 | | Industrial innovators Death in June emerged in 1980 from the remnants of the punk unit Crisis, reuniting singer/multi-instrumentalist Douglas Pearce and bassist Tony Wakeford; drummer Patrick Leagas completed the original lineup, which made its live debut late the following year with an opening slot for the Birthday Party. |
 | | With a glut of industrial-pop hybrids on the market in the 1980s and '90s, several bands stayed true to the experimental nature of early industrial music. |
 | | A loose experimental project formed in 1978 by Steven Stapleton, Nurse with Wound explored abstract music -- influenced by Krautrock, freewheeling jazz improvisation, and Throbbing Gristle but including a heavy debt to surrealists Dali and Lautréamont -- with an overpowering release schedule of limited-edition albums and EPs. |
 | | One of the most controversial figures in American underground culture, Boyd Rice first came to prominence in the late ‘70s creating experimental noise under the moniker Non. |
 | | Swans were born during the heyday of New York's no wave reaction to punk rock, on the Lower East Side. |
 | | Formed in London in 1980, the Legendary Pink Dots moved to Amsterdam in the middle of the decade. Members throughout the band's career have been Edward Ka-Spel (vocals, keyboards) and Phil Knight (keyboards), also known as the Silver Man, with a shifting supporting cast over the years. |
 | | Non is essentially the one-man project of noise monger and provocateur Boyd Rice, whose solo work is virtually interchangeable with that released under his Non alias. |
 | | After Genesis P-Orridge dissolved the seminal industrial rock outfit Throbbing Gristle, he and Gristle cohorts Peter Christopherson and Cosey Fanni Tutti, plus Geoff Rushton, formed Psychic TV in 1979 as a means of continuing their confrontational, shock-oriented approach to music and their multimedia live performances. |
 | | Initially established in 1982 as a solo outlet for vocalist and percussionist John Balance, the experimental sonic manipulation unit Coil became a full-fledged concern a year later following the arrival of keyboardist/programmer Peter Christopherson, a founder of Psychic TV as well as a member of Throbbing Gristle. |
 | | Edward Ka-Spel has built an international following with his dark, psychedelic-folk melodies and astute lyrics, first as the enigmatic and prolific founder/lead singer of London-cum-Netherlands-based band the Legendary Pink Dots and then as a solo recording artist and performer. |
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 | | A solo project of Swedish instrumentalist/composer Lina Der Baby Doll General, Deutsch Nepal has explored the ambient sounds of the industrial world since the early '90s. |
 | | Black Tape for a Blue Girl's ethereal, mournful sound virtually defined the darkwave aesthetic of their label, Projekt Records, a company owned and operated by the group's founder, composer and keyboardist Sam Rosenthal. |
 | | Dead Can Dance combine elements of European folk music -- particularly music from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance -- with ambient pop and worldbeat flourishes. |
 | | Abrasive, aggressive, and antagonistic, Britain's Throbbing Gristle pioneered industrial music; exploring death, mutilation, fascism, and degradation amid a thunderous cacophony of mechanical noise, tape loops, extremist anti-melodies, and bludgeoning beats, the group's cultural terrorism -- the "wreckers of civilization," one tabloid called them -- raised the stakes of artistic confrontation to new heights, combating all notions of commerciality and good taste with a maniacal fervor. |
 | | From the group's inception in the mid-'70s onward, the New York-based Controlled Bleeding have remained one of the most prolific and unpredictable American industrial bands, exploring the extremes of both unchecked sonic fury and free-floating ambient dub. |
 | | Mike Van Portfleet formed Lycia in early 1988 in his hometown of Phoenix. Inspired by post-punk and the ethereal 4AD sound of the '80s, he began experimenting with guitar loops on his four-track recorder. |
 | | The post-punk foursome Unto Ashes molds elements of folk and electronic for a healthy dose of darkwave mystery, and its Arabic hums are intricate and complex for a vivid imagery of wordplay. |
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 | | Severed Heads were one of the pioneering acts on Australia's alternative music scene, a group whose work embraced elements of industrial, synth pop, electronic, and experimental music, with found sounds, tape loops, samples, and full-on noise playing as large a role in their music as any conventional instruments. |
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 | | A German pagan folk band, Faun incorporate medieval instruments and themes along with a contemporary electronic musical sheen. |
 | | Like their darkwave counterparts (Faith and the Muse, Lush, Slowdive), Santa Barbara, CA's Trance to the Sun illuminated their own brooding dream pop layered with goth rock-humming for a mesmerizing spiral of modern electronica. |
 | | Along with Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, Germany's Einstürzende Neubauten ("collapsing new buildings") helped pioneer industrial music with an avant-garde mix of white-noise guitar drones, vocals verging on the unlistenable at times, and a clanging, rhythmic din produced by a percussion section consisting of construction materials, power tools, and various metal objects. |
 | | Lisa Gerrard is a vocalist and composer known for a genre of music often described as "arty goth-rock" and for world and new age music. |
 | | Die Form is chiefly the project of French artist Philippe Fichot, who is usually accompanied by singer Eliane P. |
 | | The Mediaeval Baebes are a crossover vocal ensemble whose unique style features a deft mixture of medieval music, multi-language texts, modern arrangements, and both ancient and modern instrumentation. |
 | | Legendary Deep Purple and Rainbow guitarist Ritchie Blackmore (b. April 14, 1945, Weston-super-Mare, England) shifted his musical focus away from hard rock in the late 1990s and started concentrating on his love of Renaissance-era music. |
 | | Of all the bands involved in Britain's goth rock movement of the 1980s, Fields of the Nephilim were the most believable. |
 | | The founding fathers of American goth rock, Christian Death took a relentlessly confrontational stand against organized religion and conventional morality, with an appetite for provocation that made Marilyn Manson look like Stryper. |
 | | The gothic dream pop collective This Mortal Coil was one of the most representative bands on the 4AD label, not least because they were run by 4AD president and co-founder Ivo Watts-Russell. |
 | | Drawing from the pioneering work of artists like Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, and Suicide, the dark avant-industrial group Skinny Puppy formed in 1982 in Vancouver, British Columbia. |
 | | Pigface is an industrial music collective directed by remixer/producer/drummer Martin Atkins, who prior to forming the group in 1990, had lent his talents to such outfits as Public Image Ltd. |
 | | Formed in the wake of the punk explosion in England, Joy Division became the first band in the post-punk movement by later emphasizing not anger and energy but mood and expression, pointing ahead to the rise of melancholy alternative music in the '80s. |
 | | One of England's leading goth bands of the 1980s, the Sisters of Mercy play a slow, gloomy, ponderous hybrid of metal and psychedelia, often incorporating dance beats; the one constant in the band's career has been deep-voiced singer Andrew Eldritch. |
 | | The daughter of a nurse-mother and a livestock-trading father, songstress Loreena McKennitt studied classical piano and vocal training, and learned to dance in the highland style as a youngster. |
 | | Bauhaus are the founding fathers of goth rock, creating a minimalistic, overbearingly gloomy style of post-punk rock driven by jagged guitar chords and cold, distant synthesizers. |
 | | UV Pøp(or "Ultra Violent Pop") was a post-punk group from the South Yorkshire region of England formed in the early 1980s by John K. |
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 | | The Sheffield, England-based Danse Society originated in Y?, a band that included bassist Bubble, drummer Paul Gilmartin, keyboardist Paul "Bee" Hampshire, guitarist Dave Patrick, and vocalist Steve Rawlings. |
 | | One of the original forefathers in the industrial boom of the 1980s, Chrome's amalgam of distorted guitars and vocals, samples from TV, and a raw punk aesthetic (inspired by the Stooges) became much more popular in the early '90s than it ever was while the band was around in the '70s and '80s. |
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 | | Area's uncompromising blend of jazz-rock, ethnic folk, experimentation, and political philosophies made them a unique presence in Italy during the 1970s. |
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