NEW SEASONS IN THE ABYSS PART 2

INTO THE WASTELAND...

The influence of horror on industrial rock is really unique. The term industrial was coined by the British group Throbbing Gristle in 1976, ad it refers to a kind of music that uses different samples and sound sources, together with a definite interest for the occult and people like Aleister Crowley, various serial killers like Charles Manson, Hitler, themes like genocide, sexual deviations and all those behaviors that go beyond the established norms and common social consent. Genesis P. Orridge was the mind of the group (he was also founder of the Temple of the Psychic Youth and of the group Psychic TV, which found large number of followers all around the world). The sound was not as determinative as the described attitude, but in a few years P. Orridge's ideas found a reply in a crossover between, industrial and commercial music (house and techno above all).

The old promotional videos of Psychic TV show explicit sado-masochistic sex scenes, which brought the group at the center of a controversy in the series of documentaries Dispatches, produced by Channel Four. One of the serials showed the existence of satanic activities and child abuse as a proof of evidence in a video by Throbbing Gristle. In reality this video didn't contain any scene of child abuse and the producers of the program were severely attacked for having misrepresented the content of that video. Many of the sound aspects and experimental foundings of Mr. Genesis and co. have influenced the growth of today's industrial music, even though the above mentioned episode and a general negative attitude of the media towards this group kept this phenomenon underground for a long time. At least until mid 198, when clubs like Hardclub 92, Archangel and Technique started to appear in London. Another aspect that held up the spreading of the industrial sound was the attempt to create a sound as close as possible to the objects represented, having therefore very little commercial value. An example of this can be found in an old review of the album "VIVIsectVI" by Skynny Puppy, which appeared on the magazine "Melody Maker". Skynny Puppy's strategy, in their approach to sound, is a sort of advanced didactics: by simulating the horror that obsess them (vivisection in particular) and plunging the listener in an unremitting experience, the group hopes to increase the consciousness in order to take actions against it. As the piece "WX Gas Attack" which sounds like skin that gets covered by blisters and swells up. It is an asphyxiating experience. "State Sid" is like being burned alive..."Human Disease" (S.K.U.M.M.) blends a twisted bass and the voice of a huge abrasive shivering, as if a steel woolen ball would get entangled on the needle of a record player; All the musicians that are part of this movement have a common goal: they want to transfer, through their sound, feelings of pain. Therefore , the industrials try to explain that experience with sounds, manipulating technology depending on their desires and goals. The higher the number of topics, the higher the instruments 'even simple objects can make noise). They are used to acquire, at a musical level, a higher degree of realism. Groups like the above mentioned Skynny Puppy or like Frontline Assembly are the leaders of sound extremism which shows a strong will of action on, real matters. As Nivek Ogre, leader of Skynny Puppy, explains: "on the topic of vivisection I try to tell people something; But it is not enough, because you can't tell people things they do not want to hear. but if you try shock them and put certain images in their minds, then you may hope that they will do something". In this new light, the method used by his group to express their emotions offend, hurt, hit the target, and therefore got caught by the same problem with c censorship which afflicted horror movies. One of their albums, which came out in 1990, "Worlock, begs the buyers to do something about censorship: "The wellbeing of the horror nation is in danger. MPAA is destroying horror movies by putting an X on those movies with graphic violence and gore; Since this rating is generally interpreted as pornography by the public, main theater owners have a tendency in not showing these films, which become economically difficult to produce. By proposing an A rating, horror movies would remain intact and not threatened with an X rating. If you write to MPAA and express your support in favor of an A rating, you will become part f the solution. Viceversa we will continue to be a part of the problem". This message appeared on the record cover, together with the address of the Motion Picture Association of America. Nevertheless, the group underwent a lot of censorship for both his records and videos. The video Worlock and Stairs and Flowers have been banished. Their use of a pedal device for the video, which allows to deform images, have increased the suspect of censors toward the group, who has been accused to integrate subliminal images from snuff movies into their videos. In another interview Kevin Ogilvie, another member of the group, explains his positions: "I knew that "Worlock" would have never been shown in Canada, but I made that video so that no one would have showed it. This situation has to do with censorship and rating. They used horror movies, graphic gore and violence as an excuse to open the door to censorship at the creative ideas of the people. This is really awful. The movie "Henry" is excellent: if you leave off a little piece it could be shown in schools and it would be good for nowadays children These old mummies do not understand that things are different today; you cannot scare children with the old fairy tales, and this is what horror movies are, a modern extension of fairy tales. They are censoring alkl these movies by rating thel as simple pornography; This method allows theml to say: I don't like this idea, and it shouldn't be presented". It is a perverted way of thinking, the reason for which, during this tour, we have even been arrested. I will use it as a topic to tell people: "Hey, look, you shouldn't allow other people to decide what you can or cannot see. Decide for yourself. If people say my behavior is over the limits, it's fine. I will go back and present my excuses. But there is no institution or government supported department that can tell me what is right or wrong, because it isn't acceptable. This is pure censorship, expressed at the maximum level".

The Skynny Puppy are well known for thier live shows which include the graphic interpretation of different topics such as the experiments done by scientists on animals. On the stage Ogilvie starts his performance as a common man, who does not know about the conditions of lab animals. As the show continues he also become a vivisectionist, the man enloighted and at the end he tortured himself. During the shows of the "VIVIsectVi tour" they were arrested when a person from the audience got in touch with the police after having seen experiments on the stage and having mistaken mechanical animals for real ones. Jennifer Williams, the woman that helped building such mechanical animals, which also formed the group Stereo Taxic Device only deals with vivisection and man's cruelty towards other living species. Horror is Skynny Puppy large source if inspiration. They watch many movies and reinterpret them in a particular sensitive way, as in David Lynch's movie Wild at Heart. "The best moment is when Dirge Lula and Sailor are driving oin the freeway, she turns on the radio and all they can hear is "A mutant child was born, fifteen people burned alive in a car accident, death, death...death...AAARGGHH!"; She gets mad so he tunes into a heavy music station and for a while there is some consolation. For the first time I saw someone using music this way, because this is reality, and finally someone showed the real reason why people listens to that kind of music".

Industrial electronic music includes two areas: Dirge and Dance. Dirge is usually an atmospheric piece with very little rhythm (maybe the ticking of a clock or a heartbeat). Noise is used to create an atmosphere, the emotion of being lying down in the dark , during a storm, with the rustling of the trees and other noises that drive us to imagine unreal things, to take a look at unseen things, the ones that are beyond our reality. In these pieces the imagination of the listener is let free to create situations, mental images appropriate to the piece's mood. This kind of music totally involves the listener, its emotions, its experiences and imagination. For this reason it is fundamental the presence of obscure plots created by the synthesizers, fragments of whispered voices , twisted radio programs, sobs and natural sounds like the wind, thunder and water. Don Gordon, leader of the Canadian group Numb, says: "This music is very similar to horror movies. First of all, horror movies directors are more adventurous in their solutions, because they are not tied to those conventions which are applied to most other movies. The good character doesn't have to necessarily win at the end, and horror movies require the audience a certain amount of patience and concentration that movies like Pretty Woman do not demand. Atmosphere pieces require the same amount of attention. The reward for this effort is often hidden during the piece and it is disturbingly subtle when it finally arrives".

Another interesting group inside the musical scene is the Ministry. Their song Stigmata is part of the soundtrack of the movie Hardware by Richard Stanley, and it can be heard in the scene where the female protagonist is working on the skull of Mark 13, the killer robot. The sequence is pretty confusing because at the same time a TV in the room is showing images from the band GWAR

It is interesting to note how their music is heavily influenced by the occult. For example, the piece "Golden Dawn" include fragments of a speech by Aleister Crowley. Generally, though, all their sound leads to a sort of hard dance music, remarkably influenced by horror aestethics, which also found other supporters. Heavy rhythm and percussions are integrated by speeches and special effects taken by movies of that kind. A very good example of this formula is found in Twitch, an album by ministry dated 1986 or in Caustic Grip (1990) and Tactical Neural Implant (1991) by Frontline Assembly. These pieces have an aggressive sound impact but, at the same time, somewhat, constructive and purposeful. The dependence of some songs from sampling techniques (dialogue fragments taken from films, radio programs, documentaries, other songs, political speeches and war propaganda), assures that these compositions, though danceable, strictly hold the feelings of their sources: hate, ignorance, frustration, impotence and a general feeling of death. It looks like Ministry and their companions want to pull down the system by using the same technique and means of expression.

The same strategy is applied to all collateral projects elaborated by Al Jourgensen , the leader of the group. For example the Lard, the Revolting Cocks, the 1000Home Dj's, the Pigface and the Lead into Gold. Even though industrial music was born in Great Britain, this musical trend found more audiences in Europe and the USA. Different record labels were born in the last few years to promote and distribute this trend, like Antlersubway, Body Records, Wax Trax, Third Mind Records and Mute. In Belgium industrial musica has a lot of followers already used to innovative sounds of groups like Front 242. But other groups are also worth mentioning in the large international panorama: The Klinik, Dive X-10, Noise Unit, Mussolini Headkick, Current 93, Nurse With Wound, Sol Invictus, Controlled Bleeding and Severed Heads.

The Klinik, a duo formed by Dirk Ivens and Marc Verhaegen, have now broken up, but remains one of the most representative examples of industrial music. Their sound echoes the post punk experimentalist Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle and Test Department. In the heart of their sound infested landscapes, with twisted voices, very fast rhythms, synthesizers and sharp guitars, there is an interesting perspective, where musical agonuy, pain and pleasure live together.

Dirk Ivens, singer and author of the songs, says: "We both are fans of John Carpenter, expecially of his film "Halloween" and of his work as a soundtrack composer. The atmosphere of the films influenced us a lot and we are trying to reconstruct the same kind of atmosphere for our auditors". Hope, fear, death and sex are the basis of their experimlentation; Starting 1984 they have taken on a new cult position, but they prefer to be anonymous and do not give live exhibitions. Their album Melting Close and Sabotage, recently reprinted, is a great example of the sampling technique.The songs start out with the voices of the people cndemned to death penalty, who have escaped execution, the one of torturers and victims who describe various techniques, the words of a pilot describing his feelings while he receives the order of dropping the first atomic bomb. The album recalls with success the feeling of uneasiness and disgust normally associated to these topics and at the same time it is filled with these atrocities. The music reflects the topics to such an extension that cannot be found in other musical styles. It is the use of fragments of reality, expressed by the various reported voices to reinforce the described horrors. The most recent works of the Klinik tend to represent the urban horrors of modern society: claustrophobia, illnesses, loneliness and a feeling of loss. The epic piece which lasts twenty minutes, "Decay", is purely atmospheric and encourages a strong feeling of physical and spiritual decay.

The British band Coil should sound familiar to the horror movie audience thanks to their work on the soundtrack of Hellraiser. A project that was soon abandoned due to some pressure from the film producers who wanted to use a more convnetional kind of music. At first, Coil wanted to create a soundtrack half classic and half electronic to restore the powerful mix of the visceral violence contained in Clive Barker's story. Nevertheless the material produced for this project wa collected in the album "The consequence of Raising Hell", dated 1987. Their copious discography also includes "Scatology" and "Horse Rotorvator". Both have something to do with the uncomfortable experience of death. Clive Barker stressed the fact that Coil is the only group whose records give him a feeling of uneasiness so strong as to interrupt the listening. And the writer is not exagerating. For example, in "Horse Rotorvator", the piece entitled The Golden Section is a mix of strings, wind instruments and drums accompanied by a voiced narration about different camouflages adopted by the Angel of Death when it appears to the person whose time has come. Or Solar Lodge, that appears in Scatology, in which there is a description of the sect OTO, led by Jeran Brayton, prosecuted by the FBI for child abuse. In an interview to a Dutch radio, Coil judged their records with these words: "We do not have any explanation to give and this is what mainly fascinated us. We created something totally irrational and sinister". From its start, industrial electronic music has grown at the same pace as the horror movie industry. It underwent the same kind of censorship and aesthetic morality which contributed to present the horror trend as an unhealthy, dangerous disease. Industrial electronic music can be interpreted as a further field of expresssion inside the vast horror trend. And like horror, this music was created to excite, disgust and provoke reactions.

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