Annie Gosfield - Flying Sparks And Heavy Machinery (2001)

Appropriately-titled release from New York-based composer Annie Gosfield (b. 1960, Philadelphia).  This album, her second of four for John Zorn's Tzadik label, presents two works "developed in 1999 during a six-week residency in the factories of Nuremberg" designed to "combine art and industry".  The three-part, 42-minute EWA7 that takes up the bulk of the album is based on the mechanical sounds and rhythms of its titular factory where the premiere performance was held, with the 'Cylinders' portion taken from this original recording.

 

Engines whir into life in the opening section, gradually joined by metallic clangs developing into interlocking rhythmic patterns.  The passages of eerie subtlety in this first movement, with electronics by Ikue Mori, are particularly effective in contrast to the industrial-racket expectations that the next two parts deliver on.  By this point, with drving rhythms underpinning the other noises, comparisons with Einstürzende Neubauten are inescapable, but honestly, who cares - if you like this sort of thing, Gosfield puts it together really, really well, and it's such riotous fun to crank up loud.  

 

The shorter work that closes the album and provides its title takes similar inspiration from industrial sounds, but writes them in to a (slightly) more conventional context for string quartet and percussion quartet.  It's a nice conclusion to a very satisfying album which makes me want to listen to more of Gosfield's music (believe it or not, this one was a charity shop find, earlier this year).

link

pw: sgtg

Konstruktivits - Psykho Genetika (1995 expanded edition, orig. rel. 1983)

Perhaps the best-known release by Glenn Michael Wallis, krautrock fan, Throbbing Gristle assistant and occasional collaborator with Chris & Cosey and Whitehouse.  Using the band name Konstruktivists with interchangeable spellings like the one above, Wallis and collaborators (like Gary Levermore on this one) combined krautrock influences and the best of early 80s industrial to create ominous electronic drones, with tape manipulation, other noises and effects, and occasional eerie vocals - all the good stuff.

Psykho Genetika was one of the first releases (along with the Nurse With Wound compilation Ostranenie 1913) on the Third Mind label, and yep, that's Stapleton's artwork on the cover above.  The original LP release was apparently a bit of a compromise given the label's available resources - on its first digital reissue in 1995, Psykho Genetika included "the full, uncut version" of the album with 33 minutes of extra material, and improved sound.

link

pw: sgtg

John Lacey / COUM Transmissions - Music For Stocking Top, Swing & Staircase (rec. 1974, rel. 2014)

Staying in the mid-70s today, but on a completely different aural/artistic tangent.  Captured here are 80 minutes of lo-fi cassette recording, taping segments of a 1974 performance by proto-Throbbing Gristle performance art group COUM Transmissions.  Despite the co-crediting of COUM on this archive release, Genesis, Cosey and Sleazy aren't actually audibly featured (unless they're among the voices intermittently heard in conversation during the second track - I couldn't be sure, definitely can't pick out Gen's distinctive accent).

This instead is the soundtrack to COUM's performance (one of their less extreme and more playful ones, IIRC - unfortunately I can't find my copy of Wreckers Of Civilisation at the moment to check, and Cosey's book doesn't mention it).  The electronic sounds were performed by John Lacey, or John Gunni Busck to give him his COUM name.  Lacey, son of robotic artist Bruce (see 'Mr Lacey' by Fairport Convention), would reunite with Chris and Cosey eight years later for the proto-techno project CTI (Creative Technology Institute, not to be confused with Creed Taylor International!), but here he's on his own, playing self-built synths.

The sounds that Lacey conjures up vary from queasy drones to rhythmic pulses to murky splodges of sound; despite the spartan recording quality, it's all very listenable and enjoyable in its own right if you like DIY electronica from this era.  In fact, the recording quality pairs well with the sonic textures if you consider this as a precursor to the early TG sound, which it very much sounds like.  Lacey's electronic work here is a very worthwhile and recommended adjunct to the COUM/TG story, and kudos to the label Other Ideas for releasing this in 2014 (they don't appear to still have the files for sale, and the only other release was a limited-edition LP of the longer track, so I guess it's all 'out of print' now).

link

Organum - Volume One/Volume Two (compis rel. 1998 & 2000)

(both Volumes have plain black covers)

Had you picked up an original vinyl copy of NWW's A Missing Sense in '86 (cover art below), on flipping it over your ears would've been greeted by what sounded like 18 minutes of close-miked dental work.  This piece was called Rasa, and its grinding, hissing and vocal swishes were the work of British drone artist David Jackman, aka Organum.

A Missing Sense/Rasa, split LP between NWW/Organum, 1986

After cutting his musical teeth in Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orchestra in the late 60s, Jackman began releasing short cassettes under his own name a decade later, and went on to use the Organum name from 1983-2010 - he appears to have since retired from music.  The two Volumes in this post gather together LP and EP material from 1985/6.

In Extremis LP, 1985

It's pretty heady stuff too - I had the 'Ambient' tag on for this post, then removed it on deciding it wasn't appropriate.  Especially not for the 1985 LP In Extremis (as in, 'close to death'), which straddles the two CDs - the 20 minute Valley Of Worms was a collaboration with fearsome noisemongers The New Blockaders.  The EP track Horii is about as relaxed as the sonic terrain gets here, and even that one's a dark, droning vocal and flute piece that does a pretty good job of evoking some lost unspeakable ritual from ancient Egypt. (Amusingly, though, it does have a cheekily rockist 1-2-3 count-in.)

Horii 12", 1986

Elsewhere, the metallic droning, creaking and clattering that underpins so much of the early Organum sound brought to mind Iannis Xenakis at his most electroacoustic, eg Bohor or Persepolis.  Much like those grand slabs of sound, Jackman's work here, from the Tower Of Silence EP right through to the 1989 bonus track that ends CD2,  might seem on the surface to be a solid, impenetrable wall, but as soon as you get into it you're transported to its hypnotic depths.  Out-of-body dronescapes of the highest order.

Tower Of Silence 12", 1985

Vol. 1
Vol. 2

Einstürzende Neubauten - Perpetuum Mobile (2004)

Posted some early Einstürzende Neubauten a while ago, so here's something more recent which remains one of my favourite albums from the last decade.  EN's first album of the millennium, Silence Is Sexy, had been widely hailed as a return to form, even a reboot, and this follow-up streamlined the sound even further.  Where this group had once been notorious for its full metal racket, there was now room to breathe - and indeed the plastic tubing with air-compressors sound of this era is the first thing you hear in Ich gehe jetzt.  Later on, Ozean und Brandung is three minutes of pure air, leading straight into one of the most gorgeous ballads on this album of new subtleties, Paradisseits.

Plenty of the glorious metal percussion of old remains, driving the rhythms of album highlights Ein seltner Vogel, Selbsportrait mit Kater (a perfect illustration of a blinding hangover if ever there was one), and the epic title track.  Perpetuum Mobile itself is a brilliant 13-minute travelogue, taking in flights, airport walkways, taxis and trains in a constant motion that alternates between a frenetic dash to meet the next connection and an only marginally slower brisk stroll.  This album is unmissable for that alone, and contains enough variety and strong, mature songwriting to make it a highlight in the Neubauten catalogue.

link

Throbbing Gristle - Journey Through A Body (rec. 1981, first rel. 1982)

The final studio recording from TG's initial existence, Journey Through A Body was recorded in Rome over a week in March 1981 at the invitation of RAI radio studio, and released the following year, by which time of course 'the mission was terminated'.  In retrospect, and especially before the 2004-9 reunion, it became an intriguing what-might've-been had TG stuck around a few more years.

Kicking off with a fascinating 15-minute chunk of medical sound art that swapped the burns unit of Hamburger Lady for the maternity ward, the second track was more intriguing still.  Again with the benefit of hinsight, Catholic Sex (dedicated to the then 18-year-old Paula Brooking, who would become Mrs P-Orridge three months later) sounds like early Chris & Cosey fighting early Psychic TV to a draw and creating a strong, distinctive track in the process, proving that there could've been life yet in the parent band.

Cover from Mute CD reissue, 1993

The second half of Journey Through A Body, though, goes to perhaps the most uncharacteristic sonic plane of all, due to Chris Carter opting for acoustic piano throughout for perhaps the only time in his career (Certainly that I'm aware of; I haven't heard his & Cosey's entire ouput by a long chalk).  Exotic Functions wasn't that big a surprise for those who'd heard 20 Jazz Funk Greats, but what does make a difference is how sincere and fully-realised a Martin Denny tribute these mostly non-musicians managed to pull off this time around.  Violencia (The Bullet) sounds a bit more like traditional TG, but the crashing piano is still an oddity, as is the album's epilogue Oltre La Morte, presumably performed by Carter alone.  Would another album this good have been preferable to Heartbeat and Force The Hand Of Chance?  Who knows.  I'm still glad we have Dreams Less Sweet, though, by which time it might've definitely been time for the TG mission to be terminated.

link

Previously posted at SGTG: In The Shadow Of The Sun

Coil - Musick To Play In The Dark (1999)

Before the evenings start to get light again, let's have some prime music for the darkness, with the nocturnal majesty of Coil at their possible career-best.  This album was my entry-point to the alchemical, liquid world of Balance and Christopherson's sound shiftings, on the strength of rave reviews after its release which hailed it as a game-changer.  In hindsight, this was indeed where Coil's last great chapter began, with Julian Cope/Spiritualized collaborator Tim Lewis aka Thighpaulsandra on board.

Like a fair chunk of the Coil ouevre, we start with Jhonn and Sleazy pursuing a ritualistic altered state, in this case combining MDMA with sleep deprivation to create some shivery, watery 'moon musick' of the highest order.  Thighpaulsandra gets a chance to shine with the instrumental Red Birds Will Fly Out Of The East And Destroy Paris In A Night, channeling Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze with a much more unhinged finale. Subsequent illuminations concern media manipulation (Red Queen), childhood and family as ritual (Broccoli), until the gorgeous finale allows for some sleep at last.  There was a Volume 2 a few months later, which continued the musical and lyrical themes but with not quite as strong an end result as this stunning record.

link

Psychic TV - Dreams Less Sweet (1983)

Should probably use this week for posting anything Christmassy that I have... no matter how tangential...  What's that song that goes 'Santa Claus is checking his list, going over it twice; to see who is naughty and who is nice'?  Oh yeah, it's Psychic TV.  Any excuse to post the greatest stone-cold (yup, bits of it were recorded in a cave) classic of the post-industrial 80s, Coil notwithstanding - and of course, the core Coil duo were still in the PTV fold at this point, making for an unbeatable supergroup.

I remember listening to White Nights for ages before finding out where that refrain quoted above comes from - it was taught to the children of Jonestown to instill paranoia by the Reverend Jim himself, and all the other lyrics were taken from his horrific final address.  Aside from a cherubic choral rendition of a Manson Family ditty, this was the darkest, and perversely most melodic depths that were plumbed on what was once brilliantly described as 'the Sgt. Pepper of icky music' - wish I could remember what magazine I read that in - and the rest is pretty listenable and accessible stuff considering the roll call of contributors. 

Based around oboe and Reichian marimba, The Orchids is simply gorgeous, one of my favourite songs of all time, and a good chunk of Dreams Less Sweet is the most musically ambitious stuff GPO ever put his mind to - aided in no small part by arranger Andrew Poppy.  19 tracks, many of them fascinating little fragments, zip by in a tight, coherent 43 minutes, and remain a huge high-watermark in the post-TG fallout and in dark, twisted 'England's Hidden Reverse' creepiness in general.  Essential alchemical musick.

link

Einstürzende Neubauten - Kalte Sterne - Early Recordings (2004 compi, rec. '80-'82)

Time for something nice and noisy again.  This handy primer for early Einstürzende Neubauten came out just over decade ago, and made a good companion for the earlier Strategies Against Architecture 80-83; all the early singles are here, including B-sides, in all their clanking, crashing glory.  The metallic racket hangs together around rudimentary synth stabs and bass guitar, and remains some of the headiest post-punk industrial brainmelt to come out of Europe (other than EN's early albums of course).  Blixa Bargeld is on elemental form on all but the second last track, Thirsty Animal, which features a supremely discomforting star turn from Lydia Lunch.

link

P16.D4 - Kühe In 1-2 Trauer (1984)

Mid-80s German post-industrial strangeness involving cows - sound familiar?  Where HNAS favoured absurd surrealism though, P16.D4 (originally known as Permutative Distortion or Progressive Disco, depending on what source you trust) were made of sterner, greyer stuff.
 
This album, whose title translates as 'cows in half-grief' does start off in a flurry of tape edits similar to HNAS, but from then on is closer in spirit to contemporaries Einstürzende Neubauten.  There's also hints of Throbbing Gristle here - the title track drones along unsettingly like E-Coli from (second TG album) DoA, with a more buried monologue and additional choral samples; and very early, noisy Nurse With Wound (they'd collaborate with Stapleton in due course) on Ekstase Des Sozialismus.  There's also more concretey sounds and a slight early-Kraftwerkiness on the track with possibly the longest title I've ever seen: "He's Afraid Of The Way The Glass Will Fall - Soon - It Will Be A Spectacle: The Fall Of A Crystal Palace. But Coming Down In Total Blackout, Without One Glint Of Light, Only Great Invisible Crashing".  But enough with the comparisons, just enjoy this great record.

link

Maurizio Bianchi - Mectpyo/Blut (1980)

When I first got a taste for the noisier, more avant-garde end of the music-sharing blog world a few years back, mp3 rips of Maurizio Bianchi's tapes seemed like an almost never-ending excavation of decaying ferric oxide and xeroxed/handmade covers.  The grainy sound quality of the ageing cassettes seemed to sit perfectly with the aural contents - grinding, humming and squealing voids of tape loops and electronic noise that Bianchi described (in various obtuse, highbrow liner notes) as symbolic of social, industrial and human decay.

It was for this reason that I avoided picking up any CD reissues of MB's work for so long, wondering if cleaned-up sound might kill the mystique.  When this release was flagged up on my discogs a month ago, however, thought I may as well take a punt - Mectpyo-Blut was the first MB tape that I listened to (and the first he released after some initial experiments under the name Sacher-Pelz), and it's remained a favourite.

Glad to report that Mectpyo-Blut sounds superb on CD; it's still 90 minutes of sheer nihilistic sonic muck, but actually benefits from being given clarity.  Every sequence of tape looping, hand-spun LP samples and saturated electronics shows off Bianchi's skill in overlaying these sound clashes and also never staying in one place for too long, creating an ever-(d)evolving post-apocalyptic landscape to get lost in.  And the final crescendo into outright noise assault has to be heard to be believed.

Disc 1
Disc 2

SPK - Leichenschrei (1982)

As much as I love Throbbing Gristle, and can't imagine life without their records, I always feel like they'd peaked by 1979 (I realise I've previously posted a 1980 soundtrack by them, but that's a special case!).  It was around this time that SPK were working away on the other side of the world to progress from some interesting post-punk-noise early singles to  recording two albums that took the original archetype of industrial music to  its highest watermark.  The first, Information Overload Unit, was a vicious  blast of electronic nihilism, and the second, presented here for your listening..er...pleasure, broadened the palette to produce one of most nightmarish records ever made.

Leichenschrei (corpse scream) was originally released without track titles, each LP side simply being named 'Lysso' (rabid) and 'Klono' (presumably a reference to the tranquiliser klonopin).  The first nine tracks on the album that were originally ran together as 'Lysso' show right from the start that the baton has been grabbed from TG, with Genetic Transmission sounding exactly like Hamburger Lady but even more disturbing, with echoing vocals about death and decay.  From there, the subject matter just gets darker and darker, taking in autopsies, napalm, and the paranoid delusions of a psychiatric patient.  Contemporaneous with Einstürzende Neubauten's early recordings, shards of metal percussion fly around everywhere, ending in a punishing lock-groove at the end of the Lysso side (or Chamber Music on the tracked version).

The five longer tracks on the Klono side sound closer to where the post-industrial scene was going to go, nudging towards EBM territory but never compromising the oppressive, suffocating atmosphere of the whole album.  As per the well-worn Dante quote that frequently crops up in online reviews of Leichenschrei, abandon hope all ye who enter here.

I've included two versions of the album in this download (in the same zip file). One of these is the straight 14-track CD version. In the other, I've tried to replicate something closer to the vinyl experience by taking out the individual track splits (apart from the break in the album sides), and I've looped the lock groove for a couple of minutes.  Just for maximum...enjoyment. Or something.

CD reissue cover

link

Throbbing Gristle - In The Shadow Of The Sun (rec. 1980, first rel. 1984)

Been thinking about doing a TG post for the last few days since mentioning Chris Carter in relation to Pyrolator.  Everything TG recorded between 1975 and 1981 (I've become increasingly ambivalent as to whether they should've even bothered reuniting) invigorates and refreshes me like a cold shower every time I dig them out, if cold showers were capable of breaking down every established notion of what music, sound and art should and can do.

CD reissue cover art

Which album/live disc to post though?  This is the one I come back to over and over again if I'm looking for the most satisfying experience of TG playing together as a group to create a sustained atmosphere.  In The Shadow Of The Sun was a film by Derek Jarman, which repurposed various sections of film he'd amassed earlier in the 70s into a slowed-down, overlapping soup of dreamlike formlessness.  TG were called upon to provide a soundtrack, and recorded the perfect one for the film - an hour's worth of dark ambience that drifts, clangs and howls like some unknowable occult ritual.  You can clearly hear the first seeds of Coil and Psychic TV's more ambient, soundtracky moments being sown here.

link

Pyrolator - Inland (1979)

Kurt Dahlke, member of Der Plan and early member of D.A.F., and sometime collaborator with a great many others, has released a handful of great electronic records under his solo monkier Pyrolator.  This is his debut from 1979.

As far as post-punk minimal electronics go, Inland is an absolute classic that deserves to be much better known.  It might also be described as part of the early industrial canon, if it were a bit more lo-fi. Dahlke's command of synth texture and programming holds its own with Chris Carter's best work in Throbbing Gristle, and in fact, Inland might be exactly what 'The Space Between' collection of Carter's demos could've been had it been buffed and shined up into a fully-fledged solo album.  Elsewhere, the numbered title tracks nudge into Maurizio Bianchi territory in their sonic assault, albeit nowhere near as rough and decayed.  In fact, this album really just sounds great - grab it.

link