Throbbing Gristle - Live Volume 1, 1976 - 1978 album download

The first volume opens with GENESIS explaining their music to the audience with "Introduction", the first of three pieces played at the ICA in London back in 1976. The first actual track is a live version of the "1st Annual Report" track "Very Friendly" - a 15'54" long semi-rhythmic grnding thing which tells us the tale of MYRA HINDLEY & IAN BRADY. The sound, held in a sustained mockery of musical composition, seems to consist of muffled chain percussion, strumming echoed guitar, blasts of repressed noise & piercing, chilling electronics. "Dead 'Ed" follows directly after a short slice titled "Slug Bait - ICA" on "2nd Annual Report", deconditioning we seasoned fans, showing us how much further they took that sound. It's only vaguely structured, combining CARTER's sharp, piercing electronic noise needles with GEN's ear-scraping violin & shouted voice. It becomes a dense wall of noise before concluding. From the WINCHESTER HAT FAIR gig on the 21st. August 1976 comes just one track - "No Two Ways" which combines simple bass / guitar two note riff with arctic kisses of synth & blasts of FX in a dense, chugging but curiously relaxed piece of music. The VELVET UNDERGROUND influence seeps through a little, although this is through & through Industrial Music. From the BRIGHTON POLYTECHNIC gig on 26th March 1977 comes "Last Exit", showing how effective minimalism can be, this precursor to the "Slug Bait - Brighton" track on "2nd Annual Report" builds gradually upon a dark foundation of bass rhythm a series of noise blasts, echoing slow fades & slabs of pitted, grizzled aluminium sound, using distortion more than shrill electronics. Effects play a major part in this track, as do taped noises & found sounds. GEN tells a tale of Royal coition over the top - the first time TG's unique sense of humour surfaces in this collection - crude & delightfully offensive. Two offerings from the NUFFIELD THEATRE gig in Southampton on 7th May 1977 starts with "Forced Entry", a calmish wall of noise which threatens to collapse into feedback noise, again showing it's relationship to the tracks from "2nd Annual Report", and is a far more interesting slice of this performance, dipping here & there into previously unknown rhythmic areas - for a fan, one of the high points of this entire collection. Electronic shimmers of LFO combine with high-body-heat sequencer, moving through strange shifting, twisted soundscapes into a more minimal, far colder and more viral area. Feedback and distortion combine into Hell-Landish configurations, wrenching another, wetly rhythmic sound from within it's slimy guts. "National Affront" follows on in lethal electric noise, searching for some degree of shape, again a simple enough structure over which GEN's voice, fed through FX, sounds cold & inhuman, complementing the unhinged sounds perfectly. All the sounds are familiar, but somehow given a new lease of life through this configuration. Next come a couple of pieces from ART COLLEGE in Winchester, dating back to 11th November 1977. "A Nod And A Wank" slithers in on TG's familiar lather of noise - low rumbling of the snide bass, sick grizzle of the guitar & the unnerving strangeness of the stark synth all combine, searching for form, finding it in hidden moments, trying again & again until some thing gels, forming the GIGER-like spine of a darkly viral instrumental amino pool. Tapes of SHAW TAYLOR reading out a child murder story are played to it's conclusion. POLICE 5 pops up again at the beginning of "Feeling Critical" along with several other taped interviews & dialogue. After this it forms into a loose search for direction, which itself is disturbing - TGs sounds being so downright evil you feel you want to scrub your ears raw to get the slime trail on which it slides. This piece nods towards "Zyklon B. Zombie" territory - yet is a looser, more spatial track. GEN's voice floats up from afar, the synth a thin slither, all carried along on the grunging, FX-thick guitar / bass pattern. Finally on this first disc comes what claims to be the "New After Cease To Exist Soundtrack", recorded live at the LONDON FILM MAKERS CO-OP on 6th July 1978 - the original you might or might not know was the soundtrack to an underground film about CHARLES MANSON, which hogged one entire side of "2nd Annual Report". It, above anything else, proved that THROBBING GRISTLE at least understood the power of minimalism - one of their most sparse pieces, yet so much more effective for that. This new version - totally different in so many ways, goes from dense noise to threatening desolation back to mountans of stark, chilling sound. There is no structure here - no recognizable focal points - this is Alien! Originally reviewed for Soft Watch.

This is volume one of the Grey Area re-releases of Throbbing Gristles live performances. The I.C.A. London recording has a small introduction leading into the dark “Very Friendly” telling the story of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, there are some interesting rhythms and analog sounds toward the end. The quality of the live recording is very listenable, the tape quality of the sound adds to the whole live feel of this recording. The third part of the I.C.A. recording is “Dead Ed” which after four minutes leads to a minimal crowd reation. The Hat Fair, Winchester recording consists of just one five minute track titled “No Two Ways” beginning with a chugging distorted death sound, overlaid with effected synthesiser modulations ending with vocal media recordings. The Brighton Poly recordings consisted of the track “Last Exit” humming ominously into existence; describing what Prince Phillip was doing to the Queen at the time (visuals of this would have been interesting). Like the rest of the recordings on this release, the sounds is very raw and live, unlike many similar acts today playing digital recordings from laptops. In a way this release captures an era of tonal experimentation left behind by modern technology, TG used analog, self-built effects with oscillators and tape delay at this time – this added to the whole live performance they produced throughout the seventies. Nuffield Theatre drones into life with deep, distorted waveforms rattling the bones of the audience, progressing into some interesting sample and hold sounds. The track gives an interesting array of sounds from the arsenal of Carter and Christopherson; as does the next track “National Affront”. Winchester Art College includes the interesting “A Nod and a Wank” with phase and distortion mixed with guitar and tape recordings. The last track is taken from the London Film Makers Co-Op and continues with the sound and style from the previous recordings, though it enters very different atmospheres toward the end, ambient wind sounds taking you to the top of Beachy Head?