Now Listening: A New Industrial Roundup
For New Industrial artists and labels, the refusal to be categorized is the category.
Recently, I published a longform essay—Longform: The New Industrial—exploring a tendency in contemporary left-field music in which diverse forms, styles, and sounds have, over the past decade or so, woven closer together. I call this tendency "the New Industrial," a coinage that follows what I call "the Old Industrial"—industrial music in the lineage of Throbbing Gristle and many others, which was often (but not always!) situated, with ironic sensibility, around "shock and awe" themes: violence, fascism, misogyny, and so on.
This followup dovetails an array of artists and labels I posit as representative of the New Industrial sound. They're all over the place stylistically, and this diversity is fundamental to my conception. Musical genres are no longer the subcultural glue they once were—in today's digital-native era, musical genres are now, above all, database metrics employed by media streaming platforms to precisely curate and target playlists for individual consumers. (To go deep on this topic, listen to musicologist Robin James interviewed on the No Tags podcast.)
In that sense, the stylistic slipperiness of these artists and labels is a kind of resistance to the data-science logic that increasingly seems to have swallowed our world whole. Refusing to be categorized is, of course, categorization in kind—and that's the New Industrial in a nutshell.
This list isn't exhaustive by any means—not even close—but instead is intended to give shape to the New Industrial conception and provide entry points for the curious listener.
Bokeh Versions + Avon Terror Corps (Bristol, UK)
Only in Bristol could dub, punk, noise, techno, and rap collide with such ease. Since 2015, Bokeh Versions (and its scarier sister label, Avon Terror Corps) have woven together all these influences and more besides.
SAM PILBEAM
Long have these sounds been cross-fertilized: think Adrian Sherwood and African Head Charge, Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead," Justin Broadrick and Kevin Martin's project Techno Animal, or Los Angeles outfit clipping. Bokeh Versions whips them all into a blender: some Bokeh releases are much more dancehall-dubby than noisy-punk, or vice-versa, but everything they've put out feels like it wouldn't fit anywhere else.
Gabriele Zavatta
To start, check the sludge-coated dub-riddim body music of Kelan and Yokel, the Mediterranean noise-rap of Harrga, or the droning, blackened Indian classical music of Only Now.
Only Now
Beau Wanzer (Chicago, US)
Beau’s music can be challenging to listen to, in the same way that a slimy little goblin bursting out of your closet and harassing you while you try to sleep would be challenging to deal with. Some of his tracks lurch around, sickly-like, oozing from sonic orifices. Others layer caustic grooves built from stripped-down drum machine rhythms.
Readers of a certain age might remember "Balls of Steel," from his first L.I.E.S. 12", which sounds like chewing on rocks feels, but was regularly played out by DJs like Ben UFO and Objekt—surely in the rankings for most unlikely club hit of all time.
Tavernello
There is a broad swath of styles within Beau Wanzer's discography, but his sound, always, is unmistakably his own. His second untitled LP is an excellent place to begin.
Cube (New York City, US)
Sometimes Cube, the solo-ish project of musician Adam Keith, is noisy, but mostly in a "TV tuned to a dead channel" kind of way. Sometimes it's beautiful, heartfelt, yearning. Sometimes it's chaotic and discordant. Sometimes it's techno, or punk, or grime, or drum'n'bass. But always, it's Cube.
Cube
Keith is a prolific artist, releasing well over a dozen Cube albums in about as many years. The most recent, Proof of Bells, dances between shorter abstract pieces and longer uptempo jams. Drug of Choice, on U.K. label Alter, bends through an array of dubwise sounds. My favorite, though, remains My Cube, which, almost ten years after release, feels totemic in my conception of New Industrial. (The record label I co-founded, Left Hand Path, released the LP.)
Drew McDowall (New York City, US)
As I was formulating the concept of New Industrial, I identified several veteran artists embodying the transition, metaphorically speaking, from "Old" to "New." None of these through-lines glow brighter than Scottish artist Drew McDowall, who worked with Old Industrial legends Coil in the '90s and early '00s.
Chris Zaldua
In 2017, I published an interview with Drew McDowall covering his history with Coil and his burgeoning solo practice.
In 2015, McDowall released his first solo LP, Collapse, on bicoastal U.S. label Dais. He's released four solo records since then; the latest, A Thread, Silvered and Trembling, came out this year. Each wields a similar palette: powerful, intense, and profoundly visceral, but mostly arrhythmic—some might call these records "ambient music," which feels silly, given how much they command your attention.
Boyd
McDowall's music is ominous. It portends something, though what, exactly, isn't clear. It is beautiful, and beautifully unsettling—after all, beauty itself is a kind of dislocation, isn't it?
Haunter Records (Milan, IT)
Founded in 2013 by Italian artists Daniele Guerrini aka Heith and Francesco Birsa Alessandri aka Sense Fracture, Haunter Records is expansive and unbounded.
everett
Listeners will discover wispy freak folk from VISIO; "immersive subversions" of classical music from Boli Group, a Danish collective that may or may not include Asger Hartvig—aka Gossiwor with John T. Gast, whose own album Inna Babalon was reissued on the label; hyper-realizations of neo-baroque Polish trip-hop from Lutto Lento; video game and anime OST edits from Jesse Osborn-Lanthier; cosmically deep bass music from Egyptian artist Zuli; and well beyond.
KAL
The breadth of Haunter Records is dizzying, and that's the point. Everything on the label challenges expectations in some way or another: the refusal to be categorized is the category.
dblik
Jolly Discs (London, UK)
Primarily an outlet for chameleonic and prolific London producer Guy Gormley, Jolly Discs is home to esoteric art-pop, occult psychedelic folk, crystalline ambience, and raw, ragged, grimy techno. All on the same record, sometimes.
Gormley's solo records as Enchante arrive in three volumes, offering deconstructed, disjointed takes on house and techno. The third does away with beats almost entirely, leaving cold, brittle synth husks behind—my favorite of the trio.
everett
The collaborative records go even further out. Never, recorded mostly with Sam Bardsley, sounds like Arthur Russell if he only used Casio keyboards. RAP, a duo project with folk trickster Thomas Bush, is vocal-led techno in name only—it's deliriously weird in practice.
mgiovanni
And earlier this year, the label released Bush's fourth solo album, The Next 60 Years, an acid folk opus that sounds a bit like Current 93—if David Tibet were really into Stereolab. It's magnificent.
Kashual Plastik (Berlin, DE)
I've tried and failed to describe the Berlin label Kashual Plastik to friends. Perhaps this short dialogue, quoted from The Picture of Dorian Grey in the liner notes for their compilation Labyrinth of Memories, sums it up best:
“What of art?” “It is a malady.” “Love?” “An illusion.” “Religion?” “The fashionable substitute for belief.” “You are a sceptic.” “Never! Scepticism is the beginning of faith.” “What are you?” “To define is to limit.” “Give me a clue.” “Threads snap. You would lose your way in the labyrinth.”
Melmac_Dragon
If there were such a thing as a New Industrial ethos—that's it, right there. But what does Kashual Plastik actually sound like?
Willem_Raderkraft
There are the stygian, guttural doom-drums of group A; the demented neo-disco of Georgia and HOV; the raw, brittle folk songs of Stefan Christensen; the rough-hewn chamber music of Laure Boer; and that's just scratching the surface. To explore, begin with No Order in Destiny, a label compilation.
Tavernello
Kashual Plastik is a world unto itself. To define is to limit.
Knekelhuis (Amsterdam, NL)
Now in its tenth year, Dutch record label Knekelhuis has put out some of the wispiest, gauziest, and rawest sounds in contemporary underground music.
heartyparty
Founded by Dutch musician Mark van de Maat—who played in punk and hardcore bands until he picked up synthesizers (a familiar story!)—the label's breadth can be dizzying, if I may repeat myself: sludge-coated hyper-rhythms from Maoupa Mazzochetti—who collaborates with Beau Wanzer; spectral '90s-style "IDM" from SSIEGE; extraterrestrial downtempo with Chinese harmonics from Zaliva-D; baroque, dubby neo-folk from XIII; and so on. Each record sounds different than the next.
nickstephens78
It's certainly possible to describe Knekelhuis as "genre-agnostic," which is true, more or less. But the label's carefree approach to style aligns fundamentally with New Industrial as I conceive it: not one sound, but an assemblage of sounds—diversity as recalcitrance; diversity as heterodoxy.
Orphx (Hamilton, CAN)
For over 30 years now, Orphx, aka Rich Oddie and Christina Sealey from Hamilton, Ontario, have produced exquisitely blistering machine music made to rattle the brain and scorch the body.
Orphx
Orphx's earliest work, reissued in 2017 by Hospital Productions and Mannequin Records, was noisy, bleak, and bedeviled. Gradually, over numerous albums issued mostly on German New Industrial stalwart label HANDS, the pair incorporated rhythm and percussion, culminating in a series of EPs on Adam X's imprint Sonic Groove: searing techno missives that introduced them, for the first time, to an entirely new club-centric audience. These days, some might call Orphx a "techno act," but they're not—instead, for them, techno is but a form, and one among many.
Orphx
Orphx are extraordinary live performers, genuinely peerless within underground electronic music. Recently, the pair published a 2023 live recording from Polish festival Wrocław Industrial—it's a searing journey through three decades of their work, and another crucial through-line from "Old" to "New." It's the perfect place to start.
Tzusing (Taipei, TW)
If you took new beat from Belgium, Wax Trax!-style body music from Chicago, a little bit of trap music from Atlanta, and you filtered it all through the contemporary arts scenes of Shanghai and Taipei, you might get something that sounds like Tzusing.
tiariel
Tzusing's first LP, 東方不敗, was released in 2017 by L.I.E.S.—repressed numerous times, it might be one of the label's best-selling records. His second, 绿帽 (Green Hat), came out this year on Berlin label PAN. It's an absolute thrill to listen to, recalling the sample-heavy, dancefloor-ready "electro-industrial" sounds of Wumpscut, Numb, or Velvet Acid Christ but cast with Asian sensibility—and drastically better production.
As a DJ, Tzusing wields a particular kind of chaos energy, threading together heavy percussive sounds and melodic pop tenderness. If his own productions pay homage to goth clubs of yore, his mixes herald the goth clubs of an impossible future.
Young Echo (Bristol, UK)
Another Bristol outfit, Young Echo is an artist collective, a record label, a performance series, and a sound unto themselves. The ghost of trip-hop inspirits everything connected to the crew, but none of their work is "throwback" or "retro," in any sense.
everett
Sometimes it's grime- or dubstep-adjacent; sometimes it's R&B- or hip-hop-flavored; sometimes it's simply the darkest ambience or sample loops that disintegrate like ash. Always it is laconic, untold, undiscerned.
Young Echo comprises 13 (give or take) Bristol-based artists; all have their own projects and unique approaches. Cataloging them all would require an entire article, but in 2018, the collective released a double LP, their second, featuring 24 tracks, sketches, songs, raps, haunts. It's an ideal distillation of their sound, and a true journey through the contours of New Industrial.
George Rayner-Law
