Part 3 - all over the place

Today's wandering is a bit slapdash because we have so much ground to cover. The original field recordings of noise meets performance art aesthetic of Industrial music for industrial people evolved in all sorts of ways over the decades. Some like to dance, some like to rock, some like to throw rocks at the people dancing. Have i ever told you the story of when i saw Atari Teenage Riot confuse an entire cattle barn full of people attending a Beck concert? Let's just say Alec Empire flailed around so much he managed to hit himself in the forehead with his own microphone, and that was the end of that set. That was the 90s, imagine what having bicycle parts and paint and who knows what hurled at you back in the 70s and 80s. 

Anywho, i was randomly clicking things on bandcamp and came across Puce Mary's You Must Have Been Dreaming. 

https://puce-mary.bandcamp.com/album/you-must-have-been-dreaming 

What, if any, of this album is Industrial? The answer is none of it that i can tell. These are really beautiful Ambient washes of sound (some quite dark and almost menacing) that have very little mechanical/repetitive quality to them. Electro-acoustic pieces with a bit of musica-concrete. That's not a good/bad distinction, but rather a statement that this has very little Industrial motivation apparent in it. So, i guess we'll find something a little more motivated. 

Deathbedtapes.bandcamp.com certainly seems to fit the bill, what with their 195 releases of what looks (and probably sounds) like the absolute worst humanity has to offer. I'll have to do a ton more research into how they do it, assuming these aren't just straight up bootlegs. Who knows, maybe the $5/mo. subscription thing is really more than enough to pay for all those limited release tape dubs of endless Power Noise? The B/W photocopy cover art is certainly as cheap as it gets, and the titles are all appropriately nauseating. 

Actually, this is exactly what i want Bottle of Beef to be. Weird crap, no explanation, a small but loyal fanbase, who's with me? No one? That's fine. This might be too much to tackle in a sweeping meander. Maybe instead we get another dose of OO (stands for original outcast) Industrial. Here's the first album ever published by Mute Records, Deutche Amerikanische Freundschaft's sophomore album Die Kleinen und die Bösen. What can you do with all these sampled noises, sequencers, and empty stage time? You can invent industrial dance music by sprinkling techno all over it. 

https://youtu.be/8_nyMRQKJ9Q 

The first thing that should jump out at you is the overtly sexualized sound of funky bass grooves. It's the sleaze i mentioned way back when! Lyrically, it's mostly just things that are fun to say, and note some of the more overt zaniness. This is all stuff that 7 years later would find a new home in Chicago, particularly with my beloved MLWTKK. In many ways this is the less congenial, more gothy sister of the original Punk movement. Both in Europe (especially Leftist Germany) and America, this is really the music of the fringes of society, the voice of the perennially persecuted and delerious down trodden; the grotesque noise of modernity, remember? Its job is to provoke, to offend, to disturb the sickly sweet mainstream sensibilities inherent in the suburban daydream. If Punk was a critique, Industrial was an ironic indulgence. Not the working class mentality that eventually gave birth to Heavy Metal, but the real social rejects who couldn't even find a steady job, much less take a shower before riding the bus there if they had one. 

Yeah, this is a great album. It's sweaty, manic, gruesome, basically me after a full day out in this spontaneous Bananarama video we're having (that's a Cruel Summer reference). All the actual jokes got sweated out earlier today, thus this hastily summarized synopsis of the soundtrack. Tomorrow we'll try to refocus on something a little more precise. Maybe one of those Deathbed Tapes albums struck your own fancy with a rusty metal spatula, and you can tell us all about it over at Bottle's Album Club.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/181026684180866/?ref=share_group_link

Part 4

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