Throbbing Gristle share previously unreleased track ‘Scabs & Saws’ – Out now
Throbbing Gristle (Photo by Paul Heartfield)
Today Throbbing Gristle have announced “TG Berlin”, a box set chronicling their previously unreleased work in Berlin around a special series of live events at the Volksbühne in 2005/2006, set for release on December 6, 2024. This is the latest release in an ongoing collaboration with Mute.
The event, curated by Throbbing Gristle, saw the band perform a live set on New Year’s Eve and an improvised live soundtrack to a new 16mm print of Derek Jarman’s “In The Shadow of the Sun” (1981) on New Year’s Day. While the band were in Berlin, they also recorded two final songs alongside a 48-minute piece of new music.
The box set, which is comprised of 4 CDs, a Blu Ray, a 10” vinyl and a booklet featuring unseen photographs from the time by Paul Heartfield as well as new sleeve notes by Scottish visual artist Lucy McKenzie, collates both of these performances, alongside the “TG Berlin Studio Session”, which includes the final Throbbing Gristle single (two unreleased tracks, “Scabs & Saws” and “Wotwududo”) and an unreleased 48-minute piece titled “TG Berlin Studio Session 2005 – 2006”, recorded at Planet Roc studios during the time they were in the city.
Listen to the previously unreleased track “Scabs & Saws” below.
“TG Berlin” will also include the ‘rehearsal’ for “In The Shadow of the Sun”, recorded on New Year’s Day at the Volksbühne (“people’s theatre”). The performance of “In The Shadow of the Sun” was improvised, so the two documents offer a different perspective on the soundtrack to Jarman’s work.
The New Year’s Eve show previewed five songs from the band’s first album in 27 years, “Part Two: The Endless Not”, several years before its release, on a set list that included “Convincing People”, “Slug Bait”, and “Hamburger Lady” (their first encore in 25/26 years), plus the released track, “Splitting Sky” and more. The performance is also included as a Blu-ray.
About Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle formed in 1975 and for the next six years they fully delivered on punk’s failed promise to explore extreme culture as a way of sabotaging systems of control. During that time, they released records such as “The Second Annual Report Of Throbbing Gristle” (1977), “D.O.A The Third And Final Report Of Throbbing Gristle” (1978), and “20 Jazz Funk Greats” (1979) and were also named “wreckers of civilisation” by the Conservative MP Nicholas Fairbairn in 1976.
In 2004, Throbbing Gristle, Chris Carter, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (1950-2020) and Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson (1955-2010), regrouped and the following six years became a period of renewed creativity for the band which returned back in the studio after 20 years.
They also embarked on a series of live performances that included the Coachella and Primavera festivals, Tate Modern, and Heaven, and produced several albums, including “TG Now” (2004), and “Part Two: The Endless Not” (2007), as well as a 3-day “studio installation” at the ICA before disbanding in 2010.
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