goem started mid 1996 when roel meelkop gave frans de waard a small electronic device, which he found in a thriftshop in rotterdam. the device was called "student stimulator". until today it is unknown what it was used for, but most likely it was part of a research program exploring the mysteries of human sleep. the machine just generates pulses, of which speed and intensity can be changed. frans dabbled around with the machine using steve reich’s phase shifting techniques and presented a demo back to roel, who thought it was "interesting", but not as an end-result. upon his suggestion, the two re-worked the original demo, by adding sound effects, analogue synthesizers and filtering. most of those sessions ended up on the first cd »stud stim«, which was released mid 1997 by rastermusic.

by this time, goem were invited at very short notice to play in barcelona, during a side festival of sónar. roel and frans invited peter duimelinks to join forces and since then goem are a trio. the debut concert was an open air event in the old centre near the barcelona museum of modern art.

since then goem have played many concerts in normal concert halls, but also at the moderne musseet in stockholm, art galleries, a boat, a camping, transmediale (berlin), galerie für zeitgenossische kunst and the earational festival in the netherlands. one live recording made at the vpro radio studios has been released on cd by staalplaat as part of the mort aux vaches series.

goem have released works on raster-noton, noise museum, staalplaat and in the near future on ash international, ethernity, fourth dimension and 12k. goem have been part of compilations by mille plateaux, 12k, bip hop and have remixed tracks of david kristian, ultra milkmaids, super furry animals and auch.

goem’s music is better described as minimal pulse (techno) than as "glitch" or "clicks & cuts". in best dutch tradition, goem shows techno in its purest form.