à;GRUMH - Another Brick in the Wall [Part ll]

à;GRUMH... "Another Brick In The Wall Part II" can be found on the compilation album: "We Are à;Grumh... And You Are Not!, released 1988
on, Play It Again Sam Records USA... a now defunct American division of Play It Again Sam that was run in partnership with Wax Trax! Records during the late 1980s.
à;GRUMH... (French pronunciation: [aɡʁym]) was a Belgian EBM/industrial band, founded in 1981 by SΔ3 Evets (also known as Steve Natrix, born Phillippe Genion) and JΔ3 Seuqcaj (Jacques Meurrens), both from Charleroi, Belgium. They were mainly active between 1981 and 1991.
According to the band's official website, the somewhat cryptic band name originates from the time when SΔ3 and former member PΔ3 (real first name Pascal) first met in an intercity train in 1981, both of them returning from a rock concert. Just this night, they were about to create their first piece based on vegetables' and fruits' names, calling it Poireau ('leek'). Since the leek is a vegetable, the band was named à;GRUMH..., which is in fact a stylized form of the French word agrume ("citrus fruit"). The English pronunciation, however, is normally "ah-groom", because the French "u" sound in agrume does not exist in English. The band were described by the Washington Post as "a Belgian synth duo with a flair for punctuation and a sense of humor".
The band's first release, "By the Phone", was recorded over the telephone, and early releases were on cassette. They made their vinyl debut in 1985 with the mini-LP Mix Yourself, produced by Daniel B of Front 242, who, along with Throbbing Gristle and SPK, were identified by the band as influences. This was followed in 1986 by two full-length albums, Rebearth and No Way Out.
The band's first few releases alternated between industrial and "rhythmic" EBM styles, and they initially considered themselves to be two different bands using the same name. This differentiation was only indicated on the albums by the font styles used to print the band name on the records - gothic font for the industrial/ambient styled releases, and bold Helvetica to indicate the EBM styled releases. Eventually, their label at the time, Scarface, received complaints from record stores of their see-sawing release styles and urged them to be more consistent in their approach.
In 1986 at the end of their first large European Tour, they teamed up with Skinny Puppy's Kevin Crompton and Nivek Ogre for the side project A Chud Convention and produced the ambient/noise mini-LP Sorrow. on their own label Circle Records (distributed by Play it Again Sam).
In 1987, they released another full album Black Vinyl Under Cover (differently titled in its CD version Silver Circle Under Plàstic), and several 12" and mini LP's : Underground, Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth (alternatively titled Too Many Cocks Spoil the Breath on 33% of the releases), and in 1988 Bloody Side. à;GRUMH... went on a second large European tour in 1987 with support acts such as Click Click and Severed Heads, and in 1988 in Europe and Canada. The records were then distributed worldwide (Wax Trax in the US, SPV, New Rose, etc.) and world press coverage followed (two pages in the Melody Maker including the sentence "possibly the band of the decade" and several one-full-page articles in the New Musical Express (plus single of the week for "Bloody Side"). In 1989 they released The Price is Right featuring the song "Ayatollah Jackson" that became a big alternative dance hit in Canada, plus Germanic and Scandinavian countries.
In 1989 they released what many consider as their most accomplished album A Hard Day's Knight (CD version titled "A Hard Knight's Day) including best-known songs "C.B.B." and "Danger Zone" that later were remixed and issued as And Now for Something Completely Different But Not Too Much...