Second Annual Report

Throbbing Gristle, “Second Annual Report” (Mute, 1991; original release, 1977)
It’s heartwarming (and a reminder of their unprecedented sound and its subsequent influence) to recall that this came out the same year not only as “Never Mind The Bollocks” but also “Saturday Night Fever” and the first Boston album (great records all, incidentally). TG used state-of-the-art electronics to create a doleful, chemical-smog-brown cloud of sound that evokes the moan of the factory foghorn and the lurching clack of the conveyor belt to the extent that its explicitly musical quality disappears intermittently, but that’s where the tension and excitement comes from as it builds inexorably into a sort of majestic blues for inanimate objects (and the people who serve/blend into them). We’re still catching up with this.
Try 2, 11.
3/18/18