Artists.
The practitioner axis · every artist and precursor figure filed in this archive, in alphabetical order · each entry leads into a full artist page
American noise artist and label operator. Founding member of Wolf Eyes 1996 to 2005; operator of Hanson Records (Oberlin, Ohio) continuously from 1994 onward.
The Frankfurt-based German installation, conceptual and sound artist whose practice covers four decades and three phases. Earliest documented work circulates under the alias S.B.O.T.H.I.
American noise and experimental-electronics artist (Phoenix, later Knoxville); an industrial electrician who records construction-site sound and builds it into rhythmic noise, illbient and industrial hip-hop. The first Tier ∅ filing, its standing held open while the work continues.
Italian collective, Rome-based; active across the early 1980s through to the present in two phases
The solo industrial / power-electronics project of American producer Kris Lapke (since 2005), a cornerstone of Hospital Productions · rhythmic industrial and controlled power electronics · the 2.5-hour NATO-Uniformen (2010) and Quantized Angel (2019) · Lapke also a noted producer for Prurient and others.
American composer · 1931–2021 · the composer of acoustic process · I Am Sitting in a Room · sound, room resonance and physical phenomena as the work itself
British free-improvisation group founded in London in 1965 (Keith Rowe, Lou Gare, Eddie Prévost), soon joined by Cornelius Cardew. The group that effectively founded non-idiomatic free improvisation; through Rowe's tabletop guitar an ancestor of the noise lineage.
English experimental musician, Hull, active since the mid-1980s. From the harsh-acoustic project Ferial Confine and early Organum membership into still, overtone-rich pastoral drone; co-founder of Ora and of Mirror with Christoph Heemann.
The British experimental and ambient solo artist, producer, remixer and sleeve designer who became one of the most prolific collaborators on the post-2005 Nurse With Wound and Current 93 records…
The project of German artist Stefan Hanser · founded 1996 in Berlin · field-recording-based death industrial and dark ambient with a bleak, civilisation-critical and post-romantic outlook
The Dom Elchklang catalogue's most-direct industrial entry, produced across both LPs by Achim P.
German death-industrial / power-electronics project · the work of the artist known as B. Moloch (Brigant Moloch), occasionally joined by Wilhelm Herich of Genocide Organ
T.A.G.C. · The Anti-Group Communications · Adi Newton 's parallel research-multimedia project · conceived 1978 with Steven Turner alongside Clock DVA
Richard Johnson's electroacoustic sonic-collage position · born in Abu Dhabi to British parents, later working from the UK / Scotland
Swedish death-ambient / black-industrial duo of Mikael Stavöstrand and Tomas Pettersson · active 1990 to the late 1990s · one of the founding voices of death industrial · dark ritual, occult, rumble-and-timpani soundscapes · cult album Mind of Flesh & Bones (Staalplaat 1993).
Ecuadorian harsh-noise project of Leonardo Sabatto, Quito, from 1995; later ran the Bizarre Audio Arts tape label.
German composer working from Hamburg across six decades of electroacoustic and musique-concrète work
Japanese synthesiser-noise project · begun 1993 · the solo work of Hiroshi Hasegawa of C.C.C.C.
The Italian noise network's post-M.B. one-operator catalogue.
Swedish cinematic dark-ambient project of Simon Heath · founded 2003 on Cold Meat Industry · the defining project of the form's cinematic, field-recording-driven, narrative wing · founder of the Cryo Chamber label after relocating to Oregon in 2011.
English dark-wave and industrial-electronic band · founded 1980 in Coventry by Martin Bowes and Julia Niblock (later Waller) · sole constant member Bowes
The project of Akifumi Nakajima (1959–2013) · founded 1991 in Kyoto
Japanese psych-and-noise-rock band · Tokyo, formed October 2002 · led by guitarist Mondo Bohachi · heavy, distorted, redlined psychedelic rock
One-man industrial-metal / doom project of San Diego engineer Tristan Shone (formed 2004) · performs on self-built Drone Machines and Dub Machines, custom controllers built to demand physical force · the SRL / Godflesh machine lineage as a solo live practice · Drone Machines (2010), Beastland (2018), Krüller (2022).
The Tuscan dark-ambient project founded in 1992 by Massimo Magrini, a computer scientist and CNR-ISTI Pisa researcher in signal processing and gestural interfaces, whose records on Old Europa Cafe…
American noise project led by Eric Wood · founded 1991 as a sister band to the Claremont powerviolence group Man Is the Bastard, and Wood's main project since that band ended in 1997
A side identity of the :zoviet*france: collective, used mainly in the early 1990s for the parent group's more atmospheric, textural work. Active c. 1991 to the mid-1990s.
Dutch ambient-drone-and-later-dreampop duo founded late 1988 in Nijmegen by Frans de Waard and Freek Kinkelaar · later joined by Olga Wallis as vocalist 2007
French electroacoustic composer · 1927–2013 · the GRM master whose De Natura Sonorum (1975) is among the central works of electroacoustic music
California art / anti-art / sound-collage / collaborative configuration · founded 1979 in the South Bay area of Los Angeles as the house band for a network of artist residences
UK noise and experimental-electronics practice (also brb>voicecoil, BRB), the anchor of the Newcastle upon Tyne label muza muza; mid-1990s onward. The one-off side project The Daughters of Conceptual Sex Death issued a single self-titled album in 1996. A held filing, its standing left open while the work continues.
American queer harsh-noise collective formed by Richard Ramirez, Houston 1989; a foundational US harsh-noise unit with a large rotating cast.
American power electronics · created 1984 by Brian Ladd (of Psyclones) at Ladd-Frith, Eureka, California, behind the fictitious members Ivo Cutler and Sterling Cross · the Whitehouse-inversion case and the first Christian industrial band
The UK experimental industrial / avant-funk / radical-political group active 1979 to 2003.
Brighter Death Now (BDN, B.D.N.) · Swedish death-industrial / power-electronics / dark-ambient project
A side-project of Achim P. Li Khan (of HNAS), fronted by the fictional bassist Brigitte Hansen; the 1989 LP Frau Hansen Am Bass on Dom Elchklang is a mutant space-rock fiction.
American cut-up noise project · directed by "Srad Tene" · dense, vulgar sample-collage from thousands of mangled sounds, in the Nurse With Wound / Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock line · part of the Nihilist Records circle
Christian Renou's long-running musique-concrete position · founding 1985 with the cassette Frikture on the own BRUME Rec. imprint · about 90 positions across the 40-year career
The principal music project of C. Spencer Yeh (b. Taipei, 1975), founded 1993. A violin, voice and electronics project ranging across drone, harsh noise and free improvisation, and the hub of one of the most prolific collaborative careers in American experimental sound.
Cosmic Coincidence Control Center · Japanese noise group founded in Tokyo in 1989, named after a concept of John C. Lilly
Sheffield, 1973 to 1994. Three friends, one converted weaving shed and a habit of finishing the records that other people in the genre were content to start.
American harsh-noise act of Phil Blankenship, Los Angeles; founder of the Troniks and PACrec labels. A horror-and-exploitation-cinema aesthetic across the Night of the Bloody Tapes records, and a central connector of the 2000s American scene.
Chris & Cosey, also known from 2000 onward as Carter Tutti
Chris Carter (born 28 January 1953, Islington, North London) · English electronic musician, composer, engineer, producer, instrument designer
Christopher Richard Watson · b. 21 November 1953, Sheffield · co-founder of Cabaret Voltaire in 1973 with Richard H. Kirk and Stephen Mallinder
The Aachen avant-experimentalist who co-founded HNAS at age 18 and across the later four decades produced one of the continental electroacoustic-and-drone catalogues, sustained the Streamline imprint…
The American proto-industrial band · founded 1975 in San Francisco by Damon Edge (Thomas Wisse, 1948 to 1995), with Helios Creed (Barry Schwam) joining 1977 as the catalogue's…
The British act that bridges post-industrial and dark ambient, and the thread by which Gordon Sharp moves from Edinburgh post-punk, through the 1980s 4AD orbit, into latter-day Editions Mego.
Sheffield, 1978 to the present, across three eras and forty-eight years.
American noise group · Minneapolis · from 1993 · Emil Hagstrom · absurdist shock-comic harsh noise built from amplified equipment failures, staged as drunken theatre
The alias of Ivan Pavlov, the Russian-born, Sweden-based sound artist and engineer; a Raster-Noton and Editions Mego figure of the experimental-electronic underground, and Peter Christopherson's partner in Soisong. The name reads in Cyrillic as the Russian word for sleep.
London then the south-west, 1982 to 2010. John Balance and Peter Christopherson, two people, one house called Threshold, one record label of the same name, a marriage in every sense the word has, and…
English experimental musician, engineer and producer, b. York 1952. Founder of the ICR label and IC Studio (1981) and the key collaborator in Nurse With Wound alongside Steven Stapleton since Thunder Perfect Mind (1992).
British power-electronics project · formed 1982 by Philip Best, then aged fourteen · one of the founding acts of the form, run alongside and after his years in Whitehouse
Japanese industrial, noise and sound-collage project · formed 1987 · the work of Hiroshi Hashimoto · eclectic output spanning industrial, harsh noise, dark ambient and collage
Paul Lemos's ensemble, formed in Boston in 1978 with Jack Salerno and Dave Southerland, reformed in Massapequa, Long Island, c. 1980.
Swedish dark-ambient and ritual project formed in Gothenburg around 1999 by Mikael Aldén (Aldenon Sartorial); Crowley-influenced occult dark ambient on Cold Meat Industry.
Christine Carol Newby (born 4 November 1951, Hedon Road Maternity Hospital, Hull, Yorkshire) · English performance artist, musician, writer
The Hull, later London performance-art group (Genesis P-Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti and a rotating cast) out of which Throbbing Gristle emerged; active from the late 1960s, notorious for the 1976 ICA Prostitution exhibition. The performance-art root of the first wave.
The American noise and performance project of Matt Anderson, begun around 1992 out of the Massachusetts art-school scene. Among the most prolific of American noise makers, working with homemade contact microphones, junk noise, sound poetry and absurdist performance, and part of the 1990s tape-trading cohort.
San Diego ritual-percussion ensemble · also known as ADRV (Adoración De Rotura Violenta, "worship of violent rupture")
British experimental project · founded 1982 by David Tibet (born David Michael Bunting); sole constant member across 40+ years and 20+ studio albums
The project of William Bennett (b. 1956), begun 2011 · the second major act of the Whitehouse founder, turning from power electronics to what Bennett named "Afro Noise"
Paul D. Knowles' early alias · cult UK 1990s noise release · first live position supporting Smell & Quim and Con-Dom at the 1 in 12 Club, Bradford (Mike Dando partnership)
Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft · "German American Friendship" · founded 1978 in Düsseldorf
American noise and drone artist, Portland, active since 1989. Began in harsh body-sourced noise (contact mics on skin) and moved through dense drone, field recordings and physical percussion.
British composer and electronic-music inventor · 1925–2003 · co-founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and inventor of Oramics, the drawn-sound synthesiser
Australian musician behind Snog, Black Lung and Soma; Melbourne's most prolific industrial figure, working from subversive industrial dance to political instrumental electronics, with a lineage back to Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA, Lustmord and SPK.
The Dutch DIY industrial and sound-collage collective from Zwolle, started December 1977 by Richard van Dellen and Andries D. Eker. The Factory, in Dutch translation. De Fabriek is not a band
The unsung heroine of British electronic music: the Cambridge-trained mathematician-and-musician who joined the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in April 1962 and across the later eleven years produced the…
Swedish dark-ambient project of Johan Levin · founded 1993 in Mjölby
Solo industrial / death-industrial / dark-ambient project of the Swedish artist Peter Andersson (alias Lina Baby Doll, also Der General)
Forty-four years of catalogue built on the four-octave operatic vocal range.
British singer and artist of the Nurse With Wound and United Dairies circle, recording chiefly as Chrystal Belle Scrodd and later as A Bad Diana; an occasional member of Nurse With Wound and the partner of Steven Stapleton, with contributions to Current 93 and HNAS.
West Berlin performance-art-and-music group active 1980–1987 · founded by Wolfgang Müller (b. 1957) and Nikolaus Utermöhlen (1958–1996), then-students at the Hochschule der Künste
The Japanese industrial project of Ichiro Tsuji (b. 1966), begun in Tokyo 1986, in Hiroshima since 1998; rhythm-heavy mechanised industrial distinct from the harsh-noise mainstream.
Forty years of multi-medium experimental work from Nürnberg under open-membership constitution, parallel to the Aachen HNAS cluster's method, with a catalogue too large for any single account to cover.
French-American composer · 1883-1965 · the prophet of "organised sound" · Ionisation, Poème électronique
Edward Ka-Spel, born Edward Francis Sharp, London · English musician, vocalist, keyboard and electronics player, songwriter
The European founding catalogue of metal-percussion industrial. Formed West Berlin 1 April 1980 around Blixa Bargeld and N.U.
The performance persona of Ron Lessard (b. 1962, Massachusetts), the American harsh noise tradition's foundational solo artist and the operator of RRRecords (Lowell, Massachusetts, 1984 onward).
The Madrid rhythmic-noise group founded by Arturo Lanz and Gabriel Riaza in 1980. Closely associated with the Spanish post-punk underground; later the Iberian voice in the F·10 rhythmic-noise lineage.
Eric & Marc Hurtado · French ritual / post-industrial duo, recording from the late 1970s · named after Marcel Duchamp's last work
Tokyo-based harsh-noise and cut-up unit of Kenny Sanderson, active from 1995 to about 2018. A dynamic, sharply-edited method and a catalogue built largely on splits across the international noise network.
Pioneering San Francisco industrial group (1978-82); Bond Bergland, Cole Palme, Joseph T. Jacobs. Two LPs (Scheintot, 1981; the Monte Cazazza collaboration California Babylon, 1982, with Z'ev backing) and a single. The West Coast first wave, beside SRL and the Search & Destroy milieu.
stage name of Francis John Tovey (8 September 1956 - 3 April 2002), British electronic and industrial musician, vocalist, performance artist
One operator, eight names, forty-six years of continuous catalogue.
Spanish sound artist from Madrid; a foundational figure of reductionist sound art who builds dense, abstract works from heavily-processed field recordings, presented blindfolded and untitled.
German experimental and sound-art musician, Aachen, b. 1966. The foil in the Rowenta/Khan duo on Dom Elchklang and a conceptual solo artist; often linked to HNAS but never a member.
Belgian band · founded 1981 · the stable four-member line-up of Daniel Bressanutti and Patrick Codenys (programming) with Jean-Luc De Meyer (vocals) and Richard 23 (percussion)
Canadian electro-industrial project · founded 1986 in Vancouver by Bill Leeb after he left Skinny Puppy · the long-running core of Leeb with Rhys Fulber, earlier Michael Balch
Japanese free-rock power trio · Tokyo, formed 1978 · the long-running vehicle of Keiji Haino · scorching guitar noise, theatrical voice and total improvisation
Thierry Mérigout & Vincent Hachet · founded Nancy 1986 · French post-industrial collage, six albums on Permis de Construire 1986–1993
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (born Neil Andrew Megson; 22 February 1950 - 14 March 2020) · English singer-songwriter, musician, poet, performance artist, visual artist, occultist
German power-electronics and death-industrial collective · formed Mannheim, 1985 · founders of the Tesco Organisation label · anonymous membership under assumed names
Japanese experimental project · founded 1985 in Shinjuku, Tokyo, by Juntaro Yamanouchi · a restless body of work spanning noisecore, harsh noise, punk and ambient
Italian progressive-rock soundtrack group · Rome, from 1974 · Claudio Simonetti and Massimo Morante · the Dario Argento scores (Profondo Rosso 1975, Suspiria 1977) and a horror-soundtrack cornerstone
British industrial-metal band · Birmingham, formed 1988 · Justin Broadrick and Ben Green · guitar, bass and a drum machine welded into crushing mechanical weight
Danish-Faroese composer, performance artist, lecturer and trained horologist · born 1974 · the figure behind Radical Computer Music and the idea of alternative intelligence
Japanese harsh-noise project · Tokyo, harsh-noise activity from 1994 · the solo work of Yasutoshi Yoshida · dense, meticulously built cut-up harsh noise
New Zealand-born composer and musician, born 23 October 1955 Auckland
UK noise and experimental electronics on the Newcastle upon Tyne label muza muza; the one roster act distinct from the label's anchor. Debut The Death of Objects (2016, C35); later Shapes of Anne Forster (2019); a track on the Los Angeles Norelco Mori compilation. A held filing, its standing left open while the work continues.
Japanese industrial-noise project · the work of Kohei Onishi · metallic, horror-film-inflected harsh noise and crunch
British conceptual, performance and sound-art project (often referred to as H3O) · founded 1982 in Sheffield by Andrew McKenzie and Chris Watson (formerly of Cabaret Voltaire)
American noise band, Lexington, Kentucky, formed 2001 (Mike Connelly, Robert Beatty, Trevor Tremaine); rock instrumentation pushed into a demonic industrial-noise wall, on the Wolf Eyes / Hanson axis.
Tokyo artist Masaya Nakahara, who emerged in the first wave of Japanese noise as Violent Onsen Geisha and took the Hair Stylistics name in 1997. A cut-up and collage method; also a Mishima Prize-winning novelist and film critic.
Osaka noise project · founded 1983 by Yamatsuka Eye, with Mitsuru Tabata · the most physically extreme of the early Japanoise acts, built on unamplified destruction rather than electronics
American composer and instrument-builder · 1901–1974 · microtonality, just intonation and a whole orchestra of self-built instruments · the maverick who rejected the Western scale entirely
The Haters are the American conceptual / harsh-noise / object-manipulation project founded on 1 May 1979 by G.X. Jupitter-Larsen at the Kick Art gallery on the Lower East Side, New York City.
The first-generation Japanoise group: founded 1979 in Kyoto as the free-improv guitar duo of Jojo Hiroshige and Naoki Zushi (named when a drummer remarked "this isn't a spiral…
Japanese noise musician, born 1963; founder of the psychedelic group C.C.C.C. around 1989 and the solo analogue-synthesiser project Astro in 1993. The emotive, analogue end of Japanoise.
Ten years of surrealist-dadaist German experimental records made by two Aachen non-musicians, introduced to the world by Steven Stapleton as "the band that sounds like Faust", and dissolved…
Derek Thompson · solo project from 1989 · filed for Thompson's 1978 co-founding of SPK; the catalogue runs industrial and techno with a film-dialogue method
American composer of electroacoustic music · b. 1974, New York · works almost entirely from cassette tapes and consumer tape players
American industrial · Port Huron, Michigan, formed May 1982 by Lon C. Diehl and Richard Skott · an early DIY industrial group and a seed of the Michigan noise scene; the debut Will (1984) featured Masami Akita (Merzbow)
Belgian ritual-industrial / ethno-ambient project of Sandy Nys (Magthea) · active from a 1986 cassette · tribal percussion, drones and ceremonial atmospheres with an industrial undertow · Music for Rituals (1992), The Rhythm of the Ritual (1994), The Ritual of the Rave (1995) · of the Klinik / Dirk Ivens Belgian circle.
Greek-French composer and architect · 1922–2001 · stochastic composition, mathematics and probability as musical material
The long-running Chicago experimental project of Daniel Burke · active since 1983 with a rotating cast of collaborators
The Linköping solo project of Jouni Havukainen, founded 1985 and widely cited as the pioneer of symphonic and martial industrial: heavy electronics, martial percussion, religious chant…
In the Nursery (often ITN) · English neoclassical dark wave / martial industrial / cinematic music duo, based in Sheffield
German dark-ambient and ritual-ambient duo · formed 1991 by Rene Lehmann and Knut Enderlein
Swedish death-industrial / doom-ambient solo project of Mikael Stavöstrand (the Archon Satani man) · started 1990 as 7/Inanna/7 · the milestone album Day Ov Torment (Staalplaat 1993, Cold Spring reissue 2007) · crushing early-1990s death sonics; folded late 1990s.
Japanese harsh-noise duo · begun 1981 in Osaka as the solo project of Toshiji Mikawa · a duo with Fumio Kosakai since the early 1990s
Italian experimental power-electronics project of Andrea Chiaravalli · formed 1992 in Milan with the initial assistance of Paolo Bandera and Eraldo Bernocchi of Sigillum S
American singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist; the other central voice of Swans from 1985 to 1997 and the author of a vast solo and collaborative catalogue, from World of Skin to the Neurosis album and J² with Justin Broadrick.
British shoegaze-doom project · formed 2003 · Justin Broadrick after Godflesh · the industrial-metal crush slowed into melody, drone and beauty
Australian composer and producer, b. 1960 Melbourne; the man behind Foetus and a dozen aliases (Clint Ruin, Wiseblood, Steroid Maximus, Manorexia). A defining no-wave and industrial-rock sensibility and a connector across the tradition.
English musician, writer and occultist, b. Geoffrey Rushton 1962; the voice and lyricist of Coil, which he founded with Peter Christopherson. Earlier a member of Psychic TV and Zos Kia, and publisher of the fanzine Stabmental. A central figure of the British esoteric post-industrial strand.
American composer and theorist · 1912–1992 · chance composition, the prepared piano, 4′33″
American director-composer · b. 1948 · the self-scored horror-synth catalogue (Halloween 1978, Escape from New York 1981) and a principal ancestor of synthwave; the Lost Themes albums on Sacred Bones from 2015
American sound and performance artist (b. 1953, Wichita). An associate of the LAFMS circle from 1978 and a figure in the Tokyo noise underground from 1982, building work from shortwave radio, field recording and processed voice. Carries a content advisory for the early performance work, filed for the sound.
Australian drummer and percussionist · 1959–2015 · one of the most widely-used players of the post-punk and industrial underground; SPK, Whitehouse, Death in June, Current 93, solo as Shining Vril, and the London trio Knifeladder
German-born Australian composer, performer and filmmaker (1935–2002) · born Johannes Wassermann in Berlin, he settled in Brisbane
American noise and sound artist, Los Angeles, b. 1977. Founder of the concrète-grindcore band Sissy Spacek and the Helicopter label; cut-up sound collage from harsh-noise bursts to ensemble scoring.
American composer, saxophonist and bandleader · born New York City, 1953 · game pieces, Naked City, Painkiller, Masada · founder of Tzadik
Swiss noise artist, born 1965 in Switzerland. Sudden Infant his main project from 1989 onward, the most-cited work in the Schimpfluch circle.
The noise project of Kimihide Kusafuka · active since the early 1980s · one of the founding figures of Japanese harsh noise
Swedish dark-ambient project of Pär Boström · formed 2000 in Umeå · a flagship Cyclic Law project and a defining voice of the second-wave dark-ambient generation · the numinous, subterranean strain of the form.
Dutch experimental project founded October 1984 in Nijmegen by Frans de Waard (b. 1965)
German composer · 1928–2007 · the central figure of elektronische Musik · Gesang der Jünglinge, Kontakte, Hymnen
Keiji Haino · b. 3 May 1952 · guitarist, vocalist, percussionist and multi-instrumentalist active since 1970
American experimental musician, Chicago. A prepared- and tabletop-guitar virtuoso turned major noise figure; his 2002 album Sheer Hellish Miasma is a landmark of harsh electronics.
Japanese-born, Chicago-based sound artist and director of Signal Noise; noise worked as a structural method through close editing, across installation and electronic music. A Tier ∅ filing, its standing held open while the work continues; the line into the archive runs through the 2026 Merzbow collaboration Rococo ∞ Echomatter.
Kazuyuki Kishino · b. 1961, Tokyo · guitarist, electronic musician, composer and singer active since the early 1980s
Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid · the band's loose translation "No Pity for the Majority" · founded 29 February 1984 in Paris as a performance-art project
London organic-industrial trio · 1997–2015 · John Murphy, Andrew Trail and Hunter Barr · bass, percussion and electronics; debut Organic Traces (2002), final album This World on Fire (2015)
Detlev Hjuler (b. 1967, ‘Kommissar Hjuler’) and Andrea Katharina Ingeborg Göthling (b. 29 October 1981, ‘Mama Baer’)'s neo-dada / Fluxus / art-brut position
The long-running Kent project of Glenn Michael Wallis, started 1980–82 out of the ashes of his earlier krautrock-influenced band Heute.
American composer · born 1935 · the founder of drone minimalism, leader of the Theatre of Eternal Music · the figure who made the sustained tone a form
The solo industrial project of the French artist Tiburce · founded 1986 after the split of the radical French industrial band Minamata
Slovenian (formerly Yugoslav) industrial group · founded June 1980 in the mining town of Trbovlje, the year Tito died · founding member of the Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) art collective in 1984
The solo death-industrial / power-electronics project of Phoenix artist Sam An · industrial, gothic noise and experimental metal ritualising apocalyptic themes; the name began by sampling female pop into noise · the cult Shadow World (2018) and Strega Beata (2023) · covered in The Wire and The Quietus.
Norwegian noise musician, b. 1974, Oslo; the central figure of Scandinavian noise and one of its great connectors, with 200-plus releases across noise, improv, jazz and metal.
French noise / bruitisme configuration · founded 1982 in Paris by Ruelgo (sole permanent member across the 43-year catalogue) and Zyklon B, with visual artists Zorin and Mirka
Jonas Almquist · formed Gothenburg 1979 · the only Swedish act on Industrial Records; the abrasive Slow Death EP (1979) before a turn to garage rock and goth
British multi-media artist, photographer, DJ, soundtrack composer and label-and-event director, working between Athens and London.
Anglo-Dutch experimental group · formed London, August 1980, around Edward Ka-Spel (vocals, songs) and Phil Knight, "The Silverman" (keyboards)
Japanese psychedelic noise-rock band · Kyoto, formed 1967 · led by the reclusive Takashi Mizutani · feedback, extreme volume and a near-total refusal to record
Thirty-five years of voice-modified prank calls, recorded continuously from a Denver answering machine into the noise-and-anti-music network, filed as the form's most-sustained outsider operator.
French composer · 1929–2005 · the concrète composer who turned the form toward the anecdotal and the field recording · Presque rien · filed as a Forms figure
Colombian avant-garde / experimental composer (b. 1980), a former geotechnical engineer · abstract, surreal electronic composition; spoken word, atmospheric horror and bolero sci-fi · the RVNG trilogy Anticlines, No Era Sólida, ¡Ay! · filed for the avant-garde and her collaboration with Aaron Dilloway.
Brian Williams · Welsh-born (North Wales); resident Los Angeles since 1993 · founder of the dark-ambient form (F · 21) and the form's most sustained-figure presence
The project of German experimental composer Dörte Marth; a personal, surreal ambient music of the early 1990s on Dom Elchklang, independent of the label's Khan-run hoax projects.
American harsh-noise group · Pittsburgh, formed 1990 · Joseph Roemer and Rodger Stella · scrap-metal and tape-cut harsh noise born of deindustrialisation
German ambient, drone and noise trio · active 1988–1996 · Stefan Knappe (Baraka H), Martin Gitschel (Glit[s]ch) and Helge Siehl
The San Francisco ambient-industrial duo of Neville Harson and Grant Miller, formed in the autumn of 1991.
Martin Clive Atkins · b. 3 August 1959, Coventry · the post-punk-to-industrial drummer · the connecting figure across PiL, Killing Joke, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails and Pigface
The noise project of Maso Yamazaki · begun 1987 in Osaka · among the best-known Japanese harsh-noise acts after Merzbow
Italian pioneer of noise and industrial music · b. 4 December 1955, Pomponesco (Province of Mantua); working from Milan
Italian power electronics and noise project · the sole vehicle of Pierpaolo Zoppo (d. 16 June 2012) · working from Torino
Swedish death-industrial / dark-ambient project, active across 1990–1999
American experimental noise-rock band · formed 1993 in Richmond, Virginia by Sam McPheeters and Neil Burke after the demise of their hardcore band Born Against
Swedish death-industrial project from Gothenburg · founded 1989 by brothers David and Samuel Durling with Jonas Blåberg · one of the significant early Scandinavian industrial acts · terms its percussive, ritual music "orthodox industrial", distinguished by lyrics rooted in Christian devotion.
The Tokyo project that has, since 1979, produced about 500 recordings and defined the Japanese noise tradition the Western critical-press eventually termed "Japanoise"; founded as an aesthetic…
American singer, composer and label founder, b. 1954; founder and constant of Swans and of Young God Records. From the obliterating weight of early Swans to the grandeur of the reformed band and the acoustic Angels of Light.
Chicago industrial-metal mainstays · formed 1981 by Al Jourgensen (Alain David Jourgensen, born Alejandro Ramirez Casas, 9 October 1958 in Havana, Cuba; the family relocated to the United…
Japanese noise project · active from the early 1990s · the work of Shohei Iwasaki (1962–2005) · harsh electronics and synthesiser noise
American performance, mail and sound artist (1949-2023); the figure who coined "industrial music for industrial people", the strapline that named the genre. Early Industrial Records signing and San Francisco counterpart to the London founding circle; collaborator with Factrix, Survival Research Laboratories and Psychic TV.
Swedish death-ambient project of Benny Nilsen · begun winter 1990 as Morthond, renamed Morthound 1992 · eerie, haunting early Cold Meat Industry industrial-ambient · three CMI albums 1991–1994, collected on the Mortology box · Nilsen later the field-recording artist BJNilsen.
the recording name of Norwegian musician Håvard Ellefsen (born 25 July 1975 in Skien, Telemark, Norway)
Japanoise project of Koji Tano (1961–2005), Tokyo, named from 1992; crushing wall-noise, and operator of the MSBR Records label and Denshi Zatsuon magazine.
Swedish black-industrial group formed 1988 as Maschinenzimmer 412 around Henrik Nordvargr Björkk; usually credited with inventing black industrial. A long-standing Cold Meat Industry fixture.
John Zorn's two extreme-music bands · Naked City (formed 1989) and Painkiller (formed 1991) · jump-cut hardcore-jazz and grindcore-jazz-dub
Pioneering Los Angeles all-synthesiser punk band (formed 1978); Gerardo Velazquez, Edward Stapleton, Phranc, Michael Ochoa. Confrontational and queer; filed for the industrial edge of the work and the Live at Target document (1980) it shares with Factrix and Z'ev, not as an industrial band in the strict sense.
The New Blockaders (TNB) are the Newcastle upon Tyne anti-art and anti-music project founded in 1982 by the brothers Richard Rupenus and Philip D. Rupenus.
Canadian free-noise collective · London, Ontario · formed 1965 · homemade instruments and total improvisation · the longest-running self-described noise band and a documented ancestor of the tradition
English band · founded 1982 in Chelmsford, Essex · Douglas McCarthy (vocals), Vaughan "Bon" Harris (programming, synthesizers, drums) and David Gooday (drums)
British industrial and experimental project initiated around 1980 by Nigel Ayers (b. 1957), with Caroline K (1957–2008) and Danny Ayers · Ayers and Caroline K co-founded Sterile Records
The primary solo name of Henrik Nordvargr Björkk (b. 1971) · the prolific Swedish figure behind MZ.412, Folkstorm, Toroidh, Pouppée Fabrikk and Trepaneringsritualen · work across death industrial, power electronics, dark ambient and martial industrial.
The recording alias of Daniel Miller · active 1978–1980 · one single, TVOD / Warm Leatherette (1978), the first release on Mute and a foundational record of British synth music
Norwegian dark-ambient project of Hærleif Langås · active since 1996 from Trondheim · cold, desolate nordic ambient built from field recordings of Norwegian nature · one of the Nord Ambient Alliance second-wave trio with Kammarheit and Svartsinn.
Nurse with Wound (NWW) · British experimental project
English post-industrial and ambient group · founded 1982 in Nottingham by Andrew Hulme and Roger Horberry · intermittently active since founding.
Swedish neofolk / martial-industrial project · founded 1993 by Tomas Pettersson (ex-Archon Satani) with Chelsea Krook · three Cold Meat Industry albums (Reaping the Fallen 1995, The Triumph of Light 1997, Conquest 1998) · renamed Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio in 2001.
P16.D4 are the Frankfurt-based cooperative tape-cut-up and musique-concrète collective active 1980 to 1988 (with later activity into the early 1990s), founded by Achim Szepanski, Gerd Poppe…
Pierre Jolivet · begun Paris 1980 · the French scene's network hub, co-founder of the VP 231 label whose compilations fixed the scene as a group
Japanese harsh-noise project · home recording from the 1980s · the solo work of Kohei Gomi · chaotic, dynamic cut-up harsh noise
American noise group · Chicago · founded 1992 by Andy Ortmann · the band that started Nihilist Records · confrontational absurdist live noise and a deep electroacoustic catalogue
Austrian composer and electronic musician · born in Linz; studied at the Academy in Vienna
American composer and accordionist · 1932–2016 · founder of Deep Listening, pioneer of tape and drone, central to the San Francisco Tape Music Center
American experimental project founded in California in 2000 by Jonathan Borges. A solo harsh-noise project that became a duo with cellist and instrument-builder Shannon Kennedy in 2008, built on the contrast between crude electronics and handmade acoustic instruments. Borges runs the Monorail Trespassing label.
Vicki Bennett's plunderphonics and audio-visual collage position · founded 1991 · the UK sound-collage and mashup tradition the Negativland-adjacent transatlantic roster has cultivated
Peter Martin Christopherson (27 February 1955 - 25 November 2010), also known as Sleazy · English musician, music video director, commercial artist, designer and photographer
American power-electronics and noise project · New York City, active from the late 2000s · the solo vehicle of Margaret Chardiet
English power-electronics figure · founder of Consumer Electronics (1982) · long a central member of Whitehouse · ran the Iphar cassette label
French composer · 1927–2017 · co-author of the first major musique concrète work; the figure who took concrète out of the studio and into a vast, popular solo catalogue
French composer, engineer and theorist · 1910–1995 · the inventor of musique concrète (1948)
the open-membership industrial supergroup / rotating-door collective · founded 1990 by Martin Atkins and Bill Rieflin in Chicago during the Ministry The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste tour
British electronic and industrial band, based in South London · formed 1979
Roger Alan Painter (1963 to 1998), Pomona-born Los Angeles musician mainly documented in this archive for the industrial side-projects catalogue running parallel to his gothic-rock founder role at…
The main sonic project of French musician and label-runner Jérôme Nougaillon · militarised power electronics and death industrial on surveillance-state and aviation-disaster themes · albums on Tesco Organisation including Renegade (2001) and Ground Proximity Warning System (2006) · a node between the French and German power-electronics scenes.
Dominick Fernow (b. Madison, Wisconsin, c. 1981), post-2000 American power-electronics-and-noise pioneer; the foundational F·07 power-electronics statement of the post-2000 American noise tradition.
The main continuing band out of Throbbing Gristle and the bridge between the British first wave and Coil.
The solo project of Danish composer Frederikke Hoffmeier (b. 1989), one of the central figures of the now-generation of industrial noise · power electronics and harsh noise drawn into cinematic, literary composition · Success (2013), The Spiral (2016), The Drought (2018) · of the Copenhagen Posh Isolation wave.
Solo dark-ambient project of the Swedish sound artist Peter Andersson (b. Strängnäs) · founded 1991 · one of the form's founding figures alongside Lustmord
British group formed 1982 by Gary Mundy, who also ran the Broken Flag label
Robin Storey's solo project from 1992 onward, after his amicable departure from :zoviet*france: · one of the most prolific solo careers in UK dark-ambient and tribal-ambient
Raymond George Watts · b. 1 September 1961, London · English musician; founder and sole member of the industrial project PIG (also written <PIG> or <PÎG>)
American avant-garde art collective · San Francisco, recording since the early 1970s · anonymous, eyeball-masked, theory-of-obscurity
Richard Harold Kirk · 21 March 1956, Sheffield · 21 September 2021, Sheffield · aged 65 · co-founder of Cabaret Voltaire in 1973 with Chris Watson and Stephen Mallinder
Canadian harsh-noise-wall project · Vancouver, begun 1995 · the solo vehicle of Sam McKinlay · the act most credited with defining and naming the harsh noise wall
Robert Donnachie · 1952–2000 · Port Glasgow-born; relocated to the south of England with Thomas Leer in the late 1970s · founding figure of the UK DIY post-punk electronic music scene
American ambient composer, born 1963, San Francisco Bay Area / California native
Swiss-Japanese sound artist and actionist, born 1965 in Switzerland. Founder of the Schimpfluch-Gruppe (Zurich, 1987), the main European actionist and ritual-noise collective.
Often abbreviated RS&G. Rudolf Eb.er 's main project from c. 1988 onward.
Tokyo snare-drum soloist and noise drummer; leader of the noisecore duo Sete Star Sept, head of the Kiyasu Orchestra, and drummer in Keiji Haino's Fushitsusha since 2012. A two-decade solo snare practice, severe and polarising, that travelled far beyond the underground through a viral 2018 Berlin set.
British power-electronics and post-industrial project · the solo work of Dave Padbury, formerly of The Grey Wolves · based in Salford, Greater Manchester
UK power-electronics / industrial project of Justin Mitchell (founder of Cold Spring Records) with Dave Kirby · 1984 onward across four working periods · cassette-era origin on Zeal SS / Broken Flag · the artist-practice arm of the long-running Cold Spring label
American / later Prague-based dark-ambient / death-industrial / ritual-industrial duo · formed 1981 · core duo Richard Schneider + Mark Burch (M.W. Burch)
British electronic project · Birmingham, formed 1991 · Mick Harris, with Nic Bullen to 1995 · deep-bass dub, illbient and post-industrial darkness from the man who drummed in Napalm Death
The harsher industrial and dark-electronics alias of Australian composer Darrin Verhagen · the sibling to his Shinjuku Thief project
The recording project of Australian composer Darrin Verhagen · founded 1992 in Melbourne and the flagship of his Dorobo label
Italian post-industrial conceptual audio project · formed 23 December 1985 in Milan by Paolo Bandera, Eraldo Bernocchi and Luca Di Giorgio · also known as Apocalypse Fanfare
Brussels electronic duo, Marc Medea and Gabriel Séverin; from the post-Dada project Jardin d'Usure (1989) to a long run across industrial techno, illbient and electroacoustic abstraction. Sub Rosa core artists who also released on Ant-Zen.
American noise band founded in Los Angeles in 1999 by John Wiese, now the duo of Wiese and drummer Charlie Mumma. A shape-shifting, vastly prolific unit moving from cut-up noisecore and grindcore to long-form musique concrète and free improvisation, with a rotating cast drawn from across the experimental underground.
The short-lived industrial-metal duo of Paul Lemos and Chris Moriarty, the members of Controlled Bleeding, working in side-project configuration after Controlled Bleeding entered a label-hiatus…
American harsh-noise project of Patrick O'Neil, from circa 1993–94; ran Self Abuse Records and gave Hospital Productions its first vinyl.
Canadian electro-industrial band · formed Vancouver, British Columbia, 1982 by cEvin Key (Kevin Crompton, born 13 February 1961) and Nivek Ogre (Kevin Graham Ogilvie)
Matthew Bower's British psychedelic-noise / drone-rock collective · founded 1987 in London · outgrowth of the Pure / Total configuration
John Zewizz (John McSweeney, b. 15 August 1955, Essex, England; family relocated to the United States in infancy; Boston, Massachusetts based) and the "concept rather than a band" position…
The Pasadena / Portland free-noise collective. Founded 23 November 1973 by Ju Suk Reet Meate, Cheese It Ritz, Chucko Fats, Dennis Duck, Amazon Bambi and Cheesebro at the Adena house in Pasadena.
British absurdist and scatological noise, Batley, formed 1987 by Milovan Srdenovic and Paul Nonnen; ran their own Stinky Horse Fuck label.
The Milanese power-electronics project founded in 1987 by Andrea Cernotto, whose Beyond Unknown Pleasures LP (1987, Aquilifer Sodality) is among the most cited Italian power-electronics records and…
The duo of Peter Christopherson, after Coil, and Ivan Pavlov (CoH), active 2007 to 2010; an EP, the album xAj3z, octagonal packaging and live soundtracks to Derek Jarman's films. Ended by Christopherson's death in 2010.
Japanese guitar-noise project · Osaka, founded 1984 · the work of Masahiko Ohno, later a duo with Katsumi Sugahara
The solo harsh-noise and power-acoustics project of Damion Romero (b. 1970, Los Angeles)
Sydney, then London, then Hollywood, 1978 to 1988. Three friends, one hospital, a series of records that did some of the foundational work of power-electronics and then, in 1984, the most surprising…
Giustino Di Gregorio's plunderphonics and saxophone-on-rock-band superimposition position · founded 1995 on the own Goodbye Boozy Records imprint
The solo harsh-noise / post-industrial / power-electronics project of Paolo Bandera (a.k.a. P.NG5361, P.NG5361.B, P.NG5361.BANDERA, Paolo L. Bandera)
English vocalist, bassist, electronic musician, academic and writer · b. 1 January 1955, Sheffield · co-founder of Cabaret Voltaire in 1973 with Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson
American composer and performer of ambient and electronic music · born 16 February 1955 in La Mesa, California (a suburb of San Diego); only child
UK sound-collage and plunderphonics duo · formed 1989, active to around 2001 · Andrew Sharpley and Matt Wand · a triple-pun name on Stockhausen, Stock Aitken Waterman and the Walkman
The project of Swiss artist Joke Lanz · founded around 1989 · one of the core projects of the Schimpfluch-Gruppe alongside Rudolf Eb.er and Dave Phillips
New York duo · Alan Vega (vocals) and Martin Rev (electronics) · active intermittently 1970–2016
American drone-metal band, Seattle, formed 1998 (Stephen O'Malley, Greg Anderson); filed at the edge of the archive for its drone-minimalism lineage and its collaborations with Merzbow and Nurse With Wound.
English power-electronics project · formed 1982 by Kevin Tomkins and Paul Taylor · emerged from the Come Organisation circle around Whitehouse, which Tomkins later joined
American experimental rock group founded 1982 by Michael Gira; one of the few acts to carry the New York no wave scene forward. From the grinding brutalism of Filth and Cop to the vast crescendos of the reformed band, with Jarboe its other central voice.
The Würzburg-based German industrial / noise / dark ambient project of Klaus, Danijela and Rene Jochim, started 1989 in Bayern (Bavaria).
The main British metal-percussion act and the first to make industrial into political art in the UK.
New York industrial / power-electronics / blackened-synth-death project of Lee M. Bartow, established 2009 as successor to Navicon Torture Technologies (NTT, 1997-2009) · founder of Annihilvs Power Electronix label · multi-member configuration with Daniel Suffering and Dave Brenner · central organising figure of the post-2009 American power-electronics second-generation cluster
British experimental trio · Camberwell, London, 1976–1982 · Charles Hayward, Charles Bullen, Gareth Williams · tape-loop method, dub weight, Cold War dread
German dark-ambient solo project by Lutz Rach, active from 1995. Side vehicle of Rach's earlier Aadom / Christbearing Forms project (1993 onward).
Thomas Wishart (b. 1953) · Port Glasgow-born; relocated to London by the mid-1970s
Peter Christopherson's first solo guise after Coil, announced 2005 and made in Bangkok; built on computer-generated and Thai vocals, with Christopherson credited as director. Two releases, Form Grows Rampant (2007) and the Amulet set (2008), warmer and more tropical than Coil.
London · founded 3 September 1976 · dissolved 29 May 1981 (Kezar Pavilion, San Francisco) · reconvened 16 May 2004 (Astoria, London) · closed 25 November 2010 (Bangkok)
American experimental collective founded in Miami Beach in 1993 by Tom Smith and Frank Rat Bastard Falestra. A dense cut-and-paste overload that countered noise's usual obliteration with a flood of detail, taken by philosopher Ray Brassier as the emblem of noise's genrelessness. A vast rotating cast and a mentor node of the international scene.
American musique-concrète composer · 1932–2015 · the self-taught outsider, locked out of the academic studios, who built tape masterworks like Quatermass on borrowed studio hours
American composer, violinist and film-maker (1940–2016). A founder of drone minimalism in La Monte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music and, with Faust, maker of Outside the Dream Syndicate (1973), the link between minimalism and the rock avant-garde. Also a radical structural film-maker.
Shanghai harsh-noise project of Junky (Junjun Cao), founded 25 April 2004 and named after a John Zorn album. China's seminal noise act, built on broken pedals and contact-mic'd scrap; runs the monthly NoiShanghai live series.
The Swedish solo project that has, across about eighteen years and a catalogue of cassettes, vinyl, CDs, and split releases, scaled the Cold Meat Industry death-industrial tradition into the 2010s…
German drone, ambient and experimental duo · formed Bremen, early 1997 · Stefan Knappe (Baraka H) and Martin Gitschel (Glit[s]ch), the continuation of Maeror Tri
Stephen Āh Burroughs solo project · UK ritual ambient with tantric Buddhist and Christian-mystic subject matter
The British plunderphonics operator of the late 1990s and 2000s, working under thirty-plus aliases, co-founder and operator of V/Vm Test Records and its long shadow.
The Barcelona / London one-person project by Jordi Valls. VDO is the moniker under which Valls releases extreme field and found-material LPs and CDs since 1983 on his own WSNS imprint (originally…
Dominick Fernow's military-themed industrial-techno project, begun 2010; the bridge from his Prurient noise into techno, on Hospital Productions.
Stylised vidnaObmana on many sleeves · pseudonym of the Belgian composer and ambient musician Dirk Serries (b. 1959, Sint-Niklaas)
Japanese noise and sound-collage project · Tokyo, founded 1987 · the solo work of Masaya Nakahara (b. 1970)
Jean-Marc Vivenza · b. 1957, Isère, France · French sound artist, philosopher, musicologist and theoretician
Harsh-noise-wall project of French artist Romain Perrot, born Paris 1973, active from 1996. The static monolithic slab, the No Act No Play manifesto on his Decimation Sociale label, and the plastic-bag performance method. A pioneer of HNW.
Rhode Island death-industrial / power-electronics project of Andrew Grant, active since 2004 · primary catalogue on Malignant Records (An Occasion For Death 2013, Only Red 2015) · documented collaboration with Theologian via Nature Is Satan's Church on Annihilvs · cited in the post-2015 critical reception alongside Brighter Death Now and Theologian
Otherwise undocumented Japanese noisecore partner · the position is restricted to a single documented Western-distributed document on the Brighton-based Hot Air imprint
Mario Girard (recording as Hugo Girard), Montreal-based Canadian electronic music maker, active under the Vromb moniker since the early 1990s and internationally distributed mainly through Ant-Zen…
Richard Ramirez's static-noise and harsh-noise-wall project, the name from a 1995 Black Leather Jesus release, the project proper from circa 2000.
The London project that, across 1980 to 2008, established the power-electronics form as a distinct mode within the post-1976 noise tradition and that the F·07 form's founding structure rests on; filed honestly with the difficult-legacy material documented in about equal measure to the history.
One operator, one home studio, a handful of singles on his own Infinity Records imprint, and a retroactive industrial-adjacent reading that arrived three decades after the records did.
American noise group, founded 1996 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, by Nate Young, joined first by Aaron Dilloway and later by John Olson.
The duo of Michael Gira and Jarboe, the quieter song-shaped side project of Swans, first as Skin. Three albums 1987–1990 of gothic torch song and electronic experiment.
Obscure Italian power-electronics and noise project, from the mid-1990s; filed as documentation, not endorsement, with a neutral note on its contested subject.
Hong Kong, born 1970, the first noise artist in the territory and arguably the first Chinese industrial-noise musician; the self-financed cassette Murmur (1989) and an anti-art practice of pop-cultural detritus and self-lacerating humour, routed through the international noise network.
The American experimental duo of Pete Swanson and Gabriel Mindel Saloman, active 2001 to 2008 (with a 2023 return) out of Portland and Oakland. An improvised mass of psychedelic noise, drone, industrial and hardcore, prolific on their own JYRK label, and one of the defining American noise duos of the 2000s.
Swiss industrial rock band · formed 24 May 1985 in Fribourg by Franz Treichler (vocals, guitar, sampler, computer); first major performance same day in an abandoned power station on the banks…
American percussionist, sound artist and poet · born Stefan Weisser, Los Angeles, 1951 · self-built instruments from industrial metal
Polish composer and noise musician, 1958–2013; a conservatory-trained composer who turned to extreme computer and electroacoustic noise, founder of the trio Sensorband.
Pavel Ryazanov (Cyrillic Павел Рязанов), recording as Paul Von Aphid, Kaliningrad-based Russian electronic-music producer…
London · 1982–1985 · John "Zos Kia" Gosling (performing as Joan D'Arc) with John Balance and Min, and Peter Christopherson on sound
Newcastle upon Tyne 1980. Founded by Ben Ponton, Robin Storey, Peter Jensen and Lisa Hale.
The North London constellation closes here, at the rhythm-section bridge.