Abstract
Industrial subculture was associated from its very beginning with counterculture, alternative spirituality and the occult. From Genesis P-Orridge, COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle, influenced by artistic and esoteric ideas from William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin, industrial music has been inspired by transgressive and unorthodox spiritual beliefs and practices. In turn, industrial has acted as a vehicle to express and spread these notions by integrating them into artistic techniques and aesthetic concepts. Multitudes of references to different strains of esotericism ritualised industrial, like Skinny Puppy and its association to The Process Church, Current 93 and Coil with their Crowleyan and Thelemic themes and Zero Kama and the Left-Hand Path. Industrial black metal, a subgenre derived from the infamously anti-religious and Satanic black metal, continues the occult tendency of both industrial and black metal by adopting a more esoteric type of Satanism. This chapter will explore the esoteric concepts behind different projects, probe the interrelated networks of initial industrial esoteric associations in earlier projects and bands and their influence in the evolution of the later bands. To achieve this aim, this chapter will use Christopher Partridge’s notions of occulture, esoterrorism and industrial Paganism developed from the perspective of Religious Studies. The esoteric visual and lyrical expressions will be analysed using Jacques Attali’s Bataillean approach to the political economy of music.
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Marchetto Santorun, M.C. (2022). The Occultural Side of Industrial: From Its Origins to Industrial Black Metal. In: Whittaker, J., Potter, E. (eds) Bodies, Noise and Power in Industrial Music. Pop Music, Culture and Identity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92462-1_9
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