Tag: industrial music

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Dark Horizons (Radio/Podcast)

I drank coffee and now I feel better, so I came back to do a proper post about one of my favourite podcasts.

I’ve been listening to Dark Horizons’ “Darkcast” (it’s really a podcast, but it’s a pun ^_^) on and off since October 2012, and started up again October last year.  I came back to it with a nostalgic pang, seeking out all the glorious industrial podcasts I’ve missed. Most of the other podcasts seem to be dead, on hiatus, or posting sporadically.

Dark Horizons’, on the other hand, has been broadcasting weekly out of Tampa, via radio, literally forever (literally as in 25 years). Luckily for me they package up their show into the Darkcast. The show plays lots of industrial, synthpop, and related genres with the occasional oddball track thrown in. Theresa and Edd, the show’s presenters, are obviously comfortable in their roles as they banter away and don’t sweat the little mistakes. The show is always entertaining and fun, and with Theresa’s silly question of the week there is a chance for listener interaction on FB, or through their forum.

I introduced my lovely lady to the show, and now we regularly listen on date nights as we play Words With Friends and drink wine. So come join us for a drink and some music. Not literally, of course; that’s our date night.

Subscribe to the Darkcast

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More Kool Albums – Thrill Kill Kult: Confessions Of A Knife

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife album art

Time for a post, but I dunno what to post about, so I’m just going to share another album I think is the absolute stank.

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult’s (usually shortened to TKK – because fuck that!) Confessions Of A Knife, is a good album – the critics knew this, the people knew it, and that’s why it went on to be one of Wax Trax!’s biggest selling albums of all time, eclipsed only by TKK’s followup, Sexplosion!. I don’t like that album as much, so I’m not going to talk about it. Not today anyway.

The bands ability to bring in the big bucks subsequently landed them a deal with Interscope, which was a bit of a big deal at the time (but now defunct). The deal only survived a few years, and as the rise and fall of industrial music went, TKK went back to independent labels. Anyway, there is nothing here you won’t find on Wikipedia, so I’ma shudup and leave  you  with the choice to play this seminal piece of later-days industrial history, or not.

Play it!

Highlights:
A Daisy Chain 4 Satan
The Days of Swine & Roses
Kooler Than Jesus
Burning Dirt

It’s all pretty good though.

Thrill Kill Kult links:
Spotify
Official Website (including store)
Wax Trax! store includes some rare and out of print TTK stuff.

 

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Babyland, bb

So, here we are at another post about me being a big music necro. If you like noise, improvised drums, harsh vocals, and synths then you will probably like Babyland. Labeled junk punk, it fits closely enough with industrial that I’d heard the name several times, but never had the chance to hear the music. I finally got around to chasing them down on Spotify, and now I’m a fan. Of course the band has been dead since 2009, but that’s not going to stop me from enjoying them alongside all my favourite long deceased bands.

I also stumbled upon the Babyland’s Bandcamp page while looking for their last album, Cavecraft, which was released by Metropolis records. I feel kinda honored to currently be the first “supporter” of the “Decade One” complication (also a little WTF!?). Of course, if I want to get Cavecraft in Australia, I have to buy it off fucking iTunes or get a physical CD sent out. I could rage about the absurdity of this and a hundred other similar incidents but I’ll leave that for another day. I don’t know if it’s Metropolis that deserves the “fuck you” or some budget two-shits domestic partner. Ok, leaving it alone for realz now.

And finally, there’s Continues, the project by the singer of the defunct, Babyland. Mostly its sort of cheesy synthpop stuff (maybe that’s your bag) but there are some tracks I don’t mind.

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Bacon, death, and industrial-metal

Today I woke up feeling like doing anything was stupid. Instead of doing stuff I lay in bed thinking about dying. Eventually I decided to make scrambled eggs. I cut a  finger while dicing onion. There were no bandaids, so I was trying to stem the bleeding with tissue. It wouldn’t stop bleeding, but I was set on getting the meal done. I’d chop a bit and then wipe blood away. Occasionally a drop would drip into the food. What do I care. Food just gets turned into blood and shit anyway.

Some people will always succeed but I don’t care

Eventually, still bleeding, I returned to bed with the my booty of scrambled goods and coffee.  It was pretty good eats. Instead of doing anything important, I got back to reading the gonzo account of rockstar, Al Jourgensen (Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Lard etc). I would laugh here and there but I couldn’t concentrate, and most of the time was spent reading the same pages over and over. I also found it a little depressing (but maybe a little bit inspirational too) that this crazy character could be so fucked up on drugs and booze (and be depressed), yet still do like a thousand albums. I don’t even care about waking up in the morning.

Chicken coop massacre

Around 1 pm I mustered all the rock-star inspired OMPH! I could pull together to go check the animals. I discovered the poor chickens had been massacred – probably a dog jumping the fence in the wee hours of the morning. No bodies, but lots of feathers. That was kinda depressing.

Then I managed to use the phone (something I have a near phobia of) to book an appointment I’d been putting off for weeks. Then I showered and now I’m fucking exhausted.

 

 

 

I want wine

 

 

My favourite Ministry album

 

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Juke-Joint Jezebel: the track that began it all

As a kid I was a big fan of the Mortal Kombat games. I was technically barred from playing violent video games by my parents. BUT I PLAYED THEM ANYWAY! Of course, when the movie adaptation came out, I (successfully) pestered my parents into letting me see it. The movie was dumb. Some cool effects and some reasonable action sequences wasn’t enough to convince 11 year-old Jim. The soundtrack, however, was a revelation!

For me, KMFDM’s Juke Joint Jezebel was the highlight of the album. It was different to just about anything I had heard at the time. It was heavy, it was dark, it had guitars and electronic stuff, but it was curiously different from everything else. I liked it!

So this track was in the background for years to come, but I never cottoned onto this stuff called industrial music. To me, it was too close to the mainstream genres to strongly indicate the wealth I was missing out on. Even if I had chanced onto other stuff, unlikely given my sheltered childhood, and limited music distribution of the time (living in the sticks ‘n all that jazz), I might not even have known what to make of it.

Finally finding love

A whole decade it was until the name KMFDM lead me down the industrial rabbit hole. It might have been sooner if I hadn’t taken a detoure down a neo hippie dead-end. Anyway, it was a decade, and it has been love ever since. At first I stayed with bands that were on the rock/metal side of the equation, but here I am, another decade on, with a full-blown love of not just the digestible, dancable, but also of the avant-garde roots.

The Mortal Kombat movie may have been a huge disappointment to me (what could I have expected?) but I dug most of the OST, which heavily influenced the development of my music tastes.

Other highlights from the Mortal Kombat OST

The super cheesy, sample heavy, theme song by Utah Saints, even back then, was a guilty indulgence.

Orbital’s Halcyon +On +On – what is a track this beautiful even doing in a movie about fighting in a tournament to save Earth from trans-dimensional invaders?

Fear Factory’s Zero Signal, along with GZR’s The Invisible were too heavy for my sensitive tastes, but would later become favourites.

Sister Machine Gun’s Burn, probably one of the band’s best tracks, was a safe favourite of young Jim’s.

Type O Negative’s Blood & Fire (Out of the Ashes Mix) was another track that pushed me along in developing an interest in metal.

 

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Jim’s Industrial Musics

silly industrial music banner - rusted

So, out of all the things I could have done today I ended up spending almost all of it listening to music. It was fabulous! A friend (meet on a certain disreputable social media network) and I decided to swap playlists. She listens to a lot more of the current crop of Aggrotech, harsher electro-industrial, and industrial metal, where as I’m more into Old Skool Industrial and EBM, with some industrial rock/metal.

If you don’t know what these genres are the TVTropes website has one of the best brief articles on the genre, and of course, Wikipedia also has good stuff too. You can also hang around and check out my playlist, for a more hands on approach (because you all want to hear what I listen to).

Now, I’ve been sniffing around this music for a long time, but I wouldn’t consider myself an elite. Genre distinctions still confuse me, and I haven’t heard ALL of the precursor and formative bands. Occasionally I do get into the mood to go dig around though, so over the years I have amassed a reasonable repertoire.

So the real takeaway from today is that my friend reconnected with with Suicide Commando, which lead me to rediscover :Wumpscut. My thanks to you.

The musics

Also, if you’re on VampireFreaks, or want a social network that’s quirky and a little bent, hit me up. Don’t let the name fool you, it really is full of freaks (and some cool ladies and gents).

IM GOING TO DRINK WINE