INDUSTRIAL

For many, the term ‘Industrial’ conjures the tuneful primal scream behind Nine Inch Nails or in-your-face aggro of Ministry. For others, the moniker is forever linked with the electronic body music of Front 242. Yet, as a genre, it was initially harder to pin down than its familiar form of the mid-90s.

Monte Cazazza coined the term to describe the art-noise of bands like Throbbing Gristle, who used it for their own record label. Bleak, hopeless, dystopian, and with the faint whiff of desiccation, early industrial music could at turns sound like a symphony of printing presses or an unashamed nod to Tangerine Dream – and just about anything in between.

Industrial music in its most familiar form wouldn’t happen until the art-noise contingent began adding drum machine-derived rhythms. Ex-Throbbing Gristlers Chris and Cosey predicted the future with , while Cabaret Voltaire shook Sheffield with the unlikely funk of . Severed Heads and SPK were there, too, the former creating an unlikely dance-floor classic, the latter reaching for