FluxEuropa - dark music and more

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WHAT IS 'GOTHIC-INDUSTRIAL'?

FluxEuropa's musical spotlight is focused on the 'gothic-industrial' fringe of Indie. Musical and other cultural genres are easier to recognise than to define, and there is always the danger that definitions effectively create categories rather than describe them! These comments, then, are an attempt at explanation, not polemic.

We use the term 'gothic-industrial' in preference to 'industrial' alone because it seems a little more appropriate to the genre as we find it. Indeed, the very historical-modernist polarity of this genre, often encompassed in a kind of retro-futurism (the future in the past), is part of its appeal.

Elements of the genre include synth-pop and techno styles traceable to the inspiration of Kraftwerk (who aimed to create an 'industrial folk music' for the modern age), the use of industrial noises (a project of Futurism), and the employment of samples.

But amongst the groups often found in the industrial sections of CD shops, sharing the same distributors and enjoyed by the same fans, are those like Sol Invictus, which draw on the folk, medieval, baroque, classical or romantic traditions.

Although 'gothic' is hardly an ideal term to describe this sub-genre, it is characteristically concerned with myth and magic, especially the dark side, and is, more generally, in the tradition of European romanticism, embracing folk culture, historicism, and a sense of rootedness. Partly in order to distinguish this end of the gothic-industrial spectrum from 70s/80s gothic-rock, the terms 'dark folk' and 'neo-folk' are gaining popularity.

Rik - 30 December 1996

GENRE THEORY

AMBIENT INDUSTRIAL
A definition/description by Peter Werner.