laserdance album titled '']Future Generation
Future generations are cohorts of hypothetical people not yet born. Future generations are contrasted with current and past generations, and evoked in order to encourage thinking about intergenerational equity. The moral patienthood of future ge ...
'' was released by Hotsound Records in 1987 and was considered big success with approximately 150 000 copies being sold.[ Between 1987 and 1995, Laserdance was producing new studio album every year with numerous singles and few compilation albums being released in-between. Notably, the fifth studio album ''Ambiente'' from 1991 contains only an ambient tracks, while the seventh album ''Hypermagic'' from 1993 is the only Laserdance album to being released separately on ]Dolby Surround
Dolby Pro Logic is a surround sound processing technology developed by Dolby Laboratories, designed to decode soundtracks encoded with Dolby Surround.
Dolby Stereo (also known as ''Dolby MP'' or ''Dolby SVA'') was developed by Dolby in 1976 f ...
.
The declining era of italo disco in early 1990s was affecting on Laserdance in terms of sales as the ninth studio album ''The Guardian of Forever'' in 1996 mixes the spacesynth with more house
A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...
and trance
Trance is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli (but nevertheless capable of pursuing and realizing an aim) or is selectively responsive in following the dir ...
tracks, one of the latter ones being a cover of Humate
Humate was until 1996 a German trance group, then just the German record producer Gerret Frerichs, who has released singles with record labels such as MFS and Superstition. His work has been featured on many compilation albums including the ''Glo ...
's ''Love Stimulation'', accompanied by a clarifying statement that it was not composed by van der Kuy on the CD casing.[ This tonal shift received cold feedback from fans and the studio project was stopped for few years.][ However, Erik van Vliet was planning to bring Laserdance back, while Michiel van der Kuy was working as producer of Alice Deejay and his own music project Rygar. Erik hired Julius Wijnmalen to be composer of the recent studio album called ''Strikes Back'' that was released on ]ZYX Music
ZYX Music GmbH & Co. KG is a German record label that was founded in 1971 by Bernhard Mikulski. It is one of the most successful German record labels of the 1980s and 1990s. Until 1992, the label's name was Pop-Import Bernhard Mikulski. The labe ...
label in 2000.
After the release of ''Strikes Back'', anything about Laserdance's state hadn't been known or confirmed, although Michiel van der Kuy stated in December 2010 interview to have no plans for continuing on Laserdance[ while working with his new music project called Rygar.][ At the same time, Erik van Vliet mentioned on ]Discogs
Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the la ...
that he was still looking for a "new Michiel van der Kuy" to continue Laserdance with after Wijnmalen had demanded too much money from him for another album. Eventually in April 2016, Erik van Vliet and Michiel van der Kuy confirmed in social media that a new record is soon to be released. The first track from the album was premiered on Radio Stad den Haag in Netherlands on April 17, 2016. The recent album titled ''Force of Order'' has been released on September 30, 2016. In October 2017, Erik van Vliet posted an image to his Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
account, on which he proclaimed a ''new'' Laserdance album was being worked on, with the preliminary release date being given as April 2018.
Discography
Studio albums
* ''Future Generation
Future generations are cohorts of hypothetical people not yet born. Future generations are contrasted with current and past generations, and evoked in order to encourage thinking about intergenerational equity. The moral patienthood of future ge ...
'' ()
* ''Around the Planet'' ()
* ''Discovery Trip'' ()
* ''Changing Times'' ()
* ''Ambiente'' ()
* ''Technological Mind'' ()
* ''Hypermagic'' ()
* ''Fire on Earth'' ()
* ''The Guardian of Forever'' ()
* ''Strikes Back'' ()
* ''Force of Order'' ()
* ''Trans Space Express'' ()
Compilation albums
* ''The Maxi-CD Collection Of Laserdance'' ()
* ''The Best Of Laserdance'' ()
* ''Laserdance Orchestra vol. 1'' ()
* ''Laserdance Orchestra vol. 2'' ()
* ''The 12" Mixes'' ()
* ''Greatest Hits & Remixes'' ()
Singles
*"Laser Dance" (1984)
*"Goody's Return" (12") (1984)
*"Humanoid Invasion" (1986)
*"Power Run" (1987)
*"Fear (Remix) / Battle Cry (Remix)" (1987)
*"You & Me" (1988)
*"Shotgun (Into The Night)" (1988)
*"Laserdance ('88 Remix)" (1988)
*"Cosmo Tron" (1989)
*"The Challenge" (1990)
*"Technoid" (1992)
Megamixes
*"Megamix Vol. 1" (1988)
*"Megamix Vol. 2" (1989)
*"Megamix Vol. 3" (1990)
*"Megamix Vol. 4" (1991)
See also
*Koto
Koto may refer to:
* Koto (band), an Italian synth pop group
* Koto (instrument), a Japanese musical instrument
* Koto (kana), a ligature of two Japanese katakana
* Koto (traditional clothing), a traditional dress made by Afro-Surinamese women
* K ...
References
External links
*
*
*
{{Authority control
Dutch disco groups
Dutch dance music groups
Dutch electronic music groups
Electronic music duos
Italo disco groups
Musical groups established in 1984
Science fiction music
Techno music groups