industrial dance Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

Front 242 “Interception”

sfilzen — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 18:03:39 +0000

Front 242 “Interception” 1987. Wax Trax Records. 12″ single and I think this is a pretty rare one! Two industrial dance/EBM tracks from the Belgian electronic body music pioneers. Side A has “Quite Unusual,” which was the lead 7″ single from October 1986 from the ’87 LP Official Version. The 12″ mix of the single appeared as a bonus track on the CD release of Official Version. Side B is “Agressiva,” a reworking of the track “Agressiva Due” (also is on Official Version). Not surpassingly, both songs on this 12″ are aggressively electronic and brutally hypnotic dance tracks.

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Nitzer Ebb “That Total Age”

sfilzen — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 19:54:40 +0000

Nitzer Ebb “That Total Age” 1987. I am in a *mood* today and I finally have this on vinyl (and I’m pretty sure an original issue) – I first got a copy in ’87 on cassette (which I still have), and then on CD sometime in the 90’s. It remains one of my favorite releases from that era. It is relentless, dark and angry EBM industrial dance. That Total Age was Nitzer Ebb’s debut album. I’m not sure if the LP charted but the single “Join in the Chant” went to #9 on the US dance chart in ’87; it’s one of my favorites on the album – the lyric “muscle and hate” floats into my brain more often than you’d think. Another lyrical line “To the left! To the left!” leads off the track “Violent Playground,” another top pick though not released as a single. The other singles that were released, “Let Your Body Learn” and “Murderous” are also fantastic. The tracks are repetitive but they are supposed to be – that’s the nature of EBM: throbbing, hardcore and hypnotic, a way to turn off the brain but absolutely not fall asleep or go comatose, rather a heightened awareness but dulling of the senses. When we saw them perform in 2021 I danced about 3 miles worth of steps, emerging a blissed-out sweaty mess. I also saw them play back in the summer of ’90 when they toured with Depeche Mode but I didn’t have a fitness tracker then (they literally didn’t exist) but I’m guessing it was a similar experience.

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Skinny Puppy “Worlock”

sfilzen — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 20:28:01 +0000

Skinny Puppy “Worlock” 1990. 12″ promo single (the blank cover altered digitally by me, rather poorly). It’s been sitting in my “mystery to-do” pile for around four years and today I finally bothered to put on my reading glasses to figure out what it is! Nowhere, except in the teeny-tiny credits on the record’s label, does it say what it is. Anyway! Turns out it’s the second and final single from Skinny Puppy’s 1989 LP Rabies. The record features Ministry’s Al Jourgensen on several tracks, though not on “Worlock.” As expected, it’s industrial dance, heavy and hypnotic. Side A has two versions, “Worlock (Ed)” and the slightly shorter “Worlock (LP mix).” Side B has the sinister screamy “Tin Omen 1” (the original was the first single from Worlock and Jourgensen is on the track, providing guitar and backing vocals) and more computer/space-age (but still a bit evil) “Brak Talk.”

Warning – the video is horrible (as in horrifying). I only watched a couple of seconds in order to get the link. Click at your own risk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1z4R4DNSx4

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Convert “Unrestrained”

sfilzen — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 18:14:13 +0000

Convert “Unrestrained” Remix EP, 2023. Triple Eye Industries. Released this past weekend, on limited edition cassette and CD only. Milwaukee industrial-goth, post-punk and currently my favorite local band. We made it out to the release party show at Promises on Friday night and it was pretty epic, though no one saw much because of the intensity of the smoke machine. This literally is the best picture we took (and I’ve applied filters so you can at least kind of see Dillon singing). Funniest part of the evening: the young guy with the dreads you can see in the photo below at one point tried to start a mosh pit. Some of the young women in the crowd freaked and scurried out of the way to near where we were standing by the wall. Joe lightly grabbed the guy by the shoulder and told him to “Settle down!” I laughed so hard because it was such an old-man moment: get off my lawn!

Convert at Promises, March 3rd 2023

Anyway, Unrestrained is a collection of six remixed tracks from their 2022 LP Saves and it’s amazing. I think I actually like the remixes even better than the originals. Super extra dark, with the industrial sound amped into EBM territory. Think early (good) Ministry, Front 242, Nitzer Ebb meets The Cure, Bauhaus and Siouxsie. I 100% would have been dancing to these tracks on industrial night in the 80’s. “Watch It Burn (Blood Remix)” and “Bleached Bones (Vic Dagger Remix)” are ass-shaking amazing. I also love the swirly dream-synth accent on “Nightbursts (TransAmvania Remix)” and “Death Mask (Cellmate Remix)” is terrifying — in a good way. I also must give a shoutout to the sludgy track “Cold Motive (Guerrilla Ghost Remix)” mostly because I know one of the Guerrilla Ghost guys. You can get your own copy here.

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Public Image Ltd “Happy?”

sfilzen — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 18:29:25 +0000

Public Image Ltd “Happy?” 1987. Today, January 31st, is John Lydon’s birthday (b. 1956). Happy? is PiL’s sixth studio LP; it went to #40 in the UK and to #169 in the US. It has an 80’s industrial dance sound; Lydon said the it has “a doom, death and destruction feel about it, very crunchy, tanks rolling, very military in its approach.” My top track include the two singles from late ’87: “Seattle” which went to #47 in the UK and made it onto the US dance chart at #30, and “The Body” which did not chart. Both are really solid industrial dance tracks and it’s entirely likely I danced to one or both sometime in ’88 when heading to alternative night at the dance clubs we’d drive up to in Green Bay from Appleton was totally a thing. I also like “Hard Times,” which has a lot of Lydon sneer and some signature “ah-ha-ha-ha’s” overlaying some righteous 80’s hair metal guitar riffs and prog keyboards. Even if I didn’t like that track, I’d share it just for PiL’s performance of the song at the Bristol Zoo for a Saturday morning kids’ program.

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Depeche Mode “People Are People”

sfilzen — Mon, 09 May 2022 17:33:40 +0000

Depeche Mode “People Are People” 1984. US/Canada-only compilation album. Today, May 9th, is DM singer Dave Gahan’s 60th birthday (b. David Callcott, 1962). Sire Records released People Are People to the North American market prior to DM’s fourth LP Some Great Reward (September ’84) to help generate more interest in the band and expose the audience to both new and earlier singles. The soonish-to-be hit single “People Are People” leads off the record (it finally charted in the US in May ’85, going to #13). There are a couple of tracks from the their third album Construction Time Again: “Love, In Itself” (#21 UK), “Told You So” and “Pipeline” plus two Construction-era tracks: the ’83 non-album single “Get the Balance Right!,” (#13 UK), “Work Hard” which was the B-side to “Everything Counts” (#6 UK) and the extended version of that single, “Everything Counts (In Larger Amounts).” There’s only one A Broken Frame related song, “Now This is Fun,” which was the b-side to “See You” (1982, #6 UK). I have all of these tracks on other albums, singles and/or 12″ singles but People Are People is a nice addition to my Depeche Mode stash; Allmusic calls it a release that is “solely for the hardcore fans.”

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Nitzer Ebb “That Total Age”

sfilzen — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 19:03:08 +0000

Nitzer Ebb “That Total Age” 1987. Not on vinyl, but on ALL the other formats: I bought the cassette in ‘87 (and listened to it incessantly that year), picked up the CD sometime in the 90′s or early 2000′s, and am currently streaming it on Spotify (my tape player will probably munch the cassette and I don’t have a CD player readily accessible). Last night we got to see Nitzer Ebb play at Turner Hall here in Milwaukee – it was insane!! I danced non-stop for almost 2 hours (logging in over 10,000 steps and 2 cardio workouts on my FitBit 😅). The last time I saw them was over 30 years ago, in the summer of ‘90 when they toured with Depeche Mode – the bands are/were good friends and continued to work together on tours and recording for years after. Nitzer Ebb’s Bon Harris and Douglas McCarthy look older; I suppose I do, too.

Relentlessly pounding EBM/industrial dance, That Total Age was Nitzer Ebb’s debut album. The single “Join in the Chant” hit #9 on the US dance charts and the crowd went insane last night when they performed it.

Join in the Chant

Join in the Chant (2)

They also played “Murderous” and “Let Your Body Learn” (two of my favorites and both also released as singles ), plus a hilarious ballad version of “Violent Playground” and “Alarm” as part of the encore. While not on That Total Age, Nitzer Ebb also played “Hearts and Minds” (we have that 12″ single on vinyl). Another top pick from the album is the opener “Fitness to Purpose.” My original cassette has the track “Warsaw Ghetto” which was not included on the originally released CD’s (mine doesn’t have it) but that track does appear on the 2018 reissue.

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Love and Rockets “Yin and Yang (The Flowerpot Man)“ and “Kundalini Express”

sfilzen — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 17:33:57 +0000

Love and Rockets “Yin and Yang (The Flowerpot Man)“ and “Kundalini Express” from Express, released 35 years ago today, September 15th, 1986. Beggars Banquet. Express is one of my favorite albums from the 80′s, combining the best of industrial dance, post-punk, goth and neo-psychadelia sounds, and these two singles are among my top tracks from the LP.

“Kundalini Express” was the first single from Express; it’s also my all-time favorite song Love and Rockets song: lyrically clever with a train-chugging industrial dance beat. The 12″ single has two non-album tracks on the b-side: the rich and darkly swirling “Lucifer Sam” and the gothy-industrial “Holiday on the Moon.”

“Yin and Yang (The Flowerpot Man)” is also excellent. It was the second single from Express (there was one more single: “All in My Mind” which charted at #49 on the US rock chart). The 12″ has two versions of “Yin and Yang” – Side A’s the “remix” (it’s longer) and Side B the single/album version. Both high energy breakneck speed. Side B also has the industrial-goes-goth-goes-free-jazz instrumental “Angels and Devils.”

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Love and Rockets “Body and Soul”

sfilzen — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 17:32:38 +0000

Love and Rockets “Body and Soul” 1994. 12″ single, Beggar’s Banquet. Clocking in at almost 15 minutes, the album version of “Body and Soul” (from their ‘94 Hot Trip to Heaven) on this 12-inch single, plus the 3 remixes of the song, its “Part 2″ single version and one other track makes this release almost an LP. The album and the single both failed to chart, likely because of the abrupt stylistic change from a gothy-industrial guitar sound to a guitar-free, trippy ambient-electronica one, sometimes with serious techno beats. Daniel Ash described it: “I was hoping it was going to be our Dark Side of the Moon. It was either going to be that, or it was going to be a flop. Unfortunately it was a flop. But I’m still proud of the record.”

I’m a pretty big Love and Rockets fan but this song – and the album if I’m being honest – completely escaped my notice. “Body and Soul” is trippy and hypnotic, but definitely danceable. The three remixes include “Body and Soul (Out of Body)” (remixed by Secret Knowledge/Kris Needs, part of a house/techno group) which is pounding techno, “Body and Soul (Delta Lady), ” (also remixed by Secret Knowledge/Needs) which has more of a nod to Love and Rockets prior industrial dance sound, and “Body and Soul (Dark Side of the 12th Moon)” (remixed by Higher Intelligence Agency) which is as spacey and proggy as the remix title suggests. “Coyote” is a non-album track (there IS guitar but it’s acoustic and twangy, spaciously relaxed) and the 12″ closes with “Body and Soul (Part 2)” which is less than half the length of the album version.

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Depeche Mode “A Question of Time”

sfilzen — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 19:04:52 +0000

Depeche Mode “A Question of Time,” the third single from Black Celebration which was released 35 years ago today, March 17th, 1986. This 12″ single on Mute Records has the Extended Remix of “A Question of Time,” a longer, slightly faster version of the dark industrial dance synthpop track that appears on the Black Celebration. The 7″ single version (also faster than the album’s) went to #17 in the UK and to #34 on the US Dance chart. Side B has three live tracks, recorded on April 10th, 1986 at the Birmingham N.E.C., two from Black Celebration: “Black Celebration” and one of my favorites “Stripped,” plus “Something to Do” from their ‘84 album Some Great Reward.

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