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v/a * The Sound Of Progress (dvd 1988/2016)

Around the time that I was reading “Industrial Evolution” and “England’s Hidden Reverse” Cold Spring started to announce the rerelease of an old documentary about that very period of early industrial. Four bands are featured on this DVD: Test Dept, Coil, Foetus and Current 93. The last three are extensively featured in “England’s Hidden Reverse”. It was nice to see persons with the stories and interviews that I read in the book.

The documentary was made by country-mates of mine (from the Netherlands) and there is life footage of Test Dept. in an abandonned building in Amsterdam and Foetus in Paradiso (also Amsterdam). Of Current 93 there is live footage from Hamburg, Germany. There is no live material of Coil.

The 40 minutes feature snippets of interviews and the mentioned live footage. It has all been cut and montaged a bit and sometimes you can see who are talking, sometimes you do not. Of Coil there are interviews shot in the house of Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson (1955-2010) and John Balance (1962–2004). There are also parts of an interview with Balance and Stephen Thrower (1963-) outside a studio. Then there is footage from inside a studio when the band was recording “Horse Rotorvator”. The other bands are interviewed around the shows that I mentioned earlier (inside or outside the places they played in).

This DVD certainly makes a nice addition to the mentioned books. The interviews are not groundbreaking, but the live material and the Coil studio material are particularly nice.

Link: Cold Spring

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