C-Tec

C-Tec is a band originally formed as a side project in 1995 by Jean-Luc De Meyer (of Front 242), Jonathan Sharp (of New Mind), and Ged Denton (of Crisis NTI) as The Cyber-Tec Project. The name was taken from Cyber-Tec Records, who released their first album. This EP was also released on Fifth Column Records in the U.S. After this release, Jonathan Sharp left the band (due to problems with Cyber-Tec Records manager Paul M. Green), and Marc Heal (of Cubanate) joined as a full-time member.

The band had been conceived as a one-off project, but the members at this point decided to pursue further material. In 1997, after shortening their name to C-Tec, they released a full album, Darker, on the legendary U.S. industrial Wax Trax! label.

C-Tec existed during the late 1990’s hiatus in the Front 242 line-up, with De Meyer (the original lead singer of Front 242) apparently leaving that band for a period. The band toured North America twice in 1998 with a hybrid lineup featuring other members of Cubanate as well as Julian Beeston, one time drummer in Nitzer Ebb. The second album, Cut, was released in 2000 on SPV imprint Synthetic Symphony. The album was originally slated for U.S. release on Wax Trax! but the label closed around this time. Thereby, Cut never had an official American release.

In terms of how C-Tec sounds, Darker contains a surprisingly downbeat, moody collection of songs, showing strong electronic influences but with more ambient textures than would be suggested by the industrial music backgrounds of the main participants. Cut is faster in tempo, with De Meyer’s vocals mixed low. Most of the material on the two full-length C-Tec albums was co-written by Marc Heal and Jean-Luc De Meyer.

Since Cut, C-Tec appears to have been inactive, though lead singer Jean-Luc De Meyer later resurfaced with a new Front 242 album in 2003.