Dapper Gentleman Of Noise
We’re flipping things back to one of (if not in fact the) oldest of our podcast formats, with each of us bringing an album to the table to discuss. Bruce looks back at an older Ministry record in light of the band’s legacy since then, and Alex talks about the new Prurient record and how it connects to the broader spectrum of noise/industrial crossover. There’s also some reflective chatter on favourite articles on the occasion of the site’s 900th post. All that and so much more on the latest episode of We Have A Technical! Subscribe and rate on iTunes (and now Stitcher!), download directly, or stream from the widget below.
Aww, I like Animositisomina a lot more than you guys do, but I like almost every Ministry album. I’ll admit Relapse was kinda weak, but even From Beer to Eternity has a lot that I enjoy. Have you heard the bootlegs of Ministry & Ogre doing that “Light Pours Out of Me” cover in the late ’80s? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZjb7iS0ymI
I honestly thought Bermuda Drain was closer to being an electro-industrial record than Frozen Niagara Falls. I’ve put “A Meal Can Be Made” in industrial club sets and a couple of my friends danced, but I’m not sure if I’ll use anything from Frozen Niagara Falls in that context (will you?). Fernow is obviously familiar with the canon of electro-industrial/EBM, just look at this playlist he posted in 2011 with Suicide Commando and :wumpscut:- http://www.factmag.com/2011/07/18/fact-mix-266-prurient/ Frozen Niagara Falls has a dedication to Ras Dva in the CD liner notes (and quotes a personal ad from a 1995 issue of Industrial Nation!). The common idea that Prurient is some outsider version of industrial with respect to Your Thing is mistaken.
Good info Brad! Thanks!
RoboCop is my favorite film filmed in Dallas.
I enjoyed the Birdemic reference.
I also must dispute your disparagement of Animositisominaexpialadocious… okay, the title is pretty stupid, that much we agree on. But while it wasn’t the return to form that it was hyped as, to me at least it stands head and shoulders above all the rest of their post Psalm 69 output. “Unsung” demonstrates that Killing Joke influence you mention, and in spades, but it does it so damn well. (And the version on Rantology, with the bagpipes, is even better.) “Impossible” boasts the kind of groove that we hadn’t heard from Hypo and Hermes since “So What”, and “Stolen” was a fitting electropunk swan song for Paul. Yeah, “Piss” was a clunker, and “Broken” was an even more blatant retooling of the “Psalm 69” swing. But it dished out enough red meat that I could overlook the gristle.
I put it in the same category as Skinny Puppy’s “The Process” – the fumbling beginnings of a new chapter that never came to pass. It woulda, coulda, shoulda have been the first of many albums by Sober Al and Paul, now unencumbered by major label politics, fired up by the return of the Bush Follies, and fully living up to the Luxa/Pan motto: “Our best songs are yet to be written”, with each new album building and improving on the foundation laid by Animositidoremifasollatido. Instead, Paul quit, and Ministry’s subsequent albums showed that his true role in the group had been to keep Al from writing the same song over and over.
I’m right with you on IndustrialnatioN, though. Man, I miss that zine. As wonderful and awe-inspiring as the Internet can be, there was something about poring over that cheap newsprint for new sounds and new connections, something that all the websites and blogs and podcasts in the universe can’t replace.
And by the bye, the first thing I did as soon as the podcast concluded was to point my browser directly at Bandcamp and purchase the new Prurient. So congratulations, dudes: achievement unlocked!