•
Rating: Essential History of Electronic Music
IX. Throbbing Gristle and the First Industrial Era
The point is that in the experience of Throbbing Gristle noise became the word.
Aiming to irremediably affect the contemporary cultural scene and beyond, the intuition of the London collective was sparked by the new "industrial" conception of modern music, an impromptu sfraghís of an ensemble that first in the world thought to transfer to recorded tape the devouring conflict between the industrial monster and man. Resurrected from the lascivious ashes of Coum Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle developed a new radical aesthetic capable of incorporating art, music, and acting: the "total" theater of Genesis P. Orridge, leader of the collective, took shape in an apocalyptic representation where the obscene, mostly perpetrated by Orridge himself and the lustful partner Cosey Fanni Tutti, embodied the roughest forms of fetishistic pornography. Power of the grotesque: not since the times of Aeschylus' Eumenides had the epiphany of the tragic, a cloaca of urine, blood, and enemas, so vividly emerged, where the dramatic experience of the audience could, akin to the disorientation of the impatient attendees of Greek theater, find a cathartic requiem.
The generic dissonance did not spare sound, initiated by the electronic experiments of Chris Carter: in its "concrete" matrix, the music of Throbbing Gristle was a brutally atonal experience. In the first documented discography that gained recognition in September 1977, with the sole exception of the martial robotic of the concluding "United," the sound of "Second Annual Report" appeared as a jagged and muddy sonic magma where one could only discern the orgiastic charge of the total experience that tracks like "Maggot Death" and "Slug Bait" brought with them in theatrical performances. The equipment, rarely acoustic (Fanni Tutti sketched atonal guitar sequences and Porridge echoed them with the bass, while Cristopherson amused himself with horns), was enriched by synthesizers crafted by Carter's creative genius, including the inevitable magnetic tape, the indiscreet collector of the concrete experiences of the four Londoners. It was the first brick of the "Death Factory," the recording studio of the London quartet that in a short time would realize the war machine in their own hands. Moving away from the barren and inhospitable land of "Second Annual Report," Throbbing took more care in the record aspect by conceiving a sound exquisitely prepared for the tape: the result was "D.O.A. - Third And Final Annual Report," a second work already miles away from the sound of the previous work; metallic components, bolts, braces, washers of a massive and huffing industrial machine. While "Weeping" danced, swaying in a catatonic mood, "Hometime" lingered in the limbo of consciousness among children's voices and synth's languors before giving way to the surprising dance evolution of "AB/7A," so ethereal as to no longer appear linked to the Throbbing sound. The only granite "Walls Of Sound" referred back to the monolithic beginnings, lending itself to the usual cliché composed of noisy radiations and dissonant synth carpets; the remaining production, while still predominantly atonal and monotonous, nevertheless presented itself in a more conventional guise. Substantially industrial music had found its definitive dimension, emerging from the fleeting spontaneity of theatrical representation. The picture was thus completed by subsequent works "20 Jazz Funk Greats" and "Heathen Earth," still fragmentary manifestations of the anguished lament of man crushed by the machine. The script remained the same: where Fanni and Genesis hinted at playing winds and strings, Carter covered the entire musical knowledge with his synthesizers with the valuable help of Cristopherson's effects. The reification of industrial noise had become evident in music.
In 1981, after two more studio works, Throbbing decided by mutual consent to conclude their journey, an excellent measure of the temporary value of their remarkable artistic career. The industrial apocalypse will hang like a sword of Damocles over the heads of many musical interpreters from the '80s to the present day.
Since it is neither music, nor art, nor rhetoric, but all these things put together, it still permeates the gloomy air of London, often releasing the ashen clouds of the Death Factory.
If you didn't like this review, you can wait for the next chapter or go back and make another choice!
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
03 United (00:16)
You and I
You and I
Living together
Loving forever
At our distance
Another for instance
United United
You become me
And I becomy you
She is she
And she is you too
United United
A corresponding game to play
A special way for us to stay
United United
Its a lie
Its the same
It's a sigh
It's a game
Its the why
Its the where and the when we're United
United
You and I You and I
United United
Four faces blending blending blending
Neverending
Our places sending
Shades of evening
You and I You and I United United
Oceans between us
Sky between us
Land between us
Fire between us
We're United United
Can't stop it
United United
You are my Knight
You are my night-night my evening
Its very plain to say
Its a strange system
You miss them
You want to be them
You have to see them
You have to be them
United United
You and me la la la la
You and I
Make ourselves forever together forever and ever
United United
Love is the law
Love is the law
Love is the law
Love is the law
United United United You and I You and I United
TIme will see us
Time will free us
Time will be us
We are everywhere
There is no why
There is no sky anymore
There is just us United
United
07 Hamburger Lady (04:15)
By far worse is the hambuger lady,
We must heal them for the qualified technicians,
Worse,
Alternating nights are automatic,
She's lying there,
Hamburger Lady
Hamburger Lady
She's dying,
She is burned from the waist up,
On her arm,
Her ear is burned,
Her eyelashes are burned,
She can't hold things up,
And even with medical advances,
There's no end in sight,
For hamburger lady,
She wants me to tell you of her claim mind,
From which the double play laying,
The proping chair,
Leave her,
She's Burned from the waist down,
Has to eat her life through tubes,
Hamburger Lady
Hamburger Lady
She's okay if you change the tubes,
Tubes in her legs,
the tubes in her arms,
She's okay,
Then it came out and saw the burn net,
Indeed in the account of killing,
And it flashed on the carpet,
And it flashed on the floor,
The hamburger lady,
She came to rest,
Because of the burn she needs relief,
From the medication,
The qualified Technician,
Hamburger Lady
Hamburger Lady
13 Blood on the Floor (01:07)
I've got to tell you It's that blood, blood on the floor It's that blood, blood on the floor It's that blood, blood on the floor It's that blood, blood on the floor At the little school I went out I broke the rules School bully with his Crew cut and his big shoulders Telling me I was a pansy Just like always Blood on the floor Blood on the door, dooor
Loading comments slowly
