Early Industrial
Roots · 1975 · also known as Proto-Industrial, Industrial Music
The first industrial circle, active from 1975 to 1982: Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, and SPK, treating music as hostile information and the concert as a limit experience. This root entry documents the birth of that gesture, brutalizing studio technology to speak about industrial society itself. Its direct descendants sit in the wider industrial family, while its diffuse influence runs through nearly everything harsh that followed.
6 reference tracks
- Throbbing Gristle: United (1978)
- Cabaret Voltaire: Nag Nag Nag (1979)
- SPK: Slogun (1979)
- Einsturzende Neubauten: Kollaps (1981)
- Test Dept: Compulsion (1983)
- Cabaret Voltaire: Vasto (2020)
At a glance
- First appeared: 1975
- Machines: Magnétophone à bande, Boîte à rythmes, Synthétiseur modulaire, Pédale de distorsion
- The sound: Bandes et magnétophones, Synthés bricolés, Traitements extrêmes de voix, Instruments préparés
- Labels: Mute, Industrial Records, Rough Trade, Cold Spring
- Key artists: Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, SPK, Boyd Rice
Producing Early Industrial
Early industrial refuses groove the way it refuses everything else: either a primitive drum machine looping monotonously between 100 and 130 BPM, or no tempo at all, as on Throbbing Gristle's United, pulsing around 120, or Cabaret Voltaire's 150 BPM Nag Nag Nag, both with no swing and no velocity nuance. Take a cheap preset rhythm, run it through a fuzz pedal and a lowpass closing off everything above 3 kHz, and dirty it further with 8-bit downsampling. Or record metallic impacts, sheet metal, cans, pipes, and loop them unevenly the way Einsturzende Neubauten and SPK did, no hi-hats or snares, only impacts and rattles. The bass is often absent or replaced by a drone, a single low note on an overdriven synth or an electric bass played by a non-bassist, or a modulated oscillator held for the whole track.
The full production course, in French: tempo, drums, bass, sounds, arrangement, mix, plugins and machines, and a step by step start.
Frequently asked
What is Early Industrial?
The first industrial circle, active from 1975 to 1982: Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, and SPK, treating music as hostile information and the concert as a limit experience. This root entry documents the birth of that gesture, brutalizing studio technology to speak about industrial society…
Who are the key Early Industrial artists?
Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, SPK, Boyd Rice.
In the same family
- Musique concrète
- Électroacoustique
- Krautrock
- Kosmische Musik
- Space Music
- Proto-Techno
- Synth-pop
- Funk
- Philly Soul
- Dub
- Hip-Hop
- Reggae
Listen to Early Industrial in the atlas · Cette page en français
