Industrial music
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about a musical genre. For other uses, see Industrial (disambiguation).
| Industrial | |
| Stylistic origins | |
|---|---|
| Cultural origins | |
| Typical instruments |
Synthesizer - Drum machine - Tape loops - Drums - Guitar - Found objects - Modified electronics (in latter incarnations were added Sequencer - Keyboard - Sampler)
|
| Mainstream popularity | Underground |
| Derivative forms | Aggrotech - Ambient Industrial - EBM - Electro-industrial - Glitch - Industrial metal - Industrial percussion - Industrial rock - IDM - Martial Industrial |
| Other topics | |
| List of noise musicians - Post-industrial music and related fusion genres | |
Industrial music comprises many styles of experimental music, including many forms of electronic music. The term was coined in the mid-1970s to describe Industrial Records artists. Since then, a wide variety of labels and artists have come to be called "industrial." The Allmusic website defines industrial as the "most abrasive and aggressive fusion of rock and electronic music"; "initially a blend of avant-garde electronics experiments (tape music, musique concrète, white noise, synthesizers, sequencers, etc.) and punk provocation".[1]
The first industrial artists experimented with noise and controversial topics. Their production was not limited to music, but included mail art, performance art, installation pieces and other art forms.[2] Prominent industrial musicians include Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, Boyd Rice, SPK, and Z'EV.[2] While the term initially referred to musicians signed to Industrial Records, it broadened to include artists influenced by the original movement or using an "industrial" aesthetic.[3]
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[edit] Origin of the term industrial music
Industrial Records intended the term industrial to evoke the idea of music created for a new generation, previous music being more "agricultural".
| “ | There's an irony in the word 'industrial' because there's the music industry. And then there's the joke we often used to make in interviews about churning out our records like motorcars –- that sense of industrial. And ... up till then the music had been kind of based on the blues and slavery, and we thought it was time to update it to at least Victorian times -- you know, the Industrial Revolution. - Genesis P-Orridge[4] | ” |
A misanthropic and often dehumanized or mechanical atmosphere was present in the music and its gritty, hands-on technologies and techniques, rather than any concrete compositional detail. Industrial music often includes the sounds of found objects, such as trash cans and bottles.
[edit] History
[edit] Precursors
Groups cited as inspirational by the founders of industrial music include The Velvet Underground, Joy Division, and Martin Denny.[5] Genesis P-Orridge's cassette library included recordings by the Master Musicians of Jajouka, Kraftwerk, Charles Manson, and William S. Burroughs.[6] Alexei Monroe argues that Kraftwerk were particularly significant in the development of industrial music, as the "first successful artists to incorporate representations of industrial sounds into nonacademic electronic music."[7] Monroe also argues for Suicide as an influential contemporary of the industrial musicians.[7] Boyd Rice particularly enjoyed Lesley Gore, and Abba.[8] Z'EV appreciated Tim Buckley, Gang of Four, Motörhead, and Captain Beefheart, among others.[9] Many of the initial industrial musicians preferred to cite artists or thinkers, rather than musicians, as their inspiration. SPK, for example, appreciated Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault, Walter Benjamin, Marshall McLuhan, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Gilles Deleuze.[10] Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine detects the inspiration of Brian Eno and Can on Cabaret Voltaire's work.[11]
[edit] Industrial Records
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Industrial Music for Industrial People was originally coined by Monte Cazazza[12] as the strapline for the record label Industrial Records (founded by British art-provocateurs Throbbing Gristle,[13] the musical offshoot of performance art group COUM Transmissions[14]).
The first wave of this music appeared in 1977 with Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire,[15] and NON.[16] These releases often featured tape editing, stark percussion and loops distorted to the point where they had 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.[17]
[edit] Expansion of the scene
Bands like Test Dept,[18] Clock DVA,[19] Nocturnal Emissions,[20] Whitehouse,[21] and SPK[22] 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 was Laibach.[23] Swedish act The Leather Nun, were signed to Industrial Records in 1978, being the first non-TG/Cazazza act to have an IR-release.[24] Their singles eventually received significant airplay in the United States on college radio.[25]
Across the Atlantic, similar experiments were taking place. In San Francisco, performance artist Monte Cazazza began recording noise music.[26] Boyd Rice released several albums of noise, with guitar drones and tape loops creating a cacophony of repetitive sounds.[27] In Italy, work by Maurizio Bianchi at the beginning of the 1980s also shared this aesthetic.[28] In Germany, Einstürzende Neubauten mixed metal percussion, guitars and unconventional instruments (such as jackhammers and bones) in stage performances that often damaged the venues in which they played.[29] 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.[30]
[edit] Conceptual elements
Industrial groups typically focus on transgressive subject matter. In his introduction for the Industrial Culture Handbook (1983), Jon Savage considered some hallmarks of industrial music to be organizational autonomy, shock tactics and the use of synthesizers and "anti-music".[31] Furthermore, an interest in the investigation of "cults, wars, psychological techniques of persuasion, unusual murders (especially by children and psychopaths), forensic pathology, venereology, concentration camp behavior, the history of uniforms and insignia" and "Aleister Crowley's magick" was present in Throbbing Gristle's work,[32] as well as in other industrial pioneers. While many of the first industrial musicians were interested in, though not necessarily at all sympathetic with, fascism,[33] some early groups, such as Test Dept, were explicitly left wing.[34]
[edit] Post-industrial
Post-industrial music is an umbrella term for a variety of music genres that emerged in the early 1980s, following the emergence of industrial music. These offshoots include fusions with noise music, ambient music, folk music, and electronic dance music, as well as other mutations and developments. The scene has spread worldwide, and is particularly well-represented in North America, Europe, and Japan. Post-industrial subgenres include ambient industrial, power electronics, Japanoise, neofolk, electro-industrial, electronic body music, industrial hip hop, industrial rock, and power noise.
[edit] Bibliography
- Monroe, Alexei. Interrogation Machine: Laibach and NSK. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2005.
- V. Vale and Andrea Juno, Re/Search #6/7: Industrial Culture Handbook, San Francisco: V/Search, 1983. ISBN 0-9650469-6-6
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ [1]
- ^ a b V.Vale. Re/Search #6/7: Industrial Culture Handbook, 1983.
- ^ "... journalists now use 'industrial' as a term like they would 'blues.' - Genesis P-Orridge, RE/Search #6/7, p. 16.
- ^ RE/Search #6/7, p. 9-10.
- ^ RE/Search #6/7, p. 11-12.
- ^ RE/Search #6/7, p. 19.
- ^ a b Monroe, p. 212
- ^ RE/Search #6/7, p. 67.
- ^ RE/Search #6/7, p. 117.
- ^ RE/Search #6/7, p. 97-105.
- ^ [2]
- ^ TG CD I liner notes. P. Orridge states: "Monte Cazazza suggested our business slogan should be INDUSTRIAL MUSIC FOR INDUSTRIAL PEOPLE." [3]
- ^ Kilpatrick, Nancy. The Goth Bible: A Compendium for the Darkly Inclined. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2004, ISBN 0-312-3069602, p. 86.
- ^ RE/Search #6/7, p. 17.
- ^ RE/Search #6/7, p. 42-49.
- ^ RE/Search #6/7, p. 50-67.
- ^ RE/Search #6/7, p. 5.
- ^ [4]
- ^ [5]
- ^ [6]
- ^ [7]
- ^ RE/Search #6/7, p. 92-105.
- ^ [8]
- ^ [9]
- ^ [10]
- ^ RE/Search #6/7, p. 68-81.
- ^ RE/Search #6/7, p. 50-67.
- ^ [11]
- ^ [12]
- ^ Kilpatrick, Nancy. The Goth Bible: A Compendium for the Darkly Inclined. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2004, ISBN 0-312-3069602, p. 86.
- ^ RE/Search #6/7, p. 5.
- ^ RE/Search #6/7, p. 9.
- ^ RE/Search #6/7, p. 105
- ^ [13]
[edit] External links
- "20 best: industrial & EBM." Fact magazine article.
- The rec.music.industrial USENET group FAQ file
- IndustrialnatioN Magazine
- Industrial music magazine
- Musicology thesis on Industrial music.
- Fabryka Industrial Rock webzine
- allmusic entry on Industrial music
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