INDUSTRIAL MUSIC FOR INDUSTRIAL PEOPLE
The strange experiments of Throbbing Gristle, Current 93 laid bare…
W ith their interest in mass psychology and control techniques, it’s no surprise throbbing Gristle encouraged, directly or indirectly, an entire genre to magic(k) itself almost out of thin air. they released some of the earliest industrial singles on their own industrial imprint, including “Meat Processing Section” by Australian ex-pats SPK (Surgical Penis Klinik or Sozialistisches Patienten Kollektiv). Subsequent albums like Information Overload Unit (1981) and Leichenschrei (1982) had SPK as one of the most fluent of the first wave of industrial.
Outfits like throbbing Gristle and SPK inspired countless DiY operatives up and down the UK, and overseas, to put pen to paper and torment to tape, using primitive electronics and FX to sculpt monolithic screeds of noise, while networking via fanzines and tape-trading. Perhaps the most significant music to come out of the movement’s second wave came from the triumvirate Coil, Current 93 and Nurse With Wound, most of whom had connections back to tG – indeed, Coil’s Sleazy Christopherson was an ex-member. On early titles like Current 93’s Dog’s Blood Rising (1984), Coil’s
How To Destroy Angels (1984, “ritual music for the accumulation of male sexual energy”) and Nurse With Wound’s Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella (1979), they advanced a form of noise that intersected surrealism, repetition and occult energies. Naturally inquisitive, they’d all head in different directions soon after – through apocalyptic folk, acid house and mind-bending cut-ups, respectively.