Everything about Industrial Music totally explained
Industrial music is a loose term for a number of different styles of
experimental music, especially but not necessarily
electronic music. The term was first used in the mid-
1970s to describe the then-unique sound of
Industrial Records artists. Since then, an extremely wide variety of labels and artists have since come to be called "Industrial."
The first industrial artists experimented with varying degrees of noise, production techniques and what, at the time, were considered controversial topics. Their production wasn't only limited to musical output. It also included mail art, performance art, installation pieces and other art forms.
Originally, the term solely referred to music created by Industrial Records and related artists. As time progressed, the term began to refer to artists either directly influenced by the original movement, artists using an "industrial" aesthetic such as imagery devised around mechanical objects and industry itself and, more distantly, artists who were only minimally, often not at all, influenced or inspired by Industrial Records and related artists. The broadening of the term's musical definition has led to an overwhelming number of sub-genres and lines of influence.
Terminology
Industrial was a term meant by its creators to evoke the idea of music created for a new generation of people, previous music being more "agricultural." A fatalist-but-realistic, slightly misanthropic and often intensely dehumanized or mechanical atmosphere was present in the music and the utilization of gritty, hands-on technologies and techniques, rather than any concrete compositional detail, was a common practice. Another common matter of industrial music is the use of
found objects, such as trash cans and bottles.
On this topic,
Peter Christopherson of Industrial Records once remarked, "The original idea of Industrial Records was to reject what the growing
industry was telling you at the time what music was supposed to be."
Industrial music is the term meant for everyday outside noises such as working jack hammers.
History
Early influences
Luigi Russolo's 1913 work
The Art of Noises is often cited as the first example of the industrial philosophy in modern music. After Russolo's
Musica Futurista came
Pierre Schaeffer and
musique concrète, and this gave rise to early industrial music, which was made by manipulating cut sections of recording tape, and adding very early sound output from analog electronics devices.
Also important in the development of the genre was the
Dada art movement, and later the
Fluxus and
Surrealist art movements, as well as the 'found object' aesthetic of the
Arts and Crafts movement.
Edgard Varèse was also a major pioneer in electronic music. His composition
Poème électronique, for example, debuted at the
1958 Brussels World's Fair in the
Philips Pavilion.
Ralf Hütter initially described the music of
Kraftwerk as "
Industrielle Volksmusik (Industrial Folk Music)" in the group's earliest interviews.
Industrial Records
Industrial Music for Industrial People was originally coined by
Monte Cazazza as the strapline for the record label
Industrial Records (founded by British art-provocateurs
Throbbing Gristle, the musical offshoot of performance art group
COUM Transmissions).
The first wave of this music appeared in 1977 with
Throbbing Gristle,
Cabaret Voltaire, and
NON. These releases often featured tape editing, stark percussion and loops distorted to the point where they'd degraded to harsh noise. Vocals were sporadic, and were as likely to be
bubblegum pop as they were to be abrasive polemics.
Early industrial
performances often involved
taboo-breaking, provocative elements, such as
mutilation,
sado-masochistic elements and
totalitarian imagery or symbolism, as well as forms of audience abuse.
Swedish rock act
The Leather Nun, were signed to Industrial Records in 1978, being the first non-TG/Cazazza act to have an IR-release. Their only IR-release, Slow Death EP (IR 007, nov '79), rapidly climbed the alternative charts in the UK and was on power play on the influential John Peel BBC1 radioshow for two weeks in December '79.
Bands like
Test Dept,
Clock DVA,
Factrix,
Autopsia,
Nocturnal Emissions,
Esplendor Geometrico,
Whitehouse,
Severed Heads and
SPK soon followed. Blending electronic
synthesisers, guitars and early samplers, these bands created an aggressive and abrasive music fusing elements of rock with experimental electronic music. Artists often used shock-tactics including explicit lyrical content, graphic art and
Fascistic imagery; at the forefront of this were
Croc Shop and
Laibach. Industrial Records experienced a fair amount of controversy after it was revealed that it had been using an image of an
Auschwitz crematorium as its logo for a number of years.
Across the Atlantic, similar experiments were taking place. In
San Francisco, shock/performance artist
Monte Cazazza (often collaborating with
Factrix and
Survival Research Labs/SRL) began working with harsh atonal noise.
Boyd Rice (aka
NON) released several more albums of
noise music, with guitar drones and tape loops creating a cacophony of repetitive sounds. In
New Zealand, experimental / art rock groups sprouted from the underground such as
The Skeptics,
Hieronymus Bosch (NZ),
Fetus Productions, Ministry of Compulsory Joy and
The Kiwi Animal.
In the rest of Europe, particularly in Italy, work by
Maurizio Bianchi/M.B./Sacher-Pelz at the end of 1979/beginning of 1980, with some electronic/radiographic extreme works edited in a very limited edition ("Cainus", "Venus", "Cease To Exist", "Velours", "Mectpyo Blut" cassette-tapes, and "Symphony For A Genocide", "Menses", "Neuro Habitat" LPs).
In France, early artists influenced by Industrial Records included
Vivenza,
Art&Technique,
Pacific 231,
Étant Donnés, Le Syndicat and Die Form.
In Germany,
Einstürzende Neubauten were performing daring acts, mixing metal percussion, guitars and unconventional "instruments" (such as
jackhammers and bones) in elaborate stage performances that often damaged the venues they were playing in.
In Belgium, Frank Gorissen started the
industrial percussion band
Militia in 1989, following somewhat the style of
Test Department. The five Militia musicians play self-made percussion installations made from parts from cars, machines, metal tubes, metal plates, empty oil barrels, gas tubes, metal scrap material supported by a layer of samples, sequences and tape loops, in combination with conventional drums and wind instruments such as trumpets and
didgeridoo.
Post-industrial developments
Throughout the early to mid 1980s, the
post-industrial movement began to emerge around the world.
Coil, arguably the largest contributor to the evolution of Industrial music's original ideas, was formed by
Jhonn Balance and
Peter Christopherson after departing from
Psychic TV in 1982 (debuting with
How to Destroy Angels in 1984). Highly eclectic, through their career they touched on everything from
acid house to
drone music, the occult always a major influence in the group's themes and approach. Other acts like
Skinny Puppy from
Vancouver,
Canada (debuting with Back and Forth in 1984),
Front 242, the pioneers of
EBM from Belgium (debuting with Geography in 1982), and
Foetus from Australia (debuting with Deaf in 1981) are some of the most notable second-wave artists who helped popularize and redefine the genre amongst the underground music culture (and laying the foundations for most future sub-divisions of the genre).
In the early 1980s the
Chicago-based record label
Wax Trax! successfully helped to expand the industrial music genre into the more accessible "elektro-industrial" genre. At the forefront were bands such as Chicago's
Ministry,
My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult and
Die Warzau as well as the German import,
KMFDM. Wax Trax was one of the first labels to carry this new strain of
punk-influenced Industrial music. It was one of the most widely respected labels of the genre.
By the late 80s, the scene had grown considerably as the music became a staple of the club scene - artists were emerging from all over the world and record sales of key artists were increasing rapidly. One of the biggest contributors to the new brand of industrial music was
Nine Inch Nails' comparatively commercially-structured
Pretty Hate Machine, released in 1989. NIN performances began breaking the style into mainstream rock and punk culture at that point. Ultimately the band's accomplishments, alongside the likes of Ministry, led to the further development of not only the style as a whole, but of a number of rock and to an even greater degree, metal fusion sub-genres to later emerge.
The genre enjoyed relatively popular mainstream attention throughout the mid 1990's. Thanks to the charting success of albums such as Ministry's and Nine Inch Nails'
Broken, eventually leading to the multi-million selling releases of Nine Inch Nails'
The Downward Spiral. Soon thousands of new distantly industrial influenced musicians came onto the scene. In 1991
IndustrialnatioN Magazine began as an effort to document industrial music and culture.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Industrial Music'.
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