Hard Corps

Hard Corps were a 1980s synthpop band from Brixton, London. Hugh Ashton, Robert Doran and Clive Pierce were introduced to chanteuse Regine Fetet, who, having never sung before had an enigmatic, fragile human voice which mated perfectly with the sound the three British sound engineers were creating. They pioneered electronic music in the 1980s and released their first single in 1984 ('Dirty / Respirer') on Survival Records, with "Respirer" also being released that year on 'The Art of Survival' compilation EP along with bands such as Tik and Tok, Eddie and Sunshine and Richard Bone. A later re-recording in 1985 of "Respirer" was produced by Mute Records founder and electronic music production supremo Daniel Miller. 

 

In 1985, the band supported The Cure in the UK and Europe and in 1988 supported Depeche Mode in the UK. By the time the band released their first album in 1990 (produced by Martin Rushent), they had already split up. Doran went on to write music for TV, radio, commercials and video with the singer from Perfect Strangers, Rod Syers. Ashton carried on with Regine for a while doing PAs and using the Hard Corps' name before becoming The Sun Kings with former Naked Lunch member Paul ‘Driver’ Davies. Clive Pierce continued writing and producing electronic music. 

 

The band is noteworthy for Regine's provocative performances, which often involved her removing her top on stage; an apocryphal story suggests that this may have been the reason for the band not supporting Depeche Mode in the USA. Regine Fetet died of cancer in 2003. A number of previously unreleased tracks have been made available on LPs compiled by Minimal Wave Records. [SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA]