industrial.org

Probably the main difference between Industrial and Noise, is Structure, Industrial music for the most part has structure, even Death Industrial and the like. So for all yee Death Industrial artists, how do you structure your songs.
Usually I notice that Death Industrial songs tend to be based on Tension and release, by controlling the high end, and Also based more on a Buildup-Climax Structure than a Verse Chorus Verse.
I tend to make my death Industrial songs structured that way, usually the buildup includes a Beat and the Climax includes a Melody, but I also structure the noise the same way mainly by controlling the highend and the low end rumble.

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posted by: gacky on 2005-02-12 07:54:20
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Usually I notice that Death Industrial songs tend to be based on Tension and release, by controlling the high end, and Also based more on a Buildup-Climax Structure than a Verse Chorus Verse.

Some techniques commonly used:

monotony / repetition

It is very common to pick abrasive yet continous tones to use as a basis for a track. Atrax Morgue for example will choose a very simple one or two note phrase and then repeat that for an entire song. Control will sometimes use a very consistent noise wash with the vocals (and some other flourishes) acting as punctuation for it.

slow, rhythmic clusters

For example, three slightly out of time heavy percussive hits which are allowed to fully decay before the cycle is repeated. This works well for vocals since it allows enough space to for the strikes to really sink but set the stage for the vocal component.

shifting noise based textural layers

A key component to a lot of this style is taut layers of gristly noise which is used like "wind" but normally has much more low end to it. The key to really pulling this off is to make sure that you have differing frequenciers accentuated in each layer and that you have just enough grit to make it seem abrasive but not so much that it obscures everything else.

harsh vocals

The vocals tend to be really important to the genre since they are what push the experience to be more in your personal space and less just "something happening over there". Harshness can either be through sincerity and lyrical matter (i.e. you can actually discern what is being said but the delivery makes it harsh) or via effects (distortion, delay) or both.

There's other stuff of course, that's just off the top of my head.

Personally I tend to go with the crescendo approach or slow steady development (not so much a crescendo as ending up in a different place).

Cheers

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posted by: moron on 2005-02-12 20:29:49
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I'd agree with this industrial=structure / noise=no structure statement but the line between noise and industrial is real thin because the line between structure/no structure also is.

For instance take three distorted pad layers on top of each other (eg three anarchy swarm synths): if you use something regular like three sine LFO to control one parameter variation (the filter resonance, etc.) on each synth, depending whether your LFOs are in phase with each other or not, you'll get something that sounds regular (industrial-ish) or something that sounds random (noise-ish).

Same applies to hardware: you could use a sirkut SNB for 'rhythm' or 'drone' and one for the top layer 'melody' and that's somehow regular, or just fiddle around with the switches and knobs in an irregular way.

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posted by: ddn+ on 2005-02-13 01:04:36
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About the repetition structure, more likely than not the repetition is is only one part of the song, while the background or other elements are changing, or the repetition is slowly being morphed. Another little trick I like to do to make things easier, is to make a noise track, just record and manipulate some whitenoise or whatever, and then on top of that put a beat or something steady and organised.

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posted by: gacky on 2005-02-13 09:38:35
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of what i know, death-industrial was first used to describe Brighter Death Now's music. So i dunno about beats, but yes, this music is often rhythmic.
It's practically power electronics with the "dark" factor thrown in.

Yeah, i definetely rely a lot on linear structures - mostly an abrasive sound with occasional atmospheric parts. I just see it as 80s industrial (though the bands/artists i'm thinking of would probably prefer something like "extreme electronic noise" or some similar term) as is the case with the come org & broken flag "camps".

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posted by: Damon on 2005-02-13 11:40:58
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yeah I see Brighter Death Now, and probably the Gray Wolves as the main Death Industrial people. Basically it is what happend to industrial in the 80s. From what I've heard Death industrial, uses the same song structure as rhythmic industrial (most of it) and Ambient Industrial (most of it as well) the whole building up to a climax of the song, and introducing new layers, while getting more intense. Although they do it in different ways. Obviously Techno industrial follows the techno structure of interlaying beats. But for the most part the structure, starts out more ambient and dark, and then gets more noisy and abrasive, and then adds a little bit of rhythm too keep everything in place, if there is a melody its usually near the end, but I have noticed sometimes taking little breaks in the middle of a song before building up again, but usually its just one long buildup.

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posted by: gacky on 2005-02-13 12:51:42
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well, well.

As I said before, be careful where and how you place your words: death industrial is definitely industrial (and brighter death now is a good example -very early cold meat industry stuff, not the lame more or less dark ambient of these days, also is) BUT industrial strength techno ISN'T remotely industrial -yeah, we had this a zillion times blahblahblah.

Sorry: rhythmic industrial (early beat-driven material from SPK for instance) is industrial and I.S.-techno is f** TECHNO for whoever's sake. Don't tell me Converter or Sonar are industrial cause I'll go all wild all over the place again ;-) To me, this genre name (industrial strength techno) was invented because nu-metal fans wanted something they could dance to. How could I say... BURN all this. Not only because it's absolute crap but because it prevents people to listen to good music -hey, just joking don't take the piss again.

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posted by: ddn+ on 2005-02-15 00:42:14
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Don't tell me Converter or Sonar are industrial cause I'll go all wild all over the place again ;-) To me, this genre name (industrial strength techno) was invented because nu-metal fans wanted something they could dance to.

Technically that genre is "powernoise", but I don't give a crap whether it's "industrial" or not.

and brighter death now is a good example -very early cold meat industry stuff, not the lame more or less dark ambient of these days

I've noticed a rise in shitty dark ambient these days, too. (Raison D'Etre, I'm looking at you)

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posted by: BLANK on 2005-02-15 07:13:24
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Look, Converter/Sonar may be dancy, but they are also very noisy, and abrasive, yes they are industrial, its quite simple, I am actually quite a fan of both, yes yes, Some of Converter gets a little lame, but all and all they are quite nice. Structure wise, Converter is pretty advanced, for example, track 3 on Blast furnace, has almost the perfect progression for industrial music. It starts out dark, bare and sparatic, then it builds up with little explosions of noise, then it organises into powerful assaults of industrial sounds, abrasive noise, and short dark melodies, as well as a little rhythem to keep it in line, and it ends with an explosive climax. I think Converter lacks in the sound department, he needs too manipulate sounds a little better. But most of Converter is'nt really dancy.

Oh I completly agree with you Ike, Raison does get very boring, the monophonic way too low pith choir melodies get really really old, really really fast, and the same metalic sounds over and over again. One would think he uses the same patch for all of his songs, and just changes the melody a little bit and then Scrapes some metal and reverbs it and throws it in behing the melody, ON EVERY SONG.

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posted by: gacky on 2005-02-15 09:04:07
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what can I say...

Considering Sonar is industrial because it's harsh (arf arf) or abrasive (rolling on the floor laughing) is just about the same thing as saying Evanescence is death metal. Did you notice Limp Bizkit have the same guitar sound as Entombed on left hand path? (slightly more compressed, so maybe hollowman is more accurate) Does that make them something else than nu metal? The fact limp bizkit or sonar is crap has nothing to do with them not being industrial -for instance I like some Imminent Starvation but I sure won't say it's industrial and as I always say I'm a crazy fan of Pan Sonic and they're not industrial, even if they play with Merzbow and do use PE and noise industrial gimmicks in their songs. I really like industrial music, but that doesn't make any kind of electronic stuff I like industrial, does it.
I too agree with you, cold meat releases just about the MOST F** BORING stuff possible now but that's no reason to forget how good their early stuff was. To me, saying Cold Meat and Ant Zen or even Mille Plateaux release crap is sad, because they were truly excellent labels who well deserved a great deal of respect. I'm not happy I don't like Converter and saying stars like Noisex make total shit is not a pleasure for me. But it's always the same story: TG released great eps on industrial records in complete darkness and when they became famous them people started doing Psychic TV (I'm going to throw up). 99% of the great music I get for review is released on super-tiny CDR labels and most so called underground regular CD labels are just releasing pigeonshit. THAT'S SAD, I'm NOT happy it's this way!
Power noise, yeah, I sure can make up any new genre name every other day. For instance: Labradford is harsh pop. Blahblahblah.

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posted by: ddn+ on 2005-02-16 02:57:36
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Considering Sonar is industrial because it's harsh (arf arf) or abrasive (rolling on the floor laughing) is just about the same thing as saying Evanescence is death metal.

Hey DDN, I have to disagree here. The first Sonar album (the one with the heart on the front) has pretty much all the elements traditional industrial and sounds in some ways is like old experimental material from the tape trading days. It is danceable only because it is repetitive and rhythmic but it has more in comming with tape trading culture (sonically that is) than the dancefloor. Later stuff started blurring that line a bit but that first album is solid IMHO.

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posted by: moron on 2005-02-16 09:08:01
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what i'll do is simple: when I go back home I'll listen to it again and tell you. It's been a while since I listened to old material from sonar so maybe I was all messed up by what I heard last.

I'll answer again soon with a clearer opinion ;-)

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posted by: ddn+ on 2005-02-16 09:22:32
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Ok, man. Just try to leave my asshole intact if you hate it.

=)

Cheers

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posted by: moron on 2005-02-16 09:28:36
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Why can't industrial be dancable??? if its still noisy and abrasive but at the same time oonzy, it can still industrial.

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posted by: gacky on 2005-02-16 22:08:19
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Why can't industrial be dancable???

A better question would be, Gacky, is "why would you ever want to dance?"

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posted by: BLANK on 2005-02-17 05:03:09
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