Throbbing Gristle were an English industrial

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...

, avant-garde

Avant-garde music

Avant-garde music is a term used to characterize music which is thought to be ahead of its time, i.e. containing innovative elements or fusing different genres....

 music and visual arts

Visual arts

The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...

 group that evolved from the performance art

Performance art

In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...

 group COUM Transmissions

COUM Transmissions

COUM Transmissions was a performance art group interested in pushing boundaries, influenced by Dada and the Merry Pranksters.CT was a whimsical, eccentric as well as confrontational band and performance art group, from Hull, Yorkshire – a collective the constants of which were its...

. The band consisted of 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,...

 (aka Neil Megson - bass guitar, violin, vocals, vibraphone), 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....

 (guitars, cornet, vocals), Peter "Sleazy" 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....

 (tapes, found sounds, horns, piano, vibraphone, synthesizer), and 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...

 (synthesizers, tapes, electronics).
Throbbing Gristle evolved from the performance art group COUM Transmissions

COUM Transmissions

COUM Transmissions was a performance art group interested in pushing boundaries, influenced by Dada and the Merry Pranksters.CT was a whimsical, eccentric as well as confrontational band and performance art group, from Hull, Yorkshire – a collective the constants of which were its...

, which was formed in Kingston Upon Hull, England, by a group of performers centered on 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,...

 and Cosey Fanni Tutti.