I do have a soft spot (heh) for industrial music. I don’t listen to it all that often, but I’ve loved it since I first heard those dance beats, clanky percussion and crunchy guitars in the late 80s with bands like DAF and Front 242 and Skinny Puppy and Ministry. Which means I was into it well before all those sci-fi action films of the 90s used this genre for all those martial arts fight scenes! [Looking at you, Mortal Kombat and Matrix movies!]

I used to see KMFDM at the indie record stores all the time, which is a surprise considering Wax Trax! releases (the label they’d been on for years) weren’t always easy to find. They’ve been around since the early 80s themselves, starting out in Germany and eventually emigrating to the States. I’m pretty sure I’d heard one or two of their songs on WAMH back in 1988-89, as there was an industrial/techno/EBM show that would play stuff like this.

I owned only a few of their CDs back in the day, but I’d throw them on now and again when I needed the boost for something that would fit the Mendaihu Universe’s more tense moments that I was writing at the time. [Interestingly enough, this is the kind of music Alec Poe would listen to, which goes quite against the laid back aura he puts out through most of the trilogy. It’s all under the skin and hidden away with him.]

They’re still around these days, having dropped an original album (Let Go) early last year and a revisit of an older album this year (Hau Ruck 2025). They may not get a lot of airplay, but they’re definitely an interesting band to check out.