Our impossible obligation

I feel like Alexander Reed’s book on industrial music, Assimilate, explained my whole life to me. Reed writes that industrial music recognizes that “we’re born into a hierarchical network of control systems from which it’s our impossible duty to escape.”

That intuition could explain my interest not just my youthful obsession with industrial and why certain bands stick with me to this day, but so many of my different interests over the years: cyberpunk, left-wing politics, conspiracy theory, occultism, Buddhism. The impossible obligation to escape control machines could also apply equally well to Outlaw Comics and help make some sense of the at times contradictory political and religious themes of various titles.

There are a bunch of newer industrial artists keeping the genre alive, bringing in new fans, and inspiring new bands (including 3Teeth, Author and Punisher, Cold Cave, HEALTH, Youth Code … and oddly enough Poppy, who is keeping the tradition of industrial artist as media personality/performance artist alive). I don’t listen to a lot of these newer industrial bands, but there’s industrial DNA throughout all the newer bands I listen to (10 000 Russos, Helms Alee, Las Cobras, A Place to Bury Strangers…).

Reed’s book is good, but focused mostly on industrial itself. He ends up underselling the influence of industrial on other genres. That might be because he doesn’t want to undersell the influence of the gay and Black electronic dance music pioneers in Detroit and Chicago. But I think we can give credit due without eclipsing the work of the mid-western house/techno/electro scenes or their deeper roots in soul, funk, and disco. Industrial was a key ingredient in the stew from which electronic dance music emerged. Frankie Knuckles spun Front 242 records. Months after playing synthesizers on Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force’s “Planet Rock,” John Robbie was remixing Cabaret Voltaire. Would EDM have existed without industrial? Of course. Giorgio Morodor had pretty much already invented what we would come to know as EDM by the time Cabaret Voltaire or DAF had anything on wax. And if it wasn’t him, someone else would have figured it out. But EDM would have tasted a little different without industrial.

Reed gives even less attention to industrial’s influence outside of EDM. Other than a fleeting observation that industrial metal gave birth to nu-metal, Reed doesn’t spend a lot of time on the influence of industrial and rock and metal, largely because he focuses mostly on dance/club-oriented industrial. This was probably the right decision to avoid a sprawling mess of a book—and because “electro- industrial” is probably what most people think of when they think of industrial. But it results in Reed underselling industrial music’s importance.

Bands like Throbbing Gristle, Einstürzende Neubauten, and Swans had a big influence on bands ranging from The Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine on the rock/pop side to Melvins, Tool, Napalm Death, and Neurosis on the metal side. Henry Rollins has a Neubauten tattoo and has been known to spin Cabaret Voltaire and The Normal on his radio show. Large swaths of indie rock, post-rock, and alternative/prog/experimental metal are influenced directly or indirectly by industrial.

Oh, and of course there’s the industrial influence on synth-pop. Human League started out in the Sheffield industrial scene as “The Future” and carried that influence into their early synth-pop work. Industrial also left a mark on Fad Gadget, Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, and New Order. Grace Jones covered The Normal’s industrial pop track “Warm Leatherette” and infused her work on her album named for that track, and much of her work for the rest of her musical career, with industrial textures. Just listen to her cover of “She’s Lost Control.” She was never likely to be confused with Front 242, but even the pop hit “Slave to the Rhythm” has traces of the industrial sound—not to mention thematic resonances with the “electronic body music” subgenre of industrial.

This post was adapted from my email newsletter.