The brittlest and most hard-line radical of the first wave of British punk bands, Crass issued a blitz of records that were ruthless in both their unrelenting sociopolitical screeds and their amelodic crash of noise. The horrors of war, the arbitrary nature of legal justice, sexism, media imagery, organized religion, the flaws of the punk... [+] Read More

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Along with Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, Germany's Einstürzende Neubauten ("collapsing new buildings") helped pioneer industrial music with an avant-garde mix of white-noise guitar drones, vocals verging on the unlistenable at times, and a clanging, rhythmic din produced by a percussion section consisting of construction materials,... [+] Read More

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Led by former Generation X member Tony James, the new wave group Sigue Sigue Sputnik raised selling out to an art form. The concept behind Sigue Sigue Sputnik was simple: the band adopted a postmodern, ironic style and sound, and marketed it to the hilt, saturating the media with slogans and interviews. James didn't even intend the band to be... [+] Read More

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More expressly political than their German counterparts Einstürzende Neubauten, Test Department followed the same tack: A creative use of the ethos in which diverse objects (including large amounts of scrap metal and power tools) can be used as instruments. Formed in London's New Cross in 1982 by Alistair Adams, Graham Cunningham, Tony Cudlip,... [+] Read More

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Orchestral instruments, including viola, trumpet, and saxophone, were combined with such oddities as hippo tube and foghorn to create the ultra-loud post-punk sounds of the Dog Faced Hermans. Although the group disbanded in 1995, the members of the Dog Faced Hermans remain active. Bass guitarist and steel drum player Colin McLean worked with... [+] Read More

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A longtime fixture of the New York City downtown music scene, cellist, composer and improviser Tom Cora was best known in avant-jazz circles, although his eclectic pursuits led him in a wide variety of musical directions. Raised in Richmond, Virginia, Cora began studying cello while an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, later honing... [+] Read More

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