Recorded at the Mattress Factory studio on S. Wabash Ave, the LP arrives on Overdrive/Invisible Records on May 29
Pigface and Genesis P-Orridge recorded a collaborative album in 1996 and 1997 that is now receiving its first vinyl release. Titled The Howler: An English Breakfast, the LP comes out on May 29 via Overdrive/Invisible Records.
Genres: Avant-garde, Experimental Music, Industrial Music
Description: Pigface and Genesis P-Orridge's 1996/97 Chicago sessions get their first vinyl release May 29 on Overdrive/Invisible Records.
The sessions took place at what Martin Atkins (read our interview with Martin Atkins) called the Mattress Factory, his studio at 2024 S. Wabash Ave in Chicago, which shared space with the Invisible Records office. Atkins gave himself the production pseudonym The Girl Brothers, under the impression it was the name of a British moving company; he later discovered it was the alias used by Wendy & Lisa, collaborators of Prince. The recording setup at the time included a half-inch 8-track machine and ADAT tapes, alongside early work in Logic.
The connection between Atkins and Genesis P-Orridge predates the sessions. Atkins first encountered P-Orridge at the Sharon Tate house in California, where he had gone for a break from working with Skinny Puppy on what became The Process album, recorded at Rick Rubin‘s Shangri-La studio. Trent Reznor was not present that day, but P-Orridge was, along with Dr. Timothy Leary. P-Orridge subsequently joined Pigface, improvising on tracks with six cassette machines and a bag of tapes.
A separate session around 1994 produced material for New High in Low. P-Orridge flew into Chicago’s Midway Airport to record a spoken word piece over dub-influenced tracks built with Bodog on sitar, Dave Wright of Not Breathing, loops by Mick Harris, and engineering by Adam Yoffe. On arrival at the studio, P-Orridge realised they had left the text behind. The words were faxed from X THEE UNDERLYING in Brooklyn to the Invisible Records office next door, enlarged on a Xerox machine, and used for the recording. The pages were discarded afterward; Atkins’s drum technician Jim later retrieved them from the trash and returned them to him.
The 1996/97 recordings that make up The Howler: An English Breakfast are now being released on vinyl for the first time.
Pigface is a Chicago-based industrial music project founded by Martin Atkins and William Rieflin in 1990, operating as a fluid collective with a rotating cast of collaborators. Genesis P-Orridge was a British artist and musician, founder of both Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, and a central figure in the development of industrial music and later acid house in the United Kingdom.
LINEUP:
Bass [Bass From] – Mick Harris
Drums, Loops, Tape [Tape Delays] – Martin Atkins
Vocals – Genesis P-Orridge
Whistle[Space Whistle] – Resident Phase Shifter
Written-By – P-Orridge*, Atkins*
[Engineered By] – Adam Yoffe, Re
Mastered by Tom Whittaker
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