Once audience start to expect an extreme experience, though, it's time to flip the script. TG's first major swerve came shortly after Second Annual Report, an ultra lo-fi affair, recorded using a Sony tape-recorder, a single condenser microphone and an ordinary blank cassette. In contrast, the single "United" was almost glossy enough to pass for pop: this disco-inspired designed for 'people to fall in love to' (according to the Industrial press release) might have been chart material if not for its slightly defective groove and P-Orridge's runny vocals.
Throbbing Gristle - United 1978
"United" was the first in a series of danceable electropop tracks somewhere between Giorgio Moroder and Cabaret Voltaire: the pulsating porno-disco of "Hot on the Heels of Love", featuring Cosey Fanni Tutti's breathy whisper; the eerie, shimmering propulsion of "Adrenaline" and its flipside "Distant Dreams (Part Two)".
Throbbing Gristle - Hot on the Heels of Love 1979
Throbbing Gristle - Adrenaline 1980
Throbbing Gristle - Distant Dreams (Part Two) 1980
In a typical TG twist, "United" reappeared on D.o.A. speeded up so fast that its four minutes were reduced to sixteen seconds of bat-squeaky treble.
Throbbing Gristle - United (D.o.A. version) 1978
D.o.A. confounded expectations in other ways, too. It contained archetypal TG songs like "Hamburger Lady" (a nauseous churn of whimpering, agonized sound inspired by the true story of a burns victim unrecognizably charred from the waist up) but also 'solo' tracks like the Abba-meets-Kraftwerk rhapsody of Chris Carter's "AB/7A" and P-Orridge's unexpectedly plaintive and personal "Weeping", made using four different types of violin sound.
In his most piteously crumpled voice, P-Orridge mumbles accusatory lines like 'You didn't see me weeping on the floor/You didn't see me swallowing my tablets' - a reference to his suicide attempt of November 1978, when he downed a huge quantity of antidepressants and steroids before going onstage at the Cryptic One Club, and woke up in intensive care. The target of his jabs was Cosey Fanni Tutti, who'd left him for Chris Carter, which makes "Weeping" industrial music's equivalent to Fleetwood Mac's intraband break-up anthem "Go Your Own Way".
Throbbing Gristle - AB/7A 1978
Throbbing Gristle - Weeping 1978
Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way 1977
Around this time, TG embarked upon an experiment in totalitarian psychology that got a little out of hand. A ragged tribe of itinerants had set up camp in the wasteland behind their Beck Road home and a neighbourhood crime wave appeared to coincide with their arrival. Recoiling from the squalid lifestyle of the itinerants, TG nicknamed them 'subhumans'. Two singles emerged from this playing-with-fire phase. "Subhuman" featured a caravan image on its cover and lyrics like 'You make me dizzy with your disease/I want to smash you and be at ease'.
Throbbing Gristle - Subhuman 1980
"Discipline" came in two different versions. The first, recorded live at Berlin's S036 club, effectively documents the song being written onstage. Given the theme-of-the-day by Cosey a few minutes before going onstage, P-Orridge improvised a series of barked commands: 'I want some discipline in here'. Eleven minutes long, the track starts shakily, then gathers cohesion, as if undergoing the very regimentation process it proposes. The beat sounds like a jackboot moistly pulping the infirm and lowly underfoot, while gruesome shearing sounds conjure an abattoir atmosphere.
Throbbing Gristle - Discipline (Berlin) 1981
The later version, recorded in Manchester, is much tighter: P-Orridge declaims, 'Are you ready boys? Are you ready girls? We need some discipline in here' like a cross between scout leader and Fuhrer.
Throbbing Gristle - Discipline (Manchester) 1981
On the single's front cover, TG pose in front of the building that once served as the Third Reich's Ministry of Propaganda, while the flipside features the slogan 'Marching music for psychic youth'.
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