Visionary Sound Arts Interface

INDUSTRIAL ANONYMOUS Return to Main Page Return To DarvReviews page INDUSTRIAL MUSIC was a movement which grew out of the Punk period in modern Rock and developed alongside what was then called the Techno Music of auteurs like Devo, The Normal, Gary Numan or John Foxx's Ultravox, but was even more nihilistic, existentialist and anarchic. So it was much more on the Rocker side than the New Romantic side and quite an underground sort of phenomenon. The basic concept, i guess, was using industrial sounds and noise as part of music, but there was also an underlying questioning of what is sane or acceptable. Click Here To Go To Industrial Music Listing @ Wikipedia my first exposure to Industrial was in high school, when i first started exploring the Ugly in music, starting with artists like The Residents (who seem cute now,) and The Art Bears (part of the Henry Cow family of musicians and now seems rather poetic.) A friend with who i had a mutual interest in Eno's ambient music (this is late 70s,) introduced me to the first Throbbing Gristle album, now known as TG 1 (it had a single S of the Nazi SS on the cover and one ambient piece that took up both sides entitled, "Slug Bait.") it actually IS a credible ambient work, although a bit dissonant for me at the time. this same wild guy introduced me to Stan Ridgway and his group, Wall Of Voodoo, which to me is Industrial in the sense that it is largely about working in factories and the name of the group IS the looming factory wall above you when you are on the sidewalk just outside the factory. ok: Throbbing Gristle owned a record company called Industrial Records from which INDUSTRIAL MUSIC putatively gets its name, although it grew from that of course because only so many people were on or joined Industrial's roster. blah, blah. i digress.... in college, i was playing the friday night 930-Midnight new wave dance music (early 80s club with artists like Talking Heads, B-52s, Thomas Dolby, Simple Minds, The Cure, Psychedelic Furs, Human League, Heaven 17, and the Techno artists mentioned above) at midnight, my girlfriend came on with punk rock and at 2AM, the Industrial show would go all night with this sinister, garbage cans crashing, caterwauling music like punk rock after it has drunk too much to play properly anymore. this actually was part of the precedents which led up to the development of Dark Ambient as an actual sub-genre. now what caused me to develop a recent interest in Industrial -- after many years of being into Visionary music which pretty much harmonizes with my primal Progressive Rock roots (i was originally a Genesis freak. BEFORE Peter left the band and, no, i don't like abacab or duke)requires a bit of a story: *ahem* back when Rap first hit the top of the headlines, i was FULL ON immersed in Steve Roach's shamanism, Patrick Bernhardt's aquarian/vedic vibes and Michael Stearn's transgalactic voyages. i had left rock and dance beats somewhat in the dust. so here comes Public Enemy in the headlines, followed by Ice T and "Cop Killer" and all the media attention that got, and a host of other gangsta-type acts. now i didn't like that stuff, but where i was living my peers around me, male and female, all thought i SHOULD like it because of my african genetic heritage. THEY liked it, so what was wrong with ME? so i got sick of all the attitude and decided if i was going to have to LIKE all this modern male warrior crapola, THEN i was going to find the MOST pissed off angry violent dehumanized foul-mouthed rap acts and THAT would be MY rap music. because isn't that what it's all about? and don't I have EXACTLY the anger that they are expressing. so should i go for the gusto and get my anger validated because that is what this crap is all about? so, then everybody was all taken aback and like "oh gosh, we didn't mean Niggers With Attitude, we meant something fun like [whatever it was they thought they meant like hiphop lite.]" and i'd just be like, "well THIS is MY music." and get all uppity. eh, it all worked out. whatever. so years later i have all this old gangsta rap in the dusty corners of the collection. including, besides mentioned above, Ice Cube, Grand Master Flash & The Furious 5, Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and Gil Scott-Heron. when i move to Maui, one of the young guys i work with develops an enjoyment of Ice Cube's Death Certificate and The Lynch Mob's Gorillas In The Mist, both of which i own. so we have this shared interest and i play some more Ice Cube for him and pull out the Ice T and some other stuff. besides gangsta rap, he also likes music with a political message that's on the Ugly side, like Cypress Hill and Nine Inch Nails. some just released rap music he grooved on and gave me by two artists i found very inspiring and indicating a higher level in the rap game. Immortal Technique is still pretty angry, but he targets international corporate power. his words are quite poetic and inventive. Presage goes after the Illuminati and those who seek to create the New World Order. amazing stuff. then i backtracked to get some CDs of what i think is historic rap music by Gil Scott-Heron, Grandmaster Flash, and Public Enemy. my friend particularly liked Gil Scott-Heron. it is good to have a little background on your subject... then dude turned me on to the latest Nine Inch Nails, "Year Zero," which is pretty amazing, awesomely cryptic and one of the best albums of the year i would think. i bought the first Nine Inch Nails album, "Pretty Hate Machine," when it was first released around 1990, on the advice of a friend who said he liked it because Trent Reznor, the main mind behind NIN, "knows something about pain." this album was very popular and is considered the breakthrough release that brought Industrial into the mainstream. well, i got sick of it after a year and sold it off. you have to understand i was in serious transition to angelic shamanism and all this love of negativity music i saw (and to a degree still do see) as part of my peculiar emotional malaise. anyway, this new NIN release was cool and made me nostalgic for Killing Joke, who have a tribal shamanistic side that i am more akin to. sure enough, Killing Joke has been putting out material recently, so i got "Hosannas From The Basements of Hell." in their own words, "it's pretty brutal...." i thought that would probably be the end of it. but no, then i got some Nina Hagen -- my 3 faves of hers -- and it was all sort of building then. so now i see that i've been away from the Interface for some time because this is not Visionary Music and is so negative and dreary some of it that it wouldn't be fair to just throw it in with the regular reviews in the Visionary genre. i faced a similar dilemma with my Exotica phase (since some is rather kitsch and its a dated sound) and, to a lesser degree, with Jacotte Chollet's profound ten CD MultiDimensional Music set, which would have turned the reviews column into a single artist rave-up practically. so giving these particular aspects of my musical aesthetic a separate place in the website is an honoring of what is going on, a recording of where my music angel is leading me and some exciting journeys on the way. to the unfamiliar reader: Industrial Music explores the archetypes of Adversity and The Ugly. it is deliberately trying to be annoying, disturbing, inappropriate, evil and demonic. it is not everyone's cup of tea. the following reviews may become vulgar and use disgusting images in order to capture the nature of the recorded material. 20 Jazz Funk Greats Throbbing Gristle Mute Records, 1993 orig: Industrial Records, 1979 TG WAS INTENSELY EVIL AND SCARY this wasn't like the clown demon groups like Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper or Kiss. these were wicked sorcerers making the hair on the back of your neck stand on end. This particular album is proably their most accessible, although i have not yet heard the 2007 release. it has some classic instrumental electronica on it and some severe hypnosadism by leading exponent of the genre Genesis P-Orridge. creepy and it sounds like everybody is on heroin. Third And Final Report Throbbing Gristle Mute Records, 1993 orig: Industrial Records, 1978 CLASSIC "HAMBURGER LADY" POSSIBLY MOST EVIL AND FRIGHTENING SONG IN HISTORY some of the production on this album is not so great and considered as a whole it is not as strong as Jazz Funk Greats, but that one song is about a woman in a hospital's burn unit who has total third degree burns from the waste up will freak you out. i have this on vinyl and don't really recommend the album. you can get "Hamburger Lady" on Throbbing Gristle's Greatest Hits, which is a so-so compilation but has that one great song. this album might be TG at its most fearsome, but for intensive tastes. get Greatest Hits if you just generally want a single TG album. i like 20JFG better myself. Hole Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel Thirsty Ear, 1995 orig: SelfImmolation/SomeBizarre, 1984 HOLY CRAP!!! WHAT'S THIS??? has got to be one of the hands down most ghastly hilarious albums ever made. how can you be deeply offended AND laughing your ass off at the same time? this is just the most ridiculous bullshit you could imagine and yet it is just so wrong that it is just perfectly right. chorus from the first song: "i like the way you fill out your clothes/i'm going to stick my head under your hose." this crazy thing has this drunk guy playing all the instruments, singing, using any object in sight for percussion along with smashing plates and buzzsaws, replete with Nazi imagery and mass murdering belligerence. extremely twisted stuff that would give the kid nightmares. this is the album to play when somebody magnanimously says, "go ahead: play anything you want. i'm opened minded, i can take anything." Nail Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel Thirsty Ear, 1995 originally SelfImmolation/SomeBizarre, 1985 MORE CHAOTIC ABSURDITY WITH A TOUCH OF EVIL this album is generally considered THE classic Foetus album. it seems to be mainly about doing a few jobs for the Evil One. an extended ditty about the Tate/LaBianca murders. excellent guitar work on this disc. a bit more polished and less sense of outrageous humor than Hole, but the lyrics are still quite intelligent and the vibe will make your parents say "take that horrible noise off right now." the closing anthem, "Anything," with the refrain, "i can do anything goddam thing i want." neatly synopsizes one's response to such parental demands. Love Foetus The Birdman Recording Group, 2005 CONTINUING THE WITH FREAKED OUT CLASSICAL GRUNGE this album continues the insanity of 20 years ago with very tense synthesized orchestral classical music interspersed with gnarly snarling industrial power grunge. "Alladin Reverse" and "You Taught Me How To Vibrate" are pretty scary, man, like someone is pointing a gun at you and i don't even want to discuss the part where he accidentally breaks his girlfriend's neck. still technicially impressive even if the edges have been sanded down by the onset of maturity, this is still awesome stuff with alice cooper and pink floyd references, edgar winter's frankenstein and some other bizarre i haven't figured out yet. Auto Da Fe SPK The Grey Area of Mute Records, 1992 originally Side Effects Records, 1981 SIGNATURE LANDMARK OF "INDUSTRIAL" GENRE Looking for an early 80s industrial album that there is no doubt that it is, in fact, true industrial music, end of discussion? Here you go. This has it all: the clash-&-clang, the found percussion, the early 80s thrash beats and dated synthbass, along with the sociopolitical posturing (particularly as regards the mental hell system) and plenty of spoken and sung German to keep it scary. Very mechanical with that post-bar 3AM mental haziness for the lounging daemons of the defiant darkness. you play this music and it MEANS that you are a rebel and not to be counted to. at several points, i am reminded of the sort of experimentation of the Flying Lizards. stripped down drum machine repetition with vocals run through the distortion pedal. this will teach you to mistake my spiritual emergency for mental illness. Auto Da Fe means "self-immolation." The band name, SPK, is interpolated by letters on the front cover so that it spells out "SepPuKu," which is an alternative Japanese word for "hara kiri," or slicing the abdomen open with a sword. I find this totally consistent with what i have argued for decades is a foundational expression of the Punk period of Rock'n'Roll of one of the classic attitudes of Rock'n'Roll: Rebellion (others as i conceive them are Sensuality, Spontaneity and Enthusiasm.) This Punk expression is SELF-DESTRUCTION. in essence: i will destroy myself before i allow you to destroy me. i consider this to be a fundamental aspect of Punk, where the aggression and belligerence of the Rocker aspect of R'n'R (the angry, political violent school of it, as compared to the Mod aspect, which is more about experiencing pleasure, participating in "Fashion" and so forth) turns upon itself and attacks itself as a symbol of the fury over our betrayal by society and civilization. At the time this recording was made, Industrial actually was a dangerous philosophical movement that i suppose would be considered radical Anarchism by some and Media Terrorism by others. it really seemed like this Punk thing was actually going to be the Hippies' revenge and expose the corrupt ruling classes and their agenda to take civil liberties away and dictate that authority would be truth rather than truth be authority. rather ironic that the main mind behind SPK, a man named Graeme Revell, is nowadays a much in demand movie soundtrack composer with a long list of scores for film in his portfolio. just recently, i saw Aeon Flux and Idle Hands and was amused to see that they were scored by him. but never mind that. if you are looking for sheer Industrial noise to blast over your car speakers, thereby overruling that fool in the next car who thinks they own the neighborhood with their subwoofered Gangsta Rap, this should just about do it. subwoofer preferred but probably not necessary to win. Leichenshrei SPK The Grey Area of Mute Records, 1992 originally Side Effects Records, 1982 PRECURSOR ALBUM TO DARK AMBIENT i had forgotten how ambient this was. probably because i only ever heard it on the radio in the deeps of night and the klingklang of all the mechanical percussion i wouldn't even have THOUGHT of as "Ambient" at the time. Eno's "Music For Airports" was only a few years old and so had set the benchmark for ambient music at that time. SPK might stand for more than one thing, but on this disc it means Socialistisches Patienten Kollective, which i'm guessing means Socialist Patients Collective. and supposedly about how the state treats mental patients in its care. this album is very much about mental illness, but also focuses on how treatment MAKES one crazy. the weird idea of trying to "fix" a person the way one "fixes" a machine. it has repeating surgical lyrics like "i removed the rectum itself with the other pair of forceps" and the like. here in SPK, though, we get very machine-like clanging which is only sparingly used in Foetus or Throbbing Gristle. also, this album is not evil at all, but more about being haplessly in the grip of insanity, whether it be your mental state or the bizarre character of your society or government. lovingly resurrected by Brian Lustmord, who planned and oversaw its re-release, it has a great sound and really brings back that 315am vibe we postpunks had in the early 80s. Hosannas From The Basements Of Hell Killing JOke Cooking Vinyl, 2006 MOST GNOSTIC RELEASE BY OLD GUARD OF INDUSTRIAL THRASH One of the most successful of the early 80s blitz of Industrial, KJ's first 3 albums -- Killing Joke, What's This For...!, and Revelations -- all were called Industrial Music by the cognoscenti and in fact are intense walls of grating, shearing metal noise with crashing drums and gnashing, thrashing guitar work that i don't know what else one would call it. KJ's stance is and always has been the overtly self-destructive last stand against the forces of oppression. this is a true Punk stance that they have never forsaken but, over the course of time, have expanded from merely social or corporate concerns to global civilization conflict and recently to cosmic levels against The Evil One himself. i became particularly interested in Killing Joke with the 1983 release of "Fire Dances" on EG. this was the overt connection they made with tribalism and paganism. a repudiation of the oppressive mindwash topdog religions who are corrupted by their own greed, perversion and malice. there is still hope for salvation huddling by the fire in the 50 gallon drum in the alley off skid row. or dancing in a circle around a bonfire in the wilderness. this still remains my favorite Killing Joke album. the production was much cleaner and rhythm section dominated. this was the formation of technotribes as the civilization collapses under its own glut. then followed a period of being more commercial. 1985's Night Time had several songs that got lots of FM airplay particularly "Love Like Blood" and the title song, which actually got on pop charts. the follow-up album in 1986, Brighter Than A Thousand Suns, seemed to be setting them more in a commercial context i thought and i began to lose interest. in fact, even though Night Time was huge for them, i had been somewhat disappointed. it was 4 years before i took any more notice, preferring to indulge myself in their formative years, when NoiseInternational/BMG released, "Extremities, Dirt & Various Repressed Emotions" in 1990. this was actually a direction i liked, with songs about being slaves to the corporate structure, anti-meatkill songs and so forth. that's my 2nd favorite KJ release. WHOA HEY! then i didn't pay any attention to Pandemonium or Democracy and it wasn't til 2007 when i saw this album that i liked the Gnostic battle motif and wanted to give it a try. ok: review: a seasoned industrothrash band gets back together and makes a noisy exciting album with each instrument having easily discerned separation from the others (which was a problem with the first three albums.) the energy is not Industrial but close to the tribal punk-thrash of Fire Dances. the recent use of arabic themes is present, esp in songs like Invocation which calls Babylon, but generally this stays very true to what KJ was about before the commercial phase. Coleman's voice has never sounded better. there IS a sense of reverence and spiritual struggle that is lacking in other artists in this column. there is no attempt to be offensive other than the brash sound of the music and the underlying anti-topdog-religion stance. all in all, a powerful new release by one of the exponents in good standing in the Industrial genre, much more to the hardcore side than the electro side this outing and you gotta like it hard. i'd say Killing Joke has learned some good lessons from Nine Inch Nails and the kids. there is a sense of cautious optimism, confidence in skill and a desire to overcome the enemy within which allows this album to instill a feeling of courage and desire to win that i find nourishing rather than depleting. THE POP SIDE NunSexMonkRock/The Nina Hagen Band Nina Hagen Sony Music, 1991 originally: Sony, 1978, 1979, 1982 Fearless Nina Hagen Sony, 2007 orig: Sony, 1983 THE GODDESS!! NINA I LOVE YOU!!!! well, that's what i wrote on the commentary sticker for us deejays to lavish our ideas that was on the cover of the 1983 vinyl NunSexMonkRock at the University station i PD'ed back at the time. Nina, so the story goes, was the daugher of 2 east german opera singers who were considered national treasures. when Nina became a rebellious young woman in the late 70s -- using her opera trained voice to belt out snarling punk rock, dressing all Goth and reportedly becoming a heroin user -- east germany basically kicked her out, handed her over the berlin wall to the west and said, "your problem." and so she was, releasing a blistering barrage of wild albums not really punk but like operatic electropunk. multi-tracking of her 8 octave range produced wild cacophany which could be heavenly and reverent as on her Fearless album, or occult and demonic as so overtly obvious in NunSexMonkRock. she released great club songs that were a gas to dance to and observation of her work *under the right circumstances* is ASTOUNDING. she has also done chanting albums which use sanskrit to evoke goddess energies and even has a big band album i've never heard. Fearless has just been reissued and is wonderful uplifting zipless 80s dance music that is hip too. NunSexMonkRock comes with the first album on the same cd. NSMR begins with a number straight out of the Exorcist and then tumbles the listener through a bizarre occult experience which can't really be described but can be danced to. A truly unique aesthetic with this artist, and an amazing voice which leaves one flabbergasted at times. 45RPM The Singles Of The The The The Sony Music, 2002 TASTY COMPILATION OF PRE-NIN ARTIST i strongly believe that The The had to happen before Nine Inch Nails could happen. While having a similar sound and many songs of rage and frustration which did not make it onto this compilation, The The actually repeatedly charted on the pop charts. This includes those hits and a second disc with some killer dance mixes. The The is not "like" Nine Inch Nails, but actually more like Robin Scott-M who had the hit "Pop Music." both artists have a penchant for poppy tunes that get stuck in your head but with subversive political messages that finally did them in as political music showed it could be lucrative without charting. notice today that underlying political messages are largely eschewed from the pop charts. maybe just a touch sinister, i would prefer to think of The The as sardonic and cynical. but fun to dance to and some good pop hooks. the vibe though still has that Industrial harshness that qualifies it for our review section. well, it was part of "my" list of historical precedents making it possible for NIN to crossover. Nonstop Erotic Cabaret Soft Cell Island/Mercury, 2002 orig: SomeBizarre, 1981 A TASTY STROLL THROUGH THE TENDERLOIN Admittedly, not exactly "Industrial," but this album is SO naughty and inappropriate, basically about shenanigans and goings-on behind the scenes in the red light district, while still being a stunning and unique recording that has stood the test of time and still fresh as a daisy a little baby has slobbered on. This album featured the mega-hit, "Tainted Love," which i don't doubt nearly everyone reading this column will have failed to avoid. It's actually a well-crafted poptune, but, really, most of the album features stronger material than the well-known cover of an old Motown hit. Perversion and pedophilia wrapped in a shiny, candy coated edible wrapper with bright neon lights shining all over it. irrestible to the weak-moraled. take a walk on the sleazy side with the cutest cloying dance music squalor has ever produced. while not exactly Industrial, but very much early Electro, the inappropriate mindset being expressed here, the fascination with and addiction to the seedy underbelly of society's unspoken sexual dark side is rather a robotic compulsive obsession that is scary because the guilty pleasure feels so good..... actually, this is a very impressive bit of electronic dance music on par with Kraftwerk for verve and entertainment value. Nonstop Ecstatic Dancing Soft Cell Island/Mercury, 1998 orig: SomeBizarre, 1982 REMIXES OF FIRST ALBUM AND ASSORTED GUILTY PLEASURES CONTINUE THE SEXUAL GAMES If anything, this album is even MORE seductive and compelling than the previous one. Together these albums describe the fusion of pleasure and pain, naughty and nice, sensual and erotic, diversion and perversion, dirty little secrets and the obscene. the gay S&M crowd stills loves it. women seem to like it too....until they know what it's about.... Towards Thee Infinite Beat Psychic TV WaxTrax Records/Complete Music, 1990 FORMER THROBBING GRISTLE TRENDSETTING ACID HOUSE Eschewing the pure evil stance for something a bit more....fun and social....Genesis P-Orridge moves from TG to join a new group of people and create a danceable, psychoactive album that i can only perhaps compare to Steve Hillage & Michel Giraudy's group, System 7. while the dance beats are definitely primitive late 80s techno, the use of guitars and synth is quite inventive and very effecting when listening to this album on mind-expanding chemical agents. while there does still seem to be a tinge of evil or fright in this recording, it does seem to give way to somatic bliss and some angelic sorts of feelings. Genesis has progressed from a vocal style i previously referred to as hypnosadism, to what really amounts to actual trance induction. using not only voice but also breath and repetition of instructions and suggestions, this album winds its way through a sort of astral adventure. the first time a friend played this for me way back when it originally came out, i was provided with some headspace material and trypped on this in a close setting with three other individuals. my basic impression was that i was at a nightclub in hell with some friendly demons who were really drunk or otherwise stoned. it wasn't bad. it was a party with people i didn't really relate to. i guess it was because at this time i was comparing it with Patrick Berhardt's recent releases (in my private thoughts) and feeling like i'd rather be with angels even if it wasn't a fun party. but that's just me. the other people felt that it was a profoundly PLEASURABLE experience. this album would be mainly accessible to people who like early house techno. while somewhat dated, this album is still a worthy document of evolving a new genre: acid house. Trip Reset Psychic TV Cleopatra, 1996 HARD TO ACQUIRE & RATHER EXPENSIVE, BUT A TRULY COMPELLING HEADTRYP DISC FOR INTREPID PSYCHONAUTS they HAD to be trypping on psilocybin or something like it when they recorded this album. the way all the synthvoicings are tweaked perfectly to maximize psychedelic envisioning and intense somatic pleasure can only mean that the programmers themselves were trypping and that is how they got it right. i have other albums like this (i'm thinking particularly of Magic Sound Fabric's "Unfold," which had to be done on acid or shrooms, and the Antonio Testa & Alio Die collaboration "Healing Herb's Spirit," which is more shamanistic, not rock at all, and somehow captures the magic blissful pleasures of cannabis,) but this recording is head and shoulders above them in its ability to INDUCE deep trance that feels angelic and healing yet almost selfishly pleasurable. this is further odd in that many of the songs would probably appeal to children more than adults, like a song a kid would make up. some of the songs even have a sort of ironic twinge, like "Suspicious," with the refrain "i'm suspicious of you." this is very soft gentle music, not acid house. there is some rock, featuring a mindbending in the extreme cover of "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" by Pink Floyd. but there is also plenty of mellifluous technoambient, then there is more experimental stuff with found recordings, acoustic guitar over light synth drones, plenty of spiralling echo effects, anecdotal storytelling, alice in wonderland like vignettes, but all of it somehow askew and bizarre. but not in a threatening way but rather an almost, shall i say?, cute way. yes an "almost cute" album by Genesis P-Orridge. who would have thought? but eminently listenable and with levels that open up on repeated exposure. well, i ended up spending twenty-nine dollars to get this out-of-print copy off of ebay, but i am totally pleased with it. extremely visual and therefore Visionary stuff that i would play on the radio. very mellow and some of the songs hearken back to the psychedelic rock of the Sixties. i really enjoy that this is music not just to be heard, but to be FELT. the last time i looked, i saw it selling for sixty bucks somewhere. i'm not going to say that it's worth that, but i've paid 75 for a single disc before, so it depends on one's tryp. but i sure like this stuff. 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