Like “The Sound Of Progress” a documentary about industrial music. Amélie Ravalec and Travis Collins interviewed some industrial icons and cut these interviews with old footage. The result looks a bit messy and the old footage is always way too short and cut-off to go back to the interview.
The documentary takes 52 minutes. The 30 minute bonus material are the interviews in their entirety. There is footage of and/or interviews with Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, NON, SPK, Test Dept, Clock DVA, Re/Search – V Vale, Z’EV, Click Click, Sordide Sentimental, Hula, The Klinik, Ant-Zen, Orphx, In The Nursery and Prima Linea, some longer than the next.
The longer (and bonus) interviews are with Cris and Cosey (separately), Genesis P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, etc.), Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire, etc.), Boyd Rice (!), Graeme Revell (SPK), Stefan Alt (Ant-Zen) and Udo Weissman (Winterkälte, Hands).
The latter two I find a bit strange. Why not Tesco, Cold Spring or Malignant? Did the makers want to make a bridge to more ‘modern sounding’ industrial? Or is is, like with “the Sound Of Progress” that the focus lays less on the underground side of the scene? Not that Ant-Zen and Hands are major labels, of course, but the other labels have more of an unruly approach, the latter are ‘easier’ so to say.
The documentary gives a nice idea of industrial music and the early musicians’ backgrounds and inspiration. Nothing that I never heard of, but there are some images that I never saw and all interviewees are spoken with in their current days looking back at when they were young. Some of them were quite offensive in their time, but little is seen of that in the documentary (even Boyd Rice is more of a Georges Clooney inspite of his police cap and glasses). This makes the documentary a bit too ‘goody’ for the subject.
An amusing watch though.
Link: Industrial Soundtrack