Industrial Records
Encyclopedia
Industrial Records was a record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

 established in 1976 by art/music group Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle were an English industrial, avant-garde music and visual arts group that evolved from the performance art group COUM Transmissions...

. The group, fronted by Genesis P-Orridge
Genesis P-Orridge
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is an English singer-songwriter, musician, writer and artist. P-Orridge's early confrontational performance work in COUM Transmissions in the late 1960s and early 1970s along with the industrial band Throbbing Gristle, which dealt with subjects such as prostitution,...

, Cosey Fanni Tutti
Cosey Fanni Tutti
Cosey Fanni Tutti is best known as a performance artist and for her time in Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey....

, Chris Carter
Chris Carter (musician)
Chris Carter was born on January 28, 1953 in London, England and educated at the Friern Barnet Grammar School. He is best known for being a synthesist and member of Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey...

, and Peter Christopherson
Peter Christopherson
Peter Martin Christopherson, a.k.a. Sleazy was a musician, video director and designer, and former member of the influential British design agency Hipgnosis....

, were to release their experiments in non-entertainment sound and multimedia through the label; in addition to a host of other artists on the periphery of the music business. The label gave a name to the industrial music
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...

 genre.

Background

Industrial Records was perhaps even more important an attack on the public consciousness than Throbbing Gristle. Whereas contemporary punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 rock bands were instantly co-opted into the music business, providing product for the teen-rebellion and fashion markets, Industrial Records output resolutely refused to compromise their stance, even to the audience they attracted.

Other artists released through the label included Clock DVA
Clock DVA
Clock DVA are an industrial music, post-punk and EBM group from Sheffield, England. The group was formed in 1978, with two members, Adolphus "Adi" Newton and Steven "Judd" Turner. Along with contemporaries Heaven 17, Clock DVA's name was inspired by the Russian-influenced Nadsat of Anthony Burgess'...

 and The Leather Nun
Leather Nun
The Leather Nun were a Swedish rock group. Careening from garage rock to goth and industrial, Leather Nun became cult heroes in their native land...

, plus outrage artist Monte Cazazza
Monte Cazazza
Monte Cazazza is an American artist and composer best known for his seminal role in helping shape the early landscape of industrial music through recordings with the London-based Industrial Records in the mid-1970s.-Career:...

, the author William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...

 and a solo album by TG member Chris Carter
Chris Carter (musician)
Chris Carter was born on January 28, 1953 in London, England and educated at the Friern Barnet Grammar School. He is best known for being a synthesist and member of Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey...

. One of the most incongruous releases on the Industrial Records label was a version of the blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 standard "Stormy Weather" sung by Elisabeth Welch
Elisabeth Welch
thumb|right|200pxElisabeth Welch was an American born singer, actress, and entertainer whose career spanned seven decades, many years of which she was based in Britain....

, taken from the soundtrack of Derek Jarman
Derek Jarman
Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman was an English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener and author.-Life:...

's film The Tempest.

Marketing was purposely anti-commercial, ironic and propagandist. P-Orridge pointedly noted that gratuitous content was a commonplace in entertainment marketing and questioned why his use of pornography, sado-masochism and genocide should be objectional in the light of their being a pointer to existing, and acceptable, ploys within the industry. Disturbing and thought-provoking imagery and packaging complemented Industrial Records output: TG's debut LP was limited to 786 copies and came in bootleg
Bootleg recording
A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging...

 packaging, a plain white card sleeve with glued-on xerox
Xerox
Xerox Corporation is an American multinational document management corporation that produced and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...

 information strips; the Industrial Records logo appears to be a stark black and white depiction of the chimney at Auschwitz death camp - industry at its darkest - but is in fact a low-definition photo of the Bankside Power Station, now the Tate Modern
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...

 art museum in the U.K., where TG have played on occasion; and the Woolworths bargain-bin kitsch
Kitsch
Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that...

 packaging of 20 Jazz Funk Greats
20 Jazz Funk Greats
20 Jazz Funk Greats is the third full-length album by industrial music pioneers Throbbing Gristle. The track "Still Walking" also appears on the live album Heathen Earth, although with a radically different structure...

 portrayed TG as pop artists, posing in casual-wear on Beachy Head
Beachy Head
Beachy Head is a chalk headland on the south coast of England, close to the town of Eastbourne in the county of East Sussex, immediately east of the Seven Sisters. The cliff there is the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, rising to 162 m above sea level. The peak allows views of the south...

, Britain's most popular suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 location. Not content with a single live release, the label released a cassette box set 24 hours of TG; documenting the first 24 TG live performances in their entirety.

The label served to provide a record of the industry of Throbbing Gristle and their label-mates and by the time of its dissolution was one of the most successful British independent labels, boasting full-page ads in music weeklies and unfailingly selling out its limited edition releases. Fittingly, a TG 'greatest hits' album was subtitled Entertainment Through Pain
Greatest Hits (Throbbing Gristle album)
Greatest Hits is a compilation of Throbbing Gristle material.-Track listing:#"Hamburger Lady" - 4:11#"Hot on the Heels of Love" - 4:21#"Subhuman" - 2:58#"AB/7A" - 4:49#"Six Six Sixties" - 2:07...

.

Throbbing Gristle disbanded in 1981 and went on to pursue their own projects. As Chris And Cosey
Chris and Cosey
Chris & Cosey, now performing as Carter Tutti, are a band formed in 1981, consisting of partners Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, both previously members of industrial music pioneers Throbbing Gristle.- History :...

, Coil
Coil (band)
Coil were an English cross-genre, experimental music group formed in 1982 by John Balance—later credited as "Jhonn Balance"—and his partner Peter Christopherson, aka "Sleazy". The duo worked together on a series of releases before Balance chose the name Coil, which he claimed to be...

, Psychic TV
Psychic TV
Psychic TV or PTV, is a video art and music group that primarily performs psychedelic, punk, electronic and experimental music...

, Genesis
Genesis P-Orridge
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is an English singer-songwriter, musician, writer and artist. P-Orridge's early confrontational performance work in COUM Transmissions in the late 1960s and early 1970s along with the industrial band Throbbing Gristle, which dealt with subjects such as prostitution,...

, Cosey (solo)
Cosey Fanni Tutti
Cosey Fanni Tutti is best known as a performance artist and for her time in Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey....

, Chris (solo)
Chris Carter (musician)
Chris Carter was born on January 28, 1953 in London, England and educated at the Friern Barnet Grammar School. He is best known for being a synthesist and member of Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey...

 and Sleazy
Peter Christopherson
Peter Martin Christopherson, a.k.a. Sleazy was a musician, video director and designer, and former member of the influential British design agency Hipgnosis....

 continue to elaborate and expand upon what they originally discovered back in the early seventies together. The Industrial Records label lay dormant for twenty years, although its products, still popular to a niche audience, continued to be made available through material licensed to specialist independent label Mute
Mute Records
Mute is an independent record label based in the UK. It was founded in 1978 by Daniel Miller and featured several prominent musical acts on its roster such as Goldfrapp, Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Erasure and Fad Gadget.-Beginnings:...

 and others throughout the world. Then, in 2002, the label was reactivated for a special remastered re-release of 24 hours of TG in a 24 CD box set format. More recent Industrial Records releases include: Part Two, The Endless Not, TGV (DVD boxed set) and a multi-disc CD release of the Throbbing Gristle 'Desertshore' installation at the I.C.A London in 2007. Due for release in 2008 is the vinyl limited edition live album 32nd Annual Report.

In 2011 the label had an official "re-activation" as TG's contract with Mute Records had expired. Since TG has permanently disbanded following the death of Sleazy
Peter Christopherson
Peter Martin Christopherson, a.k.a. Sleazy was a musician, video director and designer, and former member of the influential British design agency Hipgnosis....

, the label's plan is to rerelease the original TG albums (The Second Annual Report
The Second Annual Report
The Second Annual Report is an album by the industrial music group Throbbing Gristle. A combination of live and studio songs, the album was originally released on 12" vinyl in 1977, and later pressed to CD, with additional tracks, in 1991....

, D.o.A: The Third and Final Report
D.o.A: The Third and Final Report
D.o.A: The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle is an album by industrial music pioneers Throbbing Gristle.- Vinyl notes :First 1000 on Industrial enclosed a card calendar with color photo of little girl on bed...

, 20 Jazz Funk Greats
20 Jazz Funk Greats
20 Jazz Funk Greats is the third full-length album by industrial music pioneers Throbbing Gristle. The track "Still Walking" also appears on the live album Heathen Earth, although with a radically different structure...

, Heathen Earth
Heathen Earth
Heathen Earth is a live album by Throbbing Gristle. Tracks 1- 8 document their performance in 1980 on "Saturday the 16th of February between 8:10pm and 9:00pm". Track 9 is from a performance on July 06 1978 . Track 10 is from a performance on May 18 1978....

, and Greatest Hits
Greatest Hits (Throbbing Gristle album)
Greatest Hits is a compilation of Throbbing Gristle material.-Track listing:#"Hamburger Lady" - 4:11#"Hot on the Heels of Love" - 4:21#"Subhuman" - 2:58#"AB/7A" - 4:49#"Six Six Sixties" - 2:07...

) on the label. Originally intended to be released en masse on September 26th 2011 they had to delay due to a Sony DADC warehouse fire in London. The new plan is that each album will be released chronologically once every week starting on Halloween 2011 with The Second Annual Report and ending November 28th with TG's Greatest Hits.

Discography

  • IR 0002 - Throbbing Gristle
    Throbbing Gristle
    Throbbing Gristle were an English industrial, avant-garde music and visual arts group that evolved from the performance art group COUM Transmissions...

     - The Second Annual Report
    The Second Annual Report
    The Second Annual Report is an album by the industrial music group Throbbing Gristle. A combination of live and studio songs, the album was originally released on 12" vinyl in 1977, and later pressed to CD, with additional tracks, in 1991....

    (LP)
  • IR 0003 - Throbbing Gristle - United/Zyklon B Zombie
    United/Zyklon B Zombie
    United/Zyklon B Zombie is a 7" vinyl single by industrial group Throbbing Gristle. The original pressing by Industrial Records had cream centre labels with very blurred Death Factory Logo and picture sleeve...

    (7")
  • IR 0004 - Throbbing Gristle - D.o.A: The Third and Final Report
    D.o.A: The Third and Final Report
    D.o.A: The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle is an album by industrial music pioneers Throbbing Gristle.- Vinyl notes :First 1000 on Industrial enclosed a card calendar with color photo of little girl on bed...

    (LP)
  • IR 0005 - Monte Cazazza
    Monte Cazazza
    Monte Cazazza is an American artist and composer best known for his seminal role in helping shape the early landscape of industrial music through recordings with the London-based Industrial Records in the mid-1970s.-Career:...

     - To Mom on Mother's Day (7")
  • IR 0006 - The Leather Nun
    Leather Nun
    The Leather Nun were a Swedish rock group. Careening from garage rock to goth and industrial, Leather Nun became cult heroes in their native land...

     - Slow Death EP
    Slow Death EP
    Slow Death is the debut release by Swedish rockers The Leather Nun.-History:Singer Jonas Almquist landed a recording contract for a single with Industrial Records. He recorded "Death Threats" at Bagger Studio engineered by Magnus Bagger on December 14, 1978...

    (7")
  • IR 0007 - Thomas Leer
    Thomas Leer
    Thomas Leer is a British musician who as well as releasing a number of albums and singles in his own right, was also one half of the 1980s electropop band Act...

     & Robert Rental
    Robert Rental
    Robert Rental was the stage name of Robert Donnachie , a pioneer of the post punk DIY industrial electronic music scene in the United Kingdom.-Biography:...

     - The Bridge (LP)
  • IR 0008 - Throbbing Gristle - 20 Jazz Funk Greats
    20 Jazz Funk Greats
    20 Jazz Funk Greats is the third full-length album by industrial music pioneers Throbbing Gristle. The track "Still Walking" also appears on the live album Heathen Earth, although with a radically different structure...

    (LP)
  • IR 0009 - Throbbing Gristle - Heathen Earth
    Heathen Earth
    Heathen Earth is a live album by Throbbing Gristle. Tracks 1- 8 document their performance in 1980 on "Saturday the 16th of February between 8:10pm and 9:00pm". Track 9 is from a performance on July 06 1978 . Track 10 is from a performance on May 18 1978....

    (LP)
  • IR 0010 - Monte Cazazza - Something For Nobody (7")
  • IR 0011 - Surgical Penis Klinik
    SPK (band)
    SPK, formed in 1978 in Sydney, Australia, was a 1980s and early 1990s industrial music and noise music group. One member, Graeme Revell, would later go on to become a successful Hollywood movie composer.-History:...

     - Meat Processing Section (7")
  • IR 0012 - Elisabeth Welch
    Elisabeth Welch
    thumb|right|200pxElisabeth Welch was an American born singer, actress, and entertainer whose career spanned seven decades, many years of which she was based in Britain....

     - Stormy Weather (7")
  • IR 0013 - Throbbing Gristle - Subhuman/Something Came Over Me
    Subhuman/Something Came Over Me
    Subhuman/Something Came Over Me is a single by Throbbing Gristle.Simultaneously released with Adrenalin/Distant Dreams Center labels of TG lightning flash logo with white central stripe and Red flash. No Death Factory logo. Message "White Stains" scratched into Something Came Over Me side. Picture...

    (7")
  • IR 0014 - Dorothy - I Confess (7")
  • IR 0015 - Throbbing Gristle - Adrenalin/Distant Dreams (Part Two)
    Adrenalin/Distant Dreams (Part Two)
    Adrenalin/Distant Dreams is a single by Throbbing Gristle.Simultaneously released with Subhuman/Something Came Over Me. Center labels of TG lightning flash logo with black central stripe and red flash. Messages "Second Attempt" and "rident Rool" on Adrenalin side in center. Picture sleeve in black...

    (7")
  • IR 0016 - William S. Burroughs
    William S. Burroughs
    William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...

     - Nothing Here Now But The Recordings (LP)
  • IRC 00 - Throbbing Gristle - Best Of.... Volume I
    Best Of.... Volume I
    Best Of.... Volume I is a cassette release by industrial group Throbbing Gristle. It is be the first ever recorded material by Throbbing Gristle, although it is possible that TG did experiment with "industrial music" music in a long time to end up with the concept off which they got to.The liner...

    (Cass)
  • IRC 01 - Throbbing Gristle - Best Of.... Volume II
    Best Of.... Volume II
    Best Of.... Volume II is a cassette release by industrial group Throbbing Gristle, and was the second ever released material by them. It was originally handcopied and limited to 50 copies, but later rereleased in the original TG24 cassette boxset...

    (Cass)
  • IRC 02 - Throbbing Gristle - At the ICA London (Cass)
  • IRC 04 - Throbbing Gristle - At the Nag's Head, High Wycombe (Cass)
  • IRC 05 - Throbbing Gristle - At the Brighton Polytechnic (Cass)
  • IRC 06 - Throbbing Gristle - At Nuffield Theatre, Southampton (Cass)
  • IRC 07 - Throbbing Gristle - At the Rat Club (Cass)
  • IRC 08 - Throbbing Gristle - At the Highbury Roundhouse (Cass)
  • IRC 09 - Throbbing Gristle - At the Art School Winchester (Cass)
  • IRC 10 - Throbbing Gristle - At the Rat Club The Valentino Rooms (Cass)
  • IRC 11 - Throbbing Gristle - At the Brighton Polytechnic (Cass)
  • IRC 12 - Throbbing Gristle - At the Architectural Association (Cass)
  • IRC 13 - Throbbing Gristle - At Goldsmith's College (Cass)
  • IRC 14 - Throbbing Gristle - At the Industrial Training College (Cass)
  • IRC 15 - Throbbing Gristle - At the London Film Makers Co-Op (Cass)
  • IRC 16 - Throbbing Gristle - At the Crypt Club (Cass)
  • IRC 17 - Throbbing Gristle - At Centro Iberico (Cass)
  • IRC 18 - Throbbing Gristle - At Ajanta Cinema (Cass)
  • IRC 19 - Throbbing Gristle - At Now Society (Cass)
  • IRC 20 - Throbbing Gristle - At the Factory (Cass)
  • IRC 21 - Throbbing Gristle - At Guild Hall (Cass)
  • IRC 22 - Throbbing Gristle - At The Y.M.C.A. (Cass)
  • IRC 23 - Throbbing Gristle - Pastimes/Industrial Muzak
    Pastimes/Industrial Muzak
    Pastimes/Industrial Muzac is a cassette release by industrial group Throbbing Gristle. This album is a studio release with no exact track list available. The cover says: "Inc. Pastimes, Industrial Muzac." Both tracks are previously unreleased studio recordings.Side A is in mono while Side B is in...

    (Cass)
  • IRC 24 - Throbbing Gristle - At Butlers Wharf (Cass)
  • IRC 25 - Throbbing Gristle - At Leeds Fan Club (Cass)
  • IRC 26 - Throbbing Gristle - At Scala Cinema (Cass)
  • IRC 27 - The Leather Nun - At Scala Cinema, London/Music Palais Kungsgatan (Cass)
  • IRC 28 - Monte Cazazza - At Leeds Fan Club/Scala, London/Oundle School (Cass)
  • IRC 29 - Throbbing Gristle - At Goldsmiths College (Cass)
  • IRC 30 - Throbbing Gristle - At Oundle Public School (Cass)
  • IRC 31 - Clock DVA
    Clock DVA
    Clock DVA are an industrial music, post-punk and EBM group from Sheffield, England. The group was formed in 1978, with two members, Adolphus "Adi" Newton and Steven "Judd" Turner. Along with contemporaries Heaven 17, Clock DVA's name was inspired by the Russian-influenced Nadsat of Anthony Burgess'...

     - White Souls In Black Suits (Cass)
  • IRC 32 - Chris Carter
    Chris Carter (musician)
    Chris Carter was born on January 28, 1953 in London, England and educated at the Friern Barnet Grammar School. He is best known for being a synthesist and member of Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey...

     - The Space Between (Cass)
  • IRC 33 - Throbbing Gristle - At Sheffield University (Cass)
  • IRC 34 - Richard H. Kirk
    Richard H. Kirk
    Richard H. Kirk is an English musician specialising in electronic music since the 1970s.-Background:Richard H. Kirk first came to prominence in the 1970s as a member of the seminal industrial band Cabaret Voltaire...

     - Disposable Half-Truths (Cass)
  • IRC 35 - Cabaret Voltaire
    Cabaret Voltaire (band)
    Cabaret Voltaire were a British music group from Sheffield, England.Initially composed of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson, the group was named after the Cabaret Voltaire, a nightclub in Zürich, Switzerland that was a centre for the early Dada movement.Their earliest performances...

     - 1974 - 1976 (Cass)
  • (none) - Throbbing Gristle - The Taste of TG
    The Taste of TG
    The Taste of TG is a compilation album by Throbbing Gristle. The cover art is a manipulation by Peter Christopherson of a still from the Pier Paolo Pasolini movie Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma.-Track listing:#"Industrial Introduction" - 1:05#"Distant Dreams " - 5:30#"Persuasion USA" -...

    (CD)
  • (none) - Throbbing Gristle - TG Now
    TG Now
    TG Now is an album by industrial group Throbbing Gristle. The 12" vinyl was limited to 500 copies and the CD version was limited to 3,000 copies.-CD:#"X-Ray" - 8:36#"Splitting Sky" - 12:08#"Almost Like This" - 10:47#"How Do You Deal" - 13:57...

    (CD)
  • (none) - Throbbing Gristle - Live December 2004 A Souvenir of Camber Sands
    Live December 2004 A Souvenir of Camber Sands
    Live December 2004 A Souvenir Of Camber Sands is a live album by Throbbing Gristle released on the night of the performance. The performance and CD are both dedicated to John Balance who died in November 2004. The CD-R set was on sale minutes after Throbbing Gristle finished performing. Leftovers...

    (2xCDr)
  • IR 2009/4 - Throbbing Gristle - The Third Mind Movements
    The Third Mind Movements
    The Third Mind Movements is an album released by British industrial group Throbbing Gristle in April 2009 from recordings made at the 2007 Desertshore Installation at the Institute of Contemporary Art on 1 to 3 June 2007. All of the original line-up were present...

    (CD)

Official


Unofficial

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