Formed in 1980 in the Slovenian industrial city of Trbovije, Laibach (the German name for Ljubljana, the capital of the then Yugoslavian republic of Slovenia, a usage which didn’t fail to provoke the government) set out to revitalize Slovenian culture and create a mythic persona through careful manipulation of the group’s image. As much theater…
A German group that arose during the psychedelic movement of 1968 from jazz, avant-garde and rock sources, Can — essentially Holger Czukay, Irmin Schmidt, Jaki Liebezeit and Michael Karoli — developed (and perfected) electronic collage in rock music and actively absorbed a number of musical traditions into their eclectic work. In addition to providing an…
Although its output has been sporadic, Coil is the most consistently excellent of the three groups formed from the dissolution of Throbbing Gristle. After TG disbanded in 1981, Peter Christopherson (keyboards, programming) worked with Genesis P-Orridge in Psychic TV, but split in 1982 to join John Balance (vocals, percussion), who was already recording under the…
Named after some theory or other of English mage Aleister Crowley, Current 93’s early work used Crowley and Lautréament’s Maldoror as the starting points for an occult trip tinged with tragic grandeur. David Michael Bunting (aka David Tibet) is the group’s core, with significant assistance from Steve Stapleton of Nurse with Wound. The motto on…
Formed in Newcastle around the same time other English bands — Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire and This Heat — were discovering the beauty of noise for its own sake, the reclusive and enigmatic Zoviet France started on a path that combined abstract sonic collage and electronic manipulation with a distinctly art brut sense of instrumental…
There aren’t many musicians who need so many different band names under which to work. But Elliott Sharp has that many different ideas, sounds and styles swirling in his clean-shaven head. And, at the expense of a linear career that could earn him bigger bucks or notoriety, he has explored them all. Sharp is a…
First active in the early ’70s, Germany’s Faust played a mix of jazz, folk, minimalism, rock, noise, pop and modern classical that refused to be defined. In doing so, its music managed to become allied with a number of ground- breaking styles. Industrial noisemakers trace their roots back to Faust as one of the first…
These folks either wrote reviews that appear on the site or wrote for Trouser Press magazine. If anyone listed below cares to E-mail us with a link you’d like added, just let us know. And ditto if anyone is AWOL from this list. Grant AldenDavid AntrobusJem AswadTroy J. AugustoMichael AzerradCary BakerMichael BakerEmily BeckerJohn BergstromArt BlackJohn…
This hyper-aggressive New York foursome ambitiously pushes the death metal genre to new limits by amplifying the speed and terror while incorporating outside influences like hardcore techno and power tools. Such growth in grindcore comes courtesy singer/journalist Kevin Sharp and bassist Dan Lilker, notable for co-founding and then quitting Anthrax, Nuclear Assault and the infamous…
