In May of 1981, Sweden’s consummate spy-model Virna Lindt released “Attention Stockholm,” a tale of new wave intrigue—a supersecret agent (Codename: Cologne) attempting to contact a wayward counterspy (Codename: Stockholm) in Soviet Russia, presumably by wire, though for some reason a telephone also appears to have been involved. In October of the same year, borrowing its moniker from a line in Lindt’s song, Brussels outfit Berntholer was born. Founded by Albanian vocalist Drita, bassist Pol Fourmois, guitarist Simon Rigot, and keyboardist Manuel “Manu” Poutte (also the winner of a Palme d’Or at Cannes for a short film in 1992), Berntholer embraced cold wave and—to hear them tell it—sought to make semi-dispiriting, unpopular music. Skipping ahead to March of 1983, one of Drita’s songs is recorded by a friend, Gilbert Lederman, as a student project. A publicist, Jan Cabooter, happened upon the demo and persuaded the band to cut a proper single, to be released by a tiny indie label months later. The song received a good deal of airplay from John Peel, and in no time it became known throughout Europe, although it wasn’t immediately available in Great Britain. “My Suitor” was released by London’s Blanco Y Negro label in 1984, with an additional coda scored by minimalist composer Wim Mertens, whose piece “At Home” had coincidentally been a tremendous influence on Drita’s ballad. She quit the band in 1985, was replaced for a single concert by Niki Mono, and subsequently Berntholer ceased to exist. Conflicts of interest were largely to blame, though, with no contract in sight, it’s safe to assume that a lack of financial opportunity hastened the band’s demise. It’s hard to determine the impact of “My Suitor” on European culture in the 1980s. Certainly it seems to have tapped into a great deal of the frustration of the European new wave scene, but its simplicity was abstention from the glitter of an intransigent (yet emptily idiosyncratic) circle-jerk of disaffectedly hip post-punk snottiness; an inexcusable tradition that would not abate to the present day, evidently. As sappy and contrived as any other love song, I suppose, but a tad more exotic. The tune was selected by Bassta, a popular radio show in Brussels, for a contest in which competing bands remixed the song. It has been covered a number of times, notably by electro-artpopsters Figurine. Studio-Brussel’s Chantal Pattyn called the song, “one of the classics of Belgian new wave,” and—in spite of its atmosphere of gloom and occasionally confounding lyrics—it’s a terrific number.