Latest news with #industrialMusic
The Guardian
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
S/he Is Still Her/e: The Official Genesis P-Orridge Doc review – Throbbing Gristle's gender-challenging tabloid-baiter
Genesis P-Orridge was the performance artist, shaman and lead singer of Throbbing Gristle who was born as Neil Megson in Manchester in 1950, but from the 90s lived in the US. P-Orridge challenged gender identity but it is clear from the interviewees that there were no wrong answers when it came to pronouns: 'he', 'she' and 'they' are all used. This is a sympathetic and amiable official docu-biography in which the subject comes across as a mix of Aleister Crowley, Charles Manson and Screaming Lord Sutch. The 'P-Orridge' surname makes me suspect that Spike Milligan might have been an indirect influence, although there's also a bit of Klaus Kinski in there as well. Genesis P-Orridge, known to friends and family as Gen, started as a radical conceptual artist, rule-breaker, consciousness-expander and tabloid-baiter who with Throbbing Gristle influentially coined the term 'industrial music', a term later to be borrowed without acknowledgment by many. They were, in the words of Janet Street-Porter, shown here in archive footage, 'too shocking for punk'. P-Orridge formed a new band, Psychic TV, in the 1980s, and then also formed a group of likeminded occultist provocateurs called Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth. (The film tactfully passes over how very annoying that spelling is.) At the beginning of the 90s, P-Orridge and his family, including first wife Paula P-Orridge, went to the US to escape a (later retracted) allegation of ritual sexual abuse. In the US, they were the guests of counterculture figure Michael Horowitz, father of Winona Ryder, and P-Orridge's career in art, music and peripheral celebrity blossomed. After divorce from Paula, P-Orridge married the artist Jacqueline Breyer, known as Lady Jaye, with whom Gen pursued a radical project of 'pandrogynous' fusion, involving breast and lip surgery. By the end, there is maybe a you-had-to-be-there factor with all this, and the film leaves you with a nagging feeling that P-Orridge was not seriously important in either art or music – but was pugnaciously sincere, too unselfconscious to be a narcissist and certainly a real one-off. S/he Is Still Her/e: The Official Genesis P-Orridge Doc is in UK and Irish cinemas from 20 June.
The Guardian
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Douglas McCarthy, frontman with industrial group Nitzer Ebb, dies aged 58
Douglas McCarthy, the irrepressible frontman and chief lyricist of British industrial band Nitzer Ebb, has died aged 58. A statement on the group's social media reads: 'It is with a heavy heart that we regret to inform that Douglas McCarthy passed away this morning of June 11th, 2025. We ask everyone to please be respectful of Douglas, his wife, and family in this difficult time. We appreciate your understanding and will share more information soon.' No cause of death was given. With a style he succinctly described as 'shouting and pointing', McCarthy had an almost preacher-like quality as he sang full-throated commands and declarations, revelling in the 'body rapture' described on their song Hearts and Minds. Paired with the pulsating electronics of the group, their music became a major influence on artists such as Nine Inch Nails. Born and raised in Essex, McCarthy met future Nitzer Ebb drummer David Gooday aged 10, and formed the group with fellow friends Bon Harris and Simon Granger in 1982. With cheap synths and beats hammered out on a metal bin they dubbed 'John', the group gradually welded together their sound, releasing a demo in 1983 followed by debut single Isn't It Funny How Your Body Works two years later. Their ironically martial sound and aesthetic would be misinterpreted by some – 'the totalitarian imagery reflected the austere political time, the miners' strikes and riots,' Harris later explained – but it proved infectious on dancefloors, as tracks such as Let Your Body Learn and Warsaw Ghetto crossed over into the burgeoning worlds of techno and acid house. 'The closest I felt to God was listening to Join in the Chant,' the era's legendary DJ Andrew Weatherall once said. They attracted the attentions of major label Geffen in the US, and Nitzer Ebb released their debut album That Total Age in 1987. The band toured with Depeche Mode that year, and McCarthy worked with Depeche Mode's Alan Wilder on side project Recoil. After five albums, Nitzer Ebb split in 1995. McCarthy moved to Los Angeles, then Detroit, then returned to England where he studied design and film in Cambridge followed by a spell working in advertising. He later returned to music, collaborating with techno producer Terence Fixmer, before a Nitzer Ebb reunion in 2007. The group released another studio LP, Industrial Complex, and continued to tour. McCarthy released a solo album, Kill Your Friends, in 2012. In March 2024, McCarthy stepped down from a European Nitzer Ebb tour, citing liver cirrhosis 'following years of alcohol abuse … for over two years I have not been drinking, but recovery is a long process'. Among those paying tribute following his death was the record label Dark Entries, who described McCarthy as 'a tour de force of musical innovation and acumen'.
The Guardian
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Post your questions for Cosey Fanni Tutti
She is a pillar of industrial music who was called a 'wrecker of civilisation' in the UK parliament because of her subversive and boundary-pushing art, and who wrote one of the best music memoirs of recent years. Now, with a new album due for release, Cosey Fanni Tutti will be answering your questions. Born Christine Carol Newby in 1951, she was a founding member of the music and performance art collective Coum Transmissions. Their 1976 exhibition Prostitution prompted the aforementioned parliamentary commentary, plus plenty more controversy besides: it featured explicit photography of Tutti – who also worked as a stripper and in the adult film industry – alongside rusty knives, syringes, bloodied hair and used sanitary towels. Then in 1975, with her Coum collaborators Genesis P-Orridge and Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson, Tutti formed the band Throbbing Gristle, along with Chris Carter. Built from samples, effects and noise, their work continued the frankness of Coum Transmissions: Zyklon B Zombie was a reference to the lethal gas used in the Nazi death camps and Hamburger Lady was inspired by the story of a burns victim. Throbbing Gristle became icons of underground music. After the group disbanded in 1981, Tutti and Carter formed the synthpop duo Chris & Cosey (latterly Carter Tutti) and put out 17 studio albums over the years. Tutti reflected on her transgressive – and at times traumatic – life's work in her memoir Art Sex Music, published in 2017, and later wrote another book, Re-Sisters, telling the stories of two other radical women: the 20th-century electronic composer Delia Derbyshire and 15th-century mystic Margery Kempe. Tutti is now getting ready to release her new album, 2t2, in June, and will answer your questions. Would you like to know more about where her provocative art comes from? Her appearance in the video to Sylvester's disco classic You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real), or her time in an art commune in Hull? Post your questions in the comments before 10am BST on Tuesday 13 May. Her answers will be published in Film & Music on 30 May.
