THEE INDUSTRIAL RECORDS STORY

Industrial Records began as an investigation. The 4 members of Throbbing Gristle wanted to investigate to what extent you could mutate and collage sound, present complex non entertaining noises to a popular culture situation and convince and convert. We wanted to re-invest Rock music with content, motivation and risk. Our records were documents of attitudes and experiences and observations by us and other determinedly individual outsiders. Fashion was an enemy, style irrelevant. We wanted to also investigate music as a Business phenomenon and propose models for entirely new and innovative modes of commercial operation. A parody and an improvement. Industrial Records was founded before any of thee better known of the English Independents and was at its close the 3rd largest, yet the most elusive. We wanted to make music and records more effective and relevant to our Industrial society, and we wanted to make business more efficient and creative as well. Industrial Records Limited was born. Named as the most unromantic yet appropriate title we could envisage. Big records companies produce records like cars; we are connected to a contemporary social situation, not a blues orientated past style; we work hard for what we want, we are industrious; we parody and challenge large industrial companies and their debasing ethics and depersonalisation; we work in an old factory; industrial labour is slavery, destructive, a redundant institution so we call it the Death Factory. Music From The Death Factory, from the world, from life. Records in English also mean files, documents, as collected by Government agencies, employers, schools and police forces. Our Records are a combination of files on our relationship with the world and a Newspaper without censorship. Monte Cazazza suggested our business slogan should be INDUSTRIAL MUSIC FOR INDUSTRIAL PEOPLE. You Get what you deserve. Or do you? Well, from the people with a vested interest in controlling and guiding society to follow their recommendations as to what attitudes you should have, what motivations should govern your bebaviour and what goals you should be satisfied with, you DO NOT get what you deserve. You get what you are given, and what you are given is primarily conditioning that pushes you towards blind acceptance, wasted labour, frustrated relationships and a vast sense of hopelessness. We are trained to feel we are not responsible or in control of our society and world so that we will continue to let "Leaders" look after us like parents with retarded children. Leaders are not essential, we are TAUGHT to believe we need them, that we are not able to assume responsibility for ourselves. Lies created leaders, lies perpetuate leaders, lies destroy joy and creativity and hope. There are NO LIES on these records, no one here is a leader. We assume full responsibility for ourselves. We will not be deflected from our destiny. OUR LIFE.
There is currently a trend back towards total control and safety in the record and music industry. Groups are styled, hyped and successful before they even release a record. Old outlaws and thinkers are opting for security, comfortable records that apply radical discoveries to banal musical ends. Show business and its inherited goals and justifications are triumphant again. The public is seduced and cheated by emptiness packaged alluringly in cheap tinsel. Fear is the Government once more. On this record are people who were not afraid to think, did not avoid risks. People of all ages are here, from 16 years old to 70 years old. Truth and hope have no boundaries, no set style, they are implicit most clearly in the way you choose to live. The title of the last record issued by industrial tells the rest. "Nothing here now but the recordings." Or perhaps there is...

Genesis P Orridge

Throbbing Gristle proved to be a disturbing force within the music scene, maintaining and increasing in strength over its 5 years of life. It awakened buried possibilities few people knew of and others were afraid to explore. The most significant achievement was the bringing together of so many people who believed in life to be more than what had been offered so far. A chance to express their views with like-minded people, providing outlets for a wealth of ideas.
As TG and Industrial Records we proved we could exist and grow completely independently of the main channels of the music business, yet utilising many of their ploys with the style and humour that made TG what it was. TG was a project which involved four people who each injected energy, creative ideas and ideals culminating in a highly potent force. At work this force was impossible to ignore. So strong that five years after its termination, that force is still present and still in demand.
The years of Throbbing Gristle were a time of great positive changes, experimentation and affectionate memories.
We all have to move forward

Cosey Fanni Tutti 22nd March 1986

For some reason it never seems to be possible to enjoy the results of one's own work, as much as that of others, which one hears or sees without having gone through the experience of its creation. TG was no exception. Even now, separated from the experience by time, I am unwilling to pIay TG records. Notwithstanding this, TG remains unique. For me, the multitude of other groups that followed in the so-called "Industrial" mould were and continue to be a complete waste of time.
How can this be? Firstly, we had little or no musical knowledge and had no idea what we were doing. Secondly, none of us had very much in common, other than being social misfits of one sort or another. The result of this was that the influences we each brought to bear on the sound were rich in style and diversity. Thirdly, the way we made the music was completely different from any conventional method. That is, pieces were created more or less spontaneously, without any rehearsal or preparation other than Chris's privately made rhythm tracks and a general discussion about possible topics for a new lyric which Gen would use as inspiration for the lyric. As far as I know the words came out as spontaneously as the music.
This 'improvisation bore little resemblance to any other form of musical improvisation which is usually heavily intellectually based, and structured to allow specific instruments to extemporise while the rest provide a solid musical base. With TG we had little if any idea of what was going to happen in any performance or recording session, and each of us contributed our share entirely on the basis of what was going on at that very moment. Frequently the level of attention and emotional involvement was such that, at the end of a performance, we had little or no recollection of what had taken place.
As far as the types of sound were concerned, we used whatever we could find or afford, anything from a fucked up fuzz box mounted in a metal plunger to devices that were totally new. I was using digital sampling on stage before Fairlights were even invented, and Chris was building equipment that was at that time unheard of, never mind unobtainable. We made sounds we liked and wanted to hear. Usually these were not the conventional ones our 'contempories' were using, since we felt that there was little or no point in rearranging the same tired old pop cliches - they just weren't interesting.
I for one, continue to feel this way even now.
Whatever it was that we were doing, it was obviously of value. Not least to the thousands of young people who brought TG records and tapes, and wrote in to tell us how we had influenced them, nearly always they said, for the better. Many of these have, in the years since, become great friends and now in their turn influence me. From my point of view the most important of these is John Balance, with whom I now work as COIL. We can be contacted at BM/CODEX, London WC1N 3XX.

Peter Christopherson (Sleazy). 18th June 1986 London.

THEE REVERSAL OF FATE

All images begin in mirrors and end inside our subconsious. All conscious mirrors crack and cut; Seep blood and stain our dearest outfits. Sitting in one position, head crookedly balanced on our knee, thee muscles tremble and shake involuntarily. We are left physically and mentally corrupted nearer to thee mortality we are trained to fear and ignore. To encase in thee concrete of acceptance by our peers where it can do us no harm. In describing society, its behaviour, its grandoise stupidity we can be motivated by compassion and despair coloured by not a little sarcasm and cynicism. Yet in every picture there is enervation and texture that rely upon a resented CARING for its composition. Framed by our own paranoias, framed by conditioning, framed by false witness and thee theft of all pieces of silver, we kiss thee cheek of thee land that bites us. Receiving in return nothing. Butter nothing is why we came here, nothing is what we so awkwardly strive and fight for. Nothing is our very precise confrontation with form and reason. Its easy to forget nothing and hard to describe it. What was it thee old slug breeder in thee mud once said in a moment of lucidity:
"The expression that there is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, together with the obligation to express."*
Creative action, destructive action to express a perception of thee weird phenomenon of being alive tries to illumine, clarify and describe some part(s) of human experience, it tends to achieve long-term relevance to individuals coming into contact with it by trying to graps, or even form, thee values that guide that experience in a given age, or in this case "SECTOR OF TIME" And whilst "Time is that which ends" culture, for better or worse, is that which does not. And thereby lies thee endless trick. Unlearned and unsung denying explanations butter avidly seeking them. Thee mirror receives our staring gaze and we melt quite gently and sink away leaving a smoky, cloudy effect like bleach spreading in water. To cleanse our guilt we must describe our fate, objective war zone correspondents using thee aural language of everyday life to define our subject. Shuttered or not our message remains neither fixed nor dogmatic, merely frozen moments of a deeply personal interior reflected outwards into every living room that hangs this sheet of magic upon its tatty wall. For a day, or forever, it makes no difference. True value never changes, remains in thee only real sense, constant, becuase only time has a constant value, and time is thee medium of art "Nothing is more real than Nothing."*
Human experience is, unfortunately, butter stimulatingly, thee experience of nothing and thee only reality it knows is thee inability to interpret itself and its mythically inherited structure.
After thee accumulation of too much history we have lost our innocence, we cannot easily believe in any explanations. We describe rather than feel, we touch rather than explore, we lust rather than adore.
So there you are...or were...

Genesis P-Orridge London June 1986

A STATEMENT ON T.G. BY CHRIS CARTER

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Those 'Wreckers of Civilisation' could have been just four aware people with an unusual hobby,

Research and Communication...

One hour. A lot can happen in an hour. Physical, Subconscious, Emotional feelings.

A chosen few (thousands) perhaps. Moments in time that change peoples jives and cannot be forgotten.

People want more. And more is given, but it is never enough. Objects to collect and view, re-view and to listen to

But people change and move forwards, sideways, upwards.

And it all became history.

I wouldn't change it for the world!

Remember.

Chris Carter May 1986

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