Digital Album via Earlick, 2017
Available as download on Bandcamp and iTunes
Available to stream on Spotify
EAN 191924226376

Oh my. It took some time. More or less a full decade. Originally released on MySpace, the songs with which Ravage! Ravage! debuted were long unavailable. Until now. Way back when, the post-electroclash — the media coined 'em 'new rave' — tracks like Oh My Beau Gigolo, Join Up for the New Young Pony Club and BMBRJXXX roamed the blogosphere, and soundtracked London Fashion Week shows. Now they may even already evoke nostalgia.

Ravage! Ravage! — 'grandson of Marc Almond', according to Dutch music media platform 3voor12 — grew up in small-town Holland, on a diet of 80s synthpop (Pet Shop Boys, Talk Talk), 90s eurodance (2 Unlimited, Snap!) and started writing songs in his bedsit in Suburbia when electroclash (Miss Kittin & The Hacker et al. <3) made a short-lived but exciting splash. Only a month or so after putting some of these songs on MySpace, he got invited to perform at a new rave party in Shoreditch, London, and duly turned into something of an underground cult figure.

Not content with doing solo shows, Ravage! Ravage! became a full-blown band in the years that followed. As a band, Ravage! Ravage! released three EPs, supported by two MTV playlisted music videos, for the same two songs that went to number one on the Dutch indie charts, and performed all over the Netherlands and in cities like Milan, Brussels and Berlin.

Since the death of MySpace, the early solo songs more or less disappeared, hence Out Of Fashion, a compilation that collects the most popular — Oh My Beau Gigolo, Join Up For The New Young Pony Club; the most obscure — Velvet Grrl, Stay a Little Longer; previously unreleased demos — Up the Ante, It Girl; and finishes it off with the best remixes.

Nowadays, Ravage! Ravage! focuses on DJ gigs, after having hosted his monthly Dark Allies party in Paradiso, Amsterdam for two years. Although he does occasionally still do solo guest appearances, like at last year's Milkshake festival, premiering the song he wrote for Amsterdam's queer icon Maxime Duvall, which is scheduled for release later this year on Bordello A Parigi.

For now, Out Of Fashion makes the early Ravage! Ravage! songs available forever. Until the demise of Spotify, Bandcamp and iTunes, that is — or the apocalypse, of course.


SOME QUOTES from WAY BACK WHEN
'Holland's new rave reverend'—TimeOut London
'Electropop is still in fashion, proves make-up smeared Dutchman identified by Ravage! Ravage!' —Exberliner
'Een jeugdige Hollandse Boy George met synthesizer obsessie maakt een stamper uit een postnucleair Ibiza (...) samen met Aux Raus de belofte voor 2006'—Thomas van Aalten, VPRO
'Übergeile master of elektrokitsch'—Cruise Control
'Ravage! Ravage! is te eigenzinnig om in het hippe indie-rave hokje te passen, want ondanks de mascara, het asymetrische haar en de te strakke zwarte spijkerbroek te muzikaal en te pop'—stereomedia.nl
'Soms kom je een artiest tegen waarvan je niet gelooft dat deze uit Nederland komt'—TMF
'Hij strooit rond met Christiane F.-verwijzingen, geremixed Weimar-cabaret en trashy popparafernalia. Zijn muziek wordt gedraaid tijdens de London Fashion Week, hij doet het ook wel eens zelf het buitenland aan en grootheden als Joost van Bellen zwaaien hem lof toe'—Thomas Blondeau, Mare
'Sophisticated like Pet Shop Boys with a storm of Soft Cell's nastiness'—Noddy Riot
'Debauched rave-noir'—Amsterdam Weekly
'Muzikale leider van de new rave scene in Amsterdam'—Het Parool
'Kleinzoon van Marc Almond, Pet Shop Boys en Divine'—3voor12 Hollandse Nieuwe
'Ook over de Britse landsgrenzen slaat new rave aan. Zo heeft Noorwegen Datarock, Brazilië CSS en Nederland Ravage! Ravage!'—OOR
'Great music!'—DJ Hell