Industrial music: the story on HearLore

Industrial music

The first public performance of Throbbing Gristle in October 1976 was not merely a concert but a calculated assault on the morality of British society, featuring an exhibit titled Prostitution that included pornographic photos of Cosey Fanni Tutti and used tampons. This event triggered a political firestorm when Conservative politician Nicholas Fairbairn declared that public money was being wasted to destroy the morality of society, labeling the group as wreckers of civilization. The term industrial music was coined in 1976 by artist Monte Cazazza as Industrial Music for Industrial People, serving as the strapline for the record label Industrial Records founded by Throbbing Gristle. The genre emerged as a direct response to an age where access and control of information were becoming the primary tools of power, rejecting formal rock music conventions to create a new sonic landscape. Early industrial artists drew influence from modernist literature, art, philosophy, and avant-garde music, aiming to evoke the idea of music created for a new generation. The movement was defined by its stark percussion, tape editing, vocal effects, and loops that were distorted, creating a sound that AllMusic would later define as the most abrasive and aggressive fusion of rock and electronic music. These early performances often involved taboo-breaking, provocative elements such as mutilation, sado-masochistic imagery, and totalitarian symbolism, alongside forms of audience abuse like Throbbing Gristle aiming high-powered lights at the crowd. The genre was not limited to music but included mail art, performance art, and installation pieces, establishing a holistic approach to cultural disruption.

Machines and Noise

The roots of industrial music stretch back to the early twentieth century, where Italian Futurist Luigi Russolo laid the groundwork with his 1913 manifesto The Art of Noises, which aimed to reflect the sounds of a modern industrial society. Russolo and his assistant Ugo Piatti created Intonarumori, or noise machines, in their Milan studio to generate sounds that mimicked the mechanical world. This tradition of using found sound continued with Parade, a 1917 performance at the Chatelet Theatre in Paris that included a dynamo, Morse code machine, sirens, steam engine, airplane motor, and typewriters. In 1922, Arseny Avraamov conducted a Symphony of Factory Sirens in Baku, utilizing navy ship sirens, whistles, bus and car horns, factory sirens, cannons, foghorns, artillery guns, machine guns, and hydro-airplanes. The movement gained momentum with Arthur Honegger's 1923 composition Pacific 231, which imitated the sound of a steam locomotive, and George Antheil's 1924 Ballet Mécanique, featuring 16 pianos, 3 airplane propellers, and 7 electric bells. John Cage further expanded the concept in 1937 by distinguishing between found sounds and musical sounds, arguing that all sounds have the potential to be used creatively. His 1939 work Imaginary Landscape #1 utilized two variable speed turntables with frequency recordings to capture and control elements of the sonic environment. By 1964, John Cale recorded the track Loop, consisting solely of audio feedback in a locked groove, which was released in 1966 as a single credited to the Velvet Underground. The Velvet Underground, along with groups like AMM and Cromagnon, were retroactively recognized as precursors to industrial music, with their experimentation in sonic assault, noise, and chance sound reaching the rock fringes in the work of industrial groups like Test Dept. The German krautrock scene, particularly Kraftwerk, was also recognized as influential, with writer Alexei Monroe arguing that Kraftwerk were the first successful artists to incorporate representations of industrial sounds into nonacademic electronic music.

Common questions

When was the term industrial music coined and by whom?

The term industrial music was coined in 1976 by artist Monte Cazazza as Industrial Music for Industrial People. This phrase served as the strapline for the record label Industrial Records founded by Throbbing Gristle.

Who founded the group Throbbing Gristle and when was it formed?

Throbbing Gristle was formed in Yorkshire in 1976 as the musical offshoot of the Kingston upon Hull-based COUM Transmissions. The group was composed of Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti, with Peter Christopherson joining in 1974 and Chris Carter following in 1975.

What historical figures influenced the roots of industrial music in the early twentieth century?

Italian Futurist Luigi Russolo laid the groundwork with his 1913 manifesto The Art of Noises and his assistant Ugo Piatti created Intonarumori noise machines. Other influential figures included Arseny Avraamov, Arthur Honegger, George Antheil, and John Cage who expanded the concept of found sounds.

Which bands achieved commercial success in the 1990s and when were their albums certified platinum?

Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson achieved commercial success during the 1990s with albums certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Nine Inch Nails released Broken in 1992, The Downward Spiral in 1994, and The Fragile in 1999, while Marilyn Manson released Antichrist Superstar in 1996 and Mechanical Animals in 1998.

How did Throbbing Gristle define their approach to music and what instruments did they use?

Throbbing Gristle declared industrial to be anti-music and opposed traditional rock music structures associated with the punk rock scene. The group used homemade instruments such as Chris Carter's Gristle-izer, which consisted of a one-octave keyboard and cassette machines triggering various pre-recorded sounds.

What is the difference between industrial music and post-industrial music?

Post-industrial music offered more accessible and diverse styles with the incorporation of traditional pop songwriting and influences from genres including new wave, rock, pop, heavy metal, hip hop, jazz, disco, reggae, ambient music, folk music, post-punk, EDM, and new age music. This splintering occurred as the genre evolved from the avant-garde experiments of the 1970s to the platinum-selling records of the 1990s.

The Anti-Music Revolution

Throbbing Gristle, formed in Yorkshire in 1976, began as the musical offshoot of the Kingston upon Hull-based COUM Transmissions, which had initially been a psychedelic rock group before describing their work as performance art to obtain grants from the Arts Council of Great Britain. The group was composed of Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti, with Peter Christopherson joining in 1974 and Chris Carter following in 1975. The group renamed itself Throbbing Gristle in September 1975, deriving their name from a northern English slang word for an erection. Their first public performance in October 1976 was accompanied by an exhibit titled Prostitution, which included pornographic photos of Tutti and used tampons, leading to a political backlash. The group's approach to music was defined by their use of homemade instruments, such as Chris Carter's Gristle-izer, a device consisting of a one-octave keyboard and a number of cassette machines triggering various pre-recorded sounds. Peter Christopherson played the Gristle-izer, while Carter built speakers, effects units, and synthesizer modules, modifying more conventional rock instrumentation. Cosey Fanni Tutti played guitar with a slide to produce glissandi or pounded the strings as if it were a percussion instrument. Throbbing Gristle also played at very high volume and produced ultra-high and sub-bass frequencies in an attempt to produce physical effects, labeling this approach as metabolic music. The group opposed traditional rock music structures associated with the punk rock scene, declaring industrial to be anti-music. Their performances often involved taboo-breaking, provocative elements such as mutilation, sado-masochistic imagery, and totalitarian symbolism, alongside forms of audience abuse like aiming high-powered lights at the crowd. The group's logo was based on the lightning symbol of the British Union of Fascists, and the Industrial Records logo was a photo of Auschwitz, reflecting their interest in transgressive subject matter and the investigation of cults, wars, psychological techniques of persuasion, and concentration camp behavior.

Global Echoes and Extremes

Across the Atlantic, similar experiments were taking place, with performance artist Monte Cazazza beginning to record noise music in San Francisco and Boyd Rice releasing albums of noise under the name NON, creating a cacophony of repetitive sounds with guitar drones and tape loops. In Boston, Sleep Chamber and other artists from Inner-X-Musick began experimenting with a mixture of powerful noise and early forms of EBM. In Italy, Maurizio Bianchi shared this aesthetic at the beginning of the 1980s. Germany saw the rise of Einstürzende Neubauten, who mixed metal percussion, guitars, and unconventional instruments such as jackhammers and bones in stage performances that often damaged the venues in which they played. Blixa Bargeld, inspired by Antonin Artaud and an enthusiasm for amphetamines, originated an art movement called Die Genialen Dilettanten and is particularly well known for his hissing scream. In January 1984, Einstürzende Neubauten performed a Concerto for Voice and Machinery at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, drilling through the floor and eventually sparking a riot that received front-page news coverage in England. Other groups who practiced a form of industrial metal music, produced by the sounds of metal crashing against metal, included Test Dept, Laibach, and Die Krupps. Test Dept were largely inspired by Russian Futurism and toured to support the 1984, 85 UK miners' strike. Laibach, a Slovenian group who began while Yugoslavia remained a single state, were very controversial for their iconographic borrowings from Stalinist, Nazi, Titoist, Dada, and Russian Futurist imagery, conflating Yugoslav patriotism with its German authoritarian adversary. Slavoj Žižek has defended Laibach, arguing that they and their associated Neue Slowenische Kunst art group practice an overidentification with the hidden perverse enjoyment undergirding authority that produces a subversive and liberatory effect. The genre also saw the rise of Whitehouse, who intended to play the most brutal and extreme music of all time, a style they eventually called power electronics. An early collaborator with Whitehouse, Steve Stapleton, formed Nurse with Wound, who experimented with noise sculpture and sound collage. Clock DVA described their goal as borrowing equally from surrealist automatism and nervous energy sort of funk stuff, body music that flinches you and makes you move.

The Fracturing of Sound

Following the breakup of Throbbing Gristle, Genesis P-Orridge and Peter Christopherson founded Psychic TV and signed to a major label, producing an album that was much more accessible and melodic than the usual industrial style, including hired work by trained musicians. Later work returned to the sound collage and noise elements of earlier industrial, borrowing from funk and disco. P-Orridge also founded Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth, a quasi-religious organization that produced video art. Their commercial aspirations were managed by Stevo of Some Bizzare Records, who released many of the later industrial musicians, including Einstürzende Neubauten, Test Dept, and Cabaret Voltaire. Around 1983, Cabaret Voltaire members were deeply interested in funk music and, with the encouragement of their friends from New Order, began to develop a form of dark but danceable electrofunk. Christopherson left Psychic TV in 1983 and formed Coil with John Balance, making use of gongs and bullroarers in an attempt to conjure Martian and homosexual energy. David Tibet, a friend of Coil's, formed Current 93, alongside Douglas P. of Death In June, Steven Stapleton, and Fritz Catlin of 23 Skidoo. Both Coil and Current 93 were inspired by amphetamines and LSD. J. G. Thirlwell, a co-producer with Coil, developed a version of black comedy in industrial music, borrowing from lounge as well as noise and film music. In the early 1980s, the Chicago-based record label Wax Trax! and Canada's Nettwerk helped to expand the industrial music genre into the more accessible electro-industrial and industrial rock genres. Wax Trax! released albums by artists such as Front 242, Front Line Assembly, KMFDM, and Sister Machine Gun, while Nettwerk signed Skinny Puppy. The genre splintered into a range of offshoots collectively labelled post-industrial music, which offered more accessible and diverse styles with the incorporation of traditional pop songwriting and influences from a variety of genres including new wave, rock, pop, heavy metal, hip hop, jazz, disco, reggae, ambient music, folk music, post-punk, EDM, and new age music.