Zoth Ommog.

The Frankfurt label, named after a minor god of the Cthulhu Mythos, that gathered Danish, Belgian, Canadian and American electro-industrial acts under one German roof through the 1990s.

Zoth Ommog began in Frankfurt in 1989 as the industrial arm of Music Research, the label group of Andreas Tomalla, the DJ and producer known as Talla 2XLC. Music Research was already credited on records in 1988, among them Bigod 20's Body to Body, and Wikipedia's Talla 2XLC entry names Franz Morgenbesser as his co-founder and the purpose as getting Bigod 20 and other industrial acts out across Europe. The name belongs to Zoth-Ommog, a Great Old One of the Cthulhu Mythos; the creature is Lin Carter's invention, from his stories of the 1970s, rather than Lovecraft's own.

The early catalogue set the label's character. Leæther Strip, X Marks the Pedwalk and Armageddon Dildos are each described as among its first acts; Consolidated's debut EP came out here in 1989, co-issued with Nettwerk; Bigod 20's The Bog (1990) was the club record that led to their Sire deal. The first Body Rapture compilation followed in 1990 and became an eight-volume series.

The roster was international from the start: Danish (Leæther Strip, Psychopomps), Belgian (Klinik), Canadian (Front Line Assembly) and American (Consolidated, Yeht Mae, Mentallo & The Fixer), Yeht Mae reaching Talla by demo tape. Several then moved on to American labels, Mentallo & The Fixer to Metropolis and Psychopomps to Cleopatra, which handled many of the US editions. From 1996 a second wave of German acts arrived: In Strict Confidence, Funker Vogt and others, and the label later passed to Torben Schmidt of Lights of Euphoria. The label also carried German editions of Front 242's Headhunter 2000 singles and Re:Boot Live (1998), Front Line Assembly's Implode (1999), and David Thrussell's Snog (The Future, 1996).

Zoth Ommog closed in 2000. Its reputation has outlasted it: ReGen calls it "long defunct but highly influential", and the name is still used for tours and for reissues of the Leæther Strip catalogue.

I keep Zoth Ommog at Tier II: the German label that turned the electro-industrial sound of the early 1990s into an international roster, and fed that roster into the American labels that followed.