Industrial Music

I was talking with a pal about how we both got into Black Sabbath through 1000 Homo DJs' cover, and started thinking back about industrial music. I was a huge rivet-head in high school, and then kind of aged out of a lot of it when I realized how ridiculous it was. I mean, I used to have serious arguments about whether Gravity Kills was just ripping off Stabbing Westward…

So now, some 10+ years later, I'm starting to think about going back. I've pulled out some of the albums I never sold (either because I had too many sentimental attachments or, more likely, no one in their right mind would pay me any money for them), and have been slowly ticking through them. I tend to like heavy percussion, especially the EN noisy sort, more than the synth stuff—Skinny Puppy has never really done it for me, and Front Line Assembly sounds kind of laughably earnest now. I still really like that Supernaut cover, and a lot of the early Stabbing Westward stuff has great oil can drumming that almost makes up for the retarded lyrics. I dug the Front 242 stuttery stuff—"Serial Killers Don't Kill Their Girlfriends"—and Nitzer Ebb is fine, though I find myself wishing that all of their songs were about half as long, though I think they'd be pretty cool in a DJ set mixed with something else. I'm not wild about the obligatory samples that seemed to pervade the genre, though I was at the time. Thrill Kill Kult seemed the only band that could use them well, and they got really spotty as they went on.

For new stuff, I like it when Wolf Eyes gets dubby and woozy, and I think that Lightning Bolt and Black Dice both kind of flit around the borders of industrial.

I guess I'm wondering what's worth revisiting, what I may have missed (since I got into industrial in the mid-90s and kind of worked my way back through TG, EN and CV), and if anyone is making industrial music worth checking out these days, especially some sort of dubby or psychedelic industrial.

Industrial s/d?

boyd rice & frank tovey - Easy Listening For The Hard Of Hearing is a current favourite. parts sound like a primitive porter ricks, other parts sound like looped field recordings of factory ambience, but it's really deep listening stuff and not as noisy or abrasive as you'd expect.

This'll be great:

http://mackro.tumblr.com/post/556137535/hola-rivetheads

http://flavorwire.com/373313/rare-photos-of-industrial-bands-looking-happy/view-all

Treblezine put together an article and Spotify playlist:
A HISTORY OF INDUSTRIAL MUSIC IN 45 SONGS

http://www.treblezine.com/history-industrial-music-best-tracks/
http://open.spotify.com/playlist/0Mh6LgPm1qL4s3oHrd1Y6l

Not all of it is specifically "industrial music" per se, but that's not the point:

What we have in the end is an attempt to tell a story from the earliest experimental musique concrète and cacophonous psych acts on up to the terror pulse of the present day. These are industrial music’s roots, inspirations, landmarks, triumphs and the songs upon which its influence has been imprinted. Follow us on our dizzying descent.

I think they do a pretty good job of that and the Spotify list is a lot of fun to listen to in chronological order.

RIP Monte Cazazza, all time hero and inventor of the term 'Industrial Music'.