Tone Generator & Body Without Organs - Control
Been looking so much forward to doing a review of this one! Who is Tone Generator? He is ( or was ) a key member of the legendary pioneer industrial band called SPK, a band which (alongside) Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire started the whole industrial genre ( more or less ). In my world of industrial music, those 3 bands are the first and most important bands of the genre. From 1978 to 1983, SPK paved the way for power electronics, dark ambient, noise, and even ritual music. And still, to this day, no one has reached ( or even touched ) that insane sound that SPK has to been known for. Around 1984 SPK became a (rather boring) full-fledged pop act, delivering danceable electro-pop for the "masses".
So here we are in... 2024? Tone Generator (Dom Guerrin) is out with his new act, and he has teamed up with Scott Barnes. This one came out last year, and it´s a live recording from Smith´s Alternative in Australia, Melbourne 2022. This is actually the second release by Tone Generator & Body Without Organs, I am also going to review the first one as well.
The release comes out as a beautifully matt-laminate mini-LP sleeve, including manifestos by SPK and Tone Generator, limited to 100 copies. 8 tracks, bout 38 minutes in total.
First track is called Intro by Jack Sargeant ( don't know who he is, do yourself a favor and look him up! ). Someone presenting the act, and someone saying... ´We´ve heard that you were disturbed´. And then the track descends into a nightmarish and sludgly blended soundscape. Sounds of people screaming, warped spacy synth sounds, distorted sounds with an almost liquid vibe and the crowds in the background... cheering. It sounds absolutely incredible, considered it to be a live-recording of a experimental industrial band.
The second track Drowning, slurred human voices and some intense high-pitched sounds. Lots of massive machines and lots of metallic things bangs together and breaks apart in the process. Sounds like a earth-quake in some old and rusty steel factory! Really like that the disturbing aesthetic from the old SPK albums and strongly present here!
The third track Control, starts giving me that vibe of early Dr Who, city of the Daleks more like. Intense multilayered soundscapes, pulsating bass-sounds, torturous analog-synths whins and squeaks in some strange dimension. Cant remember last time I have heard something with that sort of powerful sound, the reverbed cave-like feel is enormous. Religious experience if you ask me.
The fourth track Dugongs, glitch stuff on tons of adrenaline. Has a kind of Autechre sort of liquid-metal feel to it. Lots of bleeps, blops and underground explosions. Really out there, beyond description! Ends in a chanting sensation, being droned in pure ecstacy of acid-drenched sounds here!. Great with the industrial-sounding percussion elements here, something I have missed a lot in these days.
The fifth track Construction 23 1-1b, with it´s robotic voices talking and screaming, while a great and thumbing rhythm relentlessly thumbs on. Some eerie and weird acid-jazz elements creeps in, giving it all a really... well... William Burroughs sort of a feel. Kind of getting back to Ground Zero: Infinity Dose for some reason, although they don´t really sound alike.
The sixth track Wastelands and the seventh track The Chosen One really gets back to that classic SPK Leichenshrei sound. There can be no mistake, the mixture of those sounds and samples... It´s still mad (and "evil") as fxxx and makes perfect sense that it can be enjoyed aswell! The vocal elements are so good here, again with that SPK aesthetic. Dosn´t sound old at all, or retro for that matter... sounds like SPK ( from the old days ) in 2023. Can´t help but thinking how much vocal parts Tone Generator have delivered in the early SPK days?
The last track Coronaring, delivers a punishing noisy soundscape. All the stuff which u have heard in the former tracks, can be found somewhere in these last two tracks! Not that far away from the style found on SPKs debut Information Overload Unit.
As a hardcore fan of SPK, I was absolutely amazed and surprised with this. Like I said earlier, the aesthetics of SPK are there but in a modern up-todate sort of way... makes sense. Maybee it´s just because that the sound SPK, still makes sense today? Im also surprised in how... relevant is actually sounds? Soundwise it´s pretty extreme and disturbing, but without the straightforward (and snappy) attitude. A mature vine if you please. And regarding the recording! The live recording is absolutely gobsmacking! Might just be the best live recording I have heard from this sort of music, in a long time!
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