Industrial / Experimental
Industrial / Experimental is the mechanized wing of post-punk and electronic avant-garde: factory clatter, tape loops, metal percussion, distorted synths, militarized rhythm, shouted or processed vocals, and bleak sound design. It ranges from art-school provocation and cassette culture to dance-floor body music, rhythmic noise and dark cinematic atmospheres. The common thread is a refusal of prettiness: sound is treated as pressure, machinery, political theater, ritual or damaged architecture.
History
The family begins with Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, SPK, NON and Einstürzende Neubauten, who treated the studio and stage as sites for confrontation rather than polish. In the 1980s it split into post-industrial ritual music, EBM, industrial rock and darker electronic hybrids; in the 1990s labels such as Ant-Zen and Hands carried the harsher beat-driven side into rhythmic noise and power noise while Nine Inch Nails, Ministry and Skinny Puppy took industrial textures to wider audiences.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- The New Yorker on Genesis P-Orridge and industrial music
- Wired review of Industrial Revolution
- Double J classic industrial tracks
- Discogs industrial and rhythmic noise style pages