In 1995 I was in contact with Mortiis and so I also came in contact with Cold Meat Industry. I bought quite some of their back catalogue, but it was mostly the more tranquil material that I was interested in in the beginning. It took a while before I learned to appreciate things like Mental Destruction and MZ.412 and even longer before I started to like Brighter Death Now.
Lille Roger I of course knew by name. It was the pre-BDN project of the main man behind CMI, Roger Karmanik. The original “Undead” 7″ has been released in 1987 so it was long sold out. Also it was the final release of Lille Roger (and the start of CMI). The old project nevermore appeared on compilations, so I never really got to know Lille Roger.
Apparently there has been more releases before “Undead”. It is not entirely clear to me what the story is about his box set. Discogs has it listed as a 2018 CMI release, but only recently it seems to have been made available by Tesco. Is that a rerelease or did the CMI version never come about? Or is this a cooperation?
In any case, you can get this 64 track compilation as a Bandcamp release, a 7 lp box or a 5 cd box. It is quite pricey, but it seems to look good. I got myself the cd set, but waiting for the physical version, I can already listen to all the tracks on Bandcamp.
“Lille Roger” made what we would call death industrial nowadays I guess, but for some tracks ther term angstpop may fit the bill as well. Industrial noise with slow rhythms, samples and vocals. The vocals are somewhat ‘atypical’ as they are usually not heavily distorted and often even sung. The tracks are not as dark as BDN can get, but the sound does often already remind of BDN. Here and there the sound becomes a bit lighter.
Some tracks are somewhat simple, but many tracks are actually quite enjoyable. It is not overly extreme industrial music, so it is relatively easy to listen to. Not bad at all!
Link: Tesco
