XX COMMITTEE

Network

(Harbinger Sound) LP $20.00 (Out-of-stock)

COMING SOON. The idea behind Network was a simple one. When Thermidor first released the album in 1983, Chris Scarpino and Scott Foust were hoping to strip industrial music, which they both enjoyed, of all its rock moves and create a music that sounded like idealized heavy industrial machinery. “We thought the repetition of our music, as well as the sound, was a radical critique of the exploitive nature of work under consumer-capitalism,” says Foust. “We wanted to make machine-like anthems of negativity, but like the sound of heavy machinery, with a stark and powerful beauty.”

XX COMMITTEE

Steel Negro Music

(Trash Ritual - TRASH049) CD $12.00 (Out-of-stock)

The first recordings by Chris Scarpino on synth and guitar, and Scott Foust (Idea Fire Company, Anschluss, Swill Music) on guitar, bass and rhythms. Originally issued on cassette in 1982 by John Gullak's A.R.P.H. label, the majority of these recordings served as blueprints for the Network LP (Thermidor 1982), where roughly half the material was later reworked, remixed and retitled to fit more of a minimalistic dead mix. This CD reissue -- a full hour of ritualistic loops, pounding industrial rhythms, distorted guitar squeals, ominous rumblings, and desolate atmospherics that play on the chaotic nature of the sound itself -- contains the full tape in its complete unedited form, along with "Schwerpunkt" (a bonus track found on an unreleased 1980 tape performed by the original three-piece line-up), drone sessions, and "Slaughterhouse," originally released on the Sex & Bestiality tape compilation (Bain Total 1984) and on Sounds Beyond The Grave tape compilation (Sachsenhausen Industriale 1985). Additional liner notes by Foust.