Teen Gothic

I’m sure most people here are familiar with Skinny Puppy and their blend of goth and industrial sounds, but I’ve always personally thought they went in the wrong direction after their first tape. I’ve always gravitated to the orthodox industrial sounds of Throbbing Gristle, SPK, etc, and something I’ve always found fascinating is just how fine the line was between industrial noise and goth. In the Only Theatre Of Pain 40th anniversary book, surviving members of Christian Death bring up that Rozz was predominantly listening to TG and Cabaret Voltaire. When I interviewed Theatre Of Ice, the first deathrock band (I still need to finish my transcription), they told me they mostly were listening to TG, The Residents, and Chrome. Nick Blinko from Rudimentary Peni is allegedly close with David Tibet of Current 93. At the risk of sparking a thousand comment debate by mentioning them, Death In June’s anarcho-goth leaning material (they were previously known as Crisis, remember) borrowed heavily from industrial sounds and aesthetics, as did some of their later 80s material when they worked with Boyd Rice from NON and Rose McDowall from Strawberry Switchblade. I believe that Joy Division was supposed to play with Throbbing Gristle at one point before Ian [redacted] himself, not even mentioning the fact that their music was much noisier and in line with TG's repetitive style than Martin Hannett would have you believe. There's a reason Flipper stole multiple riffs from them.

This post is intended to share and discuss some acts who either intentionally drew from both goth and industrial/noise or who fit well with both. This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list, but a starter.

Anyway, without further adieu:

Theatre Of Ice

Clair Obscur

Gilles Des Rais

Datsustora

Gara

Spike In Vain

Trop Tard

Beg For Eden

Virgin Prunes

Thelema

The Borobudur

Tuxedomoon

Minimal Man

I left some out and had trouble picking just one release for some of these, but you get the idea. Please share any you've discovered, because this is a specific area that doesn't get discussed a whole lot by people on either the goth side or the industrial/noise side.

​

​