Control I'm Here: Adventures On The Industrial Dancefloor 1983-1990 / Various (CD)

In the post post-punk aftermath, as electronic rhythms and synthesisers began to dominate the landscape, and with industrial godheads Throbbing Gristle now no more, artists across the UK, Europe and the US began to fuse minimal, emerging proto-house music, dark and Gothic tinged aesthetics and the noise and brutality of industrial music to create a hybrid which proved simultaneously cold, alienated and accessible. Taking it's lead from the dark shadows of cold war politics, governmental control, medical gore and a brutalist futuristic vision, this industrial mutation slid comfortably onto dancefloors catering for those for whom Thatcherism, Reaganomics and Eastern Bloc ideologies provided no hope, producing the most unlikely of clubbing scenes. Characterised by hard hitting and repetitive rhythms, distorted synthesisers and guitars, pounding bass, heavy samples and lyrics exploring a side of life unavailable in mainstream music, this new thing split, morphed and mutated as the decade progressed. From the coven-disco of Alien Sex Fiend to Sisters Of Mercy's ice cold Gothic rock-techno, The Neon Judgement's Electronic Body Music and the mutated synth pop of Ministry to future chart toppers' The Shamen's sampling of a psychedelic endorsing MP and Renegade Soundwave's how-to guide to cocaine fuelled sex, this was music the invited outsiders inside. Terrifying and disturbing to those who weren't living it, but everyday and real to those who were. 'Control I'm Here' provides a carefully curated overview of that time and place, the variety of forms this industrial machine took and the key artists who pushed this hard music into the fringes of the mainstream, giving no quarter in their full-frontal approach to both their sound and the package they presented it in. Intense, heavy and free from concession. If this doesn't sound like music for you then it almost certainly isn't.

Track List

1. Renegade Soundwave - Cocaine Sex (Turbo Lust Mix)
2. Controlled Bleeding - the Fodder Song
3. Severed Heads - Twenty Deadly Diseases (Extended Mix)
4. Age of Chance - Kiss
5. Laibach - Die Liebe
6. Nitzer Ebb - Control Im Here (Zero Option Mix)
7. Nobody Uninc - Only Human
8. Alien Sex Fiend - Ignore the Machine (Electrode Mix)
9. Hula - Give Me Money
10. The Dave Howard Singers - Yon Yonson
11. The Neon Judgement - TV Treated
12. The Sisters of Mercy - Lucretia My Reflection (12" Version)
13. Son of Sam ; Good Shepherds - Cuts 'N Bruises 14 the Weathermen - Poison (12" Version)
14. The Shamen - Christopher Mayhew Says (7" Version)
15. À;Grumh... - Kill
16. Lead Into Gold - Idiot
17. Nocturnal Emissions - No Separation
18. Front Line Assembly - Lurid Sensation
19. The Force Dimension - Hidden Ambush (Red Version)
20. Absolute Body Control - Tanzmusik
21. Test Dept. - New World Order
22. The Cassandra Complex - Beyond Belief
23. Front 242 - Quite Unusual (12" Version)
24. SPK - Seduction
25. Die Krupps - Germaniac (Analogital Climix)
26. Section 25 - Dirty Disco II
27. The Jackal - Underneath the Arches
28. Executive Slacks - I'm Coming
29. Meat Beat Manifesto - I Got the Fear (Titanium Mix)
30. Attrition - the Fiftieth Gate
31. Die Warzau - Land of the Free (Machine Mix)
32. Borghesia - Naked Uniformed Dead Hot Trash Mix
33. Wmtid - Kunst
34. Hunting Lodge - Tribal Warning Shot
35. Esplendor Geometrico - Comisario de la Luz III
36. Legendary Pink Dots - Maniac
37. Silver Chapter - Neon Queen
38. M.A.D. - Sunfeast
39. Ministry - My Possession
40. Die Form - the Beast
41. Screaming Trees - Don't B Afraid
42. Son of Sam - Starch
43. 625 Lines - Under Construction