...Of Tanz Victims

…Of Tanz Victims is a Canadian musical group that was formed in 1984 in Montreal, Quebec. Band members include Robert de la Carignan, a.k.a. Robert Mailloux (guitar, bass, vocals), Denis Wooty, a.k.a. Dany Wauthy and Roy Batty (synthesizers, drum machine, vocals) and Sat W. Ford, a.k.a. Stefan Figiel and Stephan Faulkner (sampling, percussion, vocals). OTV’s primary musical style is electronic, and they make extensive use of analog synthesizers, found sounds, field recordings, tape loops, and audio clips from films. When electronic samplers became affordable in the mid-1980s, OTV was one of the first independent bands in the Montreal region to use digital sampling equipment (Ensoniq Mirage, E-Mu, etc.). However, contrary to popular belief, their music is not totally electronically generated using synthesizers and samplers. Guitarist Robert de la Carignan produced many of the sounds using different guitar techniques, including prepared guitar, electro-acoustic and contemporary experimentalism in order to achieve his distinctive style.

Although OTV’s sound has been influenced by British Industrial groups such as Psychic TV, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle and SPK, their music is varied; some of the different genres that they cover include ambient, avant-garde, experimental, hard dance and techno. Non-linear and hard to classify, each new release is an exploration of a different musical genre and each album a foray into a different style.

OTV has not only been influenced by other music, but by artistic and literary movements including Constructivism, Hermeticism, Bauhaus, Surrealism, the Beat generation, Cut-up, Pop Art, as well as the occult and secret societies, reflecting upon the great interest in architecture, painting and literature of band members. Titles for different tracks take their inspiration from works by such people as Aleister Crowley, William S. Burroughs, Andy Warhol, Robert Anton Wilson, H. P. Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick, Albert Speer, Salvador Dalí and André Breton. OTV also recognize the European Nouvelle Vague movement in cinema as an oblique influence on their music. They use film excerpts by directors such as Fellini, Tarkovsky, Herzog, Kubrick, Hitchcock, Antonioni and Godard in their tracks, while also trying to capture the cinematic ambience of their favorite films in their music.

In recent years, OTV’s members have branched out into the musical groups À La Vollgas, E-Bulbe and Half Moon Dragster, and are producing music for short films, documentaries, video games, television, doing re-mixing and mastering and creating personal musical projects. …Of Tanz Victims are still actively recording together and are slated to release an EP sometime in 2008.