Foetus

Null/Void (Cleopatra)
by Lex Marburger

For those of you who know who J.G. Thirlwell is, all I need to say is that Null and Void are being re-released as a two-disc set. Turn the page. For those of you who don’t bow before the name of Foetus, I guess I have to go a little more in depth. Before Reznor, before Marilyn, before Die Krupps, before Industrial really even had a niche, Thirlwell was creating amazing songs with tape loops and drum machines, audio destruction in nice 12″ slabs of vinyl. He called these explorations in pain and noise Foetus, or pretty variations on the name like Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel, You’ve Got Foetus On Your Breath, and The Foetus All-Nude Revue. Only a handful of deviant freaks liked his music. They were the kind you saw gulping down handfuls of amphetamines while staking out a good gutter to spend the night in, after having been kicked out of the punk clubs for being too weird. Jump ahead a decade or so, and it seems that this “Industrial” stuff is completely palatable to the masses now. Amazing how quickly peoples’ tastes change. Cleopatra obviously realized that it was time to show these newcomers what the scene was really like, when you only had Throbbing Gristle, Einstürzende Neubauten, and Foetus to satisfy your industrial needs.

And you know what? Even after all this time, Foetus stands up to the new Industrial, and wipes its ass with them. In case you didn’t realize it, today’s Industrial has become as formulized as Three-Chord-Punk. Some straight quarters on the kick drum, grab a metal riff off of some old Krokus track, and whisper through a distortion pedal about the absolute blackness of your soul. Or something. Yeah, there’s exceptions, I know. That’s not the point. The point is, Foetus was working before formulas, so he was free to do whatever the hell he wanted, no restrictions. He made the songs that others adapted into the formulas, whether they realized it or not. The Null EP is the disc that will undoubtedly convert the new school. It’s the one that’s full on, non-stop anger and violence, with three mixes of “Verklemmt,” a fully charged assault of nihilism, overloading the speakers with a barrage of drums and guitar, and “Be Thankful,” an over-the-top assault and battery on the ears and limbs. And don’t forget about “Butter,” a song about violent anal sex. I think. Foetus’ lyrics are ambiguous enough to interest you (“Apply the strongest sunblock / It’s Mother’s Day again”) but still have enough directness to pack a punch (“Dick decide he ain’t such a good actor / Dick put Jane inna trash compactor”). Null takes a morbid turn with “Into the Light,” a nightmare ambient ballad (Gee, I guess this is where Trent got it from). Softly clanging pieces of metal contrast the keyboard washes, and the added guitar special effects and backwards choir in the background take it to a place deep into psychosis. Halfway through, he introduces Joan Crawford’s “No more wire hangers!” and the Neubauten pipes from “Seele Brennt” as an orchestra crashes and rolls like a demented Stravinsky across tribalistic drumming and crying babies. A contradictory climax in terms of the rest of the album, and immensely effective.

Moving on to the Void EP, this is the one that’s going to interest all the people who like even more innovation mixed with their assault. Featured on Void are guests Tod A from Cop Shoot Cop, and the incredible guitar work of Marc Ribot (there isn’t enough space to go into his contributions to music. Maybe another time). From the first track, “Friend or Foe,” it’s obvious that you can’t pigeonhole Foetus. There’s a definite industrial sound, with huge drums, plodding destructive beats… but there’s a… country… element in it. Some bottleneck guitar, some harmonica, and Thirlwell’s accent gets a little twang. The combination is enough to drive me mad, but I mean that in a good way. It’s got that hard-hitting sound that will raise the sap in any self-respecting adolescent, but it’s also got a catchy hook that will leave you humming “I wish I never blew you.” “Incesticide,” a song about a child molester, seems to be a rather straightforward ultra-distortion industrial song at first, but when he brings in the horn section and the speeded up ultra- cheese metal riff looping underneath it all, you know you’ve entered someone’s special nightmare. By the time you get to “See Dick Run,” and its chilling children’s samples underneath a murder story plod-along, you might not want to sleep with the lights off. The violin loops along with what could be a Middle Eastern voice, a further show of Thirlwell’s unorthodox approach to music. It’s not something you’re likely to hear these days. What’s even more unlikely is hearing a song in 5/4 time like “Flux” (the nearest I’ve heard is Christian Death’s “This Is Heresy” and NIN’s “March of the Pigs”), one that sounds natural rather than contrived, and when the jazz trumpet and Ribot’s guitar start duking it out underneath Thirlwell muttering “Build my nest your every gesture bursts an artery” it’s clear that it’ll be hard to go back to the dishwater they’re serving up nowadays. Void ends on a dancy note, as opposed to Null‘s creepy one, as “Iris Evergreen” takes us out on a thudding kick drum with the sound of two UFOs having a dogfight above the Pentagon. The tracks slowly build and add on, Thirlwell throws more sounds into the mix, and then breaks it down, and starts manipulating the sounds, playing the drum tracks backwards, etc. He then builds it up again, intensity rising, only to end it by completely shutting everything off halfway through a beat. Anyone who thinks they know industrial music because they’ve been listening to it since Pretty Hate Machine must get Null and Void, and find out where it all came from. I know I’m preaching to some of the converted here, but those who don’t know about Foetus don’t know what they’re missing.