A Wistful Video-salute to the Dark Side
From 1995 to 1997, Sleep Chamber was my lullaby. Perhaps due to my taking the band’s name a little too literally, Sirkle Zero was on repeat every night. Soon after, Psychic TV entered orbit and the floodgates ov darkness were officially open.
Psychic TV testcard, used at beginnings of videos, performances, etc. Also my desktop. Also, I’m putting this on a T-shirt.
Yep, nostalgia abounds with the resurgence of darque music [and imagery, and the accompanying, deliberately lo-fi videos], that’s been steadily creeping forth over the past couple of years.
The video-playlist ahead began to take shape because all this new gloom–stuff is blowin’ up and the pioneers of dark/experimental/noise/etc. deserve re-visiting and acknowledgment more than ever. And because the music below has managed to remain visceral and electrifying and relevant as ever. Also, having all these videos in one place? AWESOME. A shamefully incomplete tribute, the playlist features Sleep Chamber, Coil, Swans, Psychic TV, Nurse With Wound, and MOAR. Add your favorites in the comments section to flesh this baby out!
Nurse With Wound: I’ve Plummed This Whole Neighborhood
Swans: Children of God
Einsturzende Neubauten: Headcleaner
Coil: At The Heart of it All
Psychic TV: Unclean
Diamanda Galas: Double Barrel Prayer
Sleep Chamber: Isis
Merzbow: Minus Zero
Clock DVA: The Hacker [Fairly nerdy, be warned!]
SPK: In Flagrante Delicto
November 17th, 2010 at 10:18 am
sweet nostalgia. <3 thanks!
November 17th, 2010 at 11:06 am
YES.
November 17th, 2010 at 11:45 am
Yay, it looks like a birthday soundtrack for me. :)
November 17th, 2010 at 11:47 am
My favorite http://www.kirliancamera.com/
November 17th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
I have time to leave a proper comment now. Psychic TV has been on my mind for the past few months, probably because It keeps creeping into my artwork. Any recordings I had of them have since been lost or stolen. I saw DG in Philadelphia, but don’t remember how or why. Great Nurse With Wound video, I do have something of theirs (I think). I’d never seen that video probably because there was no internet then.
Current 93.
November 17th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Pigface.
Death in June.
November 17th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Vivacious G, great suggestions! You know, I was going to include Current 93, but couldn’t find a video I liked enough. With Psychic TV, I actually had the opposite problem – there are even a few of their non-music videos on the ol’ You tube!
November 17th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Well Zo, yer speakin’ my language….literally.
This puts me in the Happy Place since I’d officially attained “cranky old eccentric, who still listens to bands no one’s ever heard of” status some years ago,
My first introduction to any of this was back in the mid-80’s when USA network( yes, THAT one )broadcast the Some Bizzare show on their after-hours program, Night Flight. Catching the video to Coil’s version of “Tainted Love”, as well as Foetus performing “Stumbo” among others at 3:00 in he morning, affected some permanent alterations in my post-high school/pre-hallucinogen brain.
I was a huge fan of early SPK( particularly the album, Leichenschrei ), who produced some of the most nightmarishly disturbing and frightening soundscapes ever before an utterly bewildering devolvement into a dance- oriented synth-pop band.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlOz-UmxJN4
Their Zamia Lehmanni album is a far more exquisite change of pace with an epic scale, multi-ethnic sound that prefigures much of the more recent “dark ambient” artists like Ulf Soderberg.
November 17th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Back at that time in Boston we had WZBC and the “No Commercial potential” timeslot to find this stuff. Sleep Chamber were intense live around the time they recorded Sirkle Zero, and Satanic Sanction and Spellbondage were never far from my turntable. It was a great thing to have Zewizz and his shop locally where one could discover Controlled Bleeding, PTV, Coil, Dokument/Massman et. al.
Just as Gen P O, John Z and their generation took much inspiration from Burroughs and Gysin’s experiments without merely replicating them, so do Witch House credit previous pioneers even as they mine the creepy we all knew was there from mainstream music. I’m loving how Witch House artists take inspiration from a deeper history and wider range than what we’ve seen even in underground artists in the last ten years.
November 17th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
This post makes me happier than words can ever say. Coil’s “Love’s Secret Domain” permanently changed the way I hear.
November 17th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
P. Emerson Williams: “Witch House artists take inspiration from a deeper history and wider range than what we’ve seen even in underground artists in the last ten years.”
Agreed 100%. I think the fact that it contains elements from so many of my favorite genres is one of the reasons I like Witch House so much.
November 17th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Paul, The good news is that more people are going to be introduced to these older bands through the new stuff happening right now. I loved your story and can’t believe USA network broadcast Coil and Foetus once upon a time!
Also, I’m adding this video to the mix after being inspired by your mention of early SPK. Great call!
November 17th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Aw c’mon, how can you have nurse with wound an coil, but forget throbbing gristle and premature ejaculation (I mean with names like those Im surprised.)
Im happy you included merzbow but the way.
November 17th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Klytus, I decided to pick PTV for this post, because they had better video quality than Throbbing Gristle, even though I’m likely a bigger TG fan.
Premature Ejaculation’s a good addition – I didn’t listen to that until a couple of years after my original introduction to thee dark side, which is probably why I didn’t think to include them.
November 17th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
And, not to forget that Throbbing Gristle had their début at London’s ICA, and the visual art, multimedia, writings both fiction and polemical were integral to the work of all artists mentioned above. As someone who has seen goth come and go, come and go (not speaking of Michaelangelo) it is really with the integration of multiple disciplines it becomes interesting. Case in point would be MSV/Cosmotropia De Xam.
Here’s a recent free download with not only Coil, Nocturnal Emissions and Zewizz, but also the insanely talented Mushy, FRz0 and more:
http://www.bleak.at/index.php?iwant=arts&release_nr=bleak029
November 17th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
I remember that I wanted to hear Premature Ejaculation after reading a review with a memorable sentence: “music as pleasant as scratching your eye with a rusty nail” at the age of 13 or something. You rarely see such an insightful and accurate description.
Accidentally, I just came back from Wroclaw Industrial Festival. The line-up was fabulous, including Esplendor Geometrico (oh, legendary!), Cindytalk and Konstruktivists. My band Theme also provided a bit of industrial sound with an oldschool 80s touch…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9FpmskVhR4
November 17th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
P. Emerson Williams: Absolutely. Also, thank you for that great link, downloading now!
Olga: ooh, that festival sounds wonderful. Thanks for that link, too – we all finally get to see you in action!
November 18th, 2010 at 9:06 am
Sleep Chamber!
I loved and still love them and I’m so pleased that others did too.
(Still kicking myself that I bought 2-3 albums instead of the entire discography at the used CD shop in Allston, but I needed groceries:/)
November 18th, 2010 at 10:53 am
Oooooohhhh…happy happy happy!!! Haven’t thought of Sleep Chamber in FAR too long…I used to walk miles (through the snow, uphill and barefoot) to hunt down their stuff. Do you know of where I can download some?? Swans & Einsturdende have stayed right by my side through the years, but PTV & DVA & Diamanda & Coil…I missed ’em!!! Thanks Zo!
November 19th, 2010 at 10:04 am
You had me at Sleep Chamber. I meticulously assembled a near complete discography of theirs on vinyl in a season of obsession, once.
Other things that could fit on this list might be some early Laibach, Chris & Cosey, pre-dance Severed Heads.
November 19th, 2010 at 10:05 am
[…] Zoetica Ebb over at Coilhouse has done the hard work at assembling a double fistful of ten YouTube s…. Follow the link to watch them, love them, sharpen your buck knife to them, share them with your slave, whatever you’ve got to do. November 19th, 2010 | Category: Music, Video […]
November 20th, 2010 at 5:10 am
Oh dude, listening to this makes me so happy. Thank you Coilhouse for listing these all.
@Mooshka: Yes, mine too! (especially Unidentified Light)
November 20th, 2010 at 9:47 am
Sleep Chamber remain one of my favorites. I’m so glad that John Zewizz is back in action (The new Stolen Sleep album is quite good). They even re-released the Live at the Limelight tape on DVDr.
Sometimes I think all the posh technology available isn’t for the best; some things need to be a bit ragged and rough.
November 21st, 2010 at 3:07 am
Circa 1995 – 1997 I went on a trip to visit my grandmother in Wichita Kansas. I met a friend who had moved from Aurora Colorado, and we went to a mall somewhere in Wichita that has probably disappeared by now. In one of the record stores they had a barrel filled with a bunch of cassettes that were marked down to a dollar each. I found a bunch of gems there. Throbbing Gristle, Wire, Pankow, and Fad Gadget etc.
It sort of turned my head around.
Fad Gadget was my favorite discovery. Here are two different versions of the same video for the song Collapsing New People:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGXBjwifubI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcQY9mQ02mM
Another great album I found was by Renaldo and the Loaf, called ‘Songs For Swinging Larvae.’
The title track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n3MbVoLYns
This thread also made me wonder about bands who were around then that I didn’t know of and wish I did.
Terminal Cheesecake:
Ish Tseren – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKIPqI6VVoU
Blow Hound – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm6o4QOUqrg
November 24th, 2010 at 9:15 am
[…] Coilhouse » Blog Archive » A Wistful Video-salute to the Dark Side Just as Gen P O, John Z and their generation took much inspiration from Burroughs and Gysin's experiments without merely replicating them, so do Witch House credit previous pioneers even as they mine the creepy we all knew was there from Another great album I found was by Renaldo and the Loaf, called 'Songs For Swinging Larvae.' The title track: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n3MbVoLYns. This thread also made me wonder about bands who were around then that I didn't . […]
December 11th, 2010 at 3:44 am
[…] … Alan Moore on Austin Osman Spare … Ancient temples designed for tripping … A wistful video-salute to the dark side … Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye … Basic Perinatal Matrix I … Cash graffiti […]
December 19th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
[…] Coilhouse » Blog Archive » A Wistful Video-salute to the Dark Side Nov 17, 2010. Coil's “Love's Secret Domain” permanently changed the way I hear. Zoetica Says: November 17th, 2010 at 1:36 pm Coilhouse » Blog Archive » A Wistful Video-salute to the Dark Side […]
December 30th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUxoughdYto
January 15th, 2011 at 1:22 am
Anything that Arne Duncan is doing falls under the header of “Kabuki Show.”
May 30th, 2011 at 7:19 am
Does anyone have any idea what album (if any) Nurse With Wounds “I’ve Plummed This Whole Neighborhood” came from?
August 7th, 2012 at 9:13 am
Though this post is a little old, I thought it worth mentioning that Crime & The City Solution is touring this fall.