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Throbbing Gristle were an English music and visual arts group formed in Kingston upon Hull by Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti, later joined by Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson and Chris Carter. They are widely regarded as pioneers of industrial music. Evolving from the experimental performance art group COUM Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle made their public debut in October 1976 in the COUM exhibition Prostitution, and released their debut single "United/Zyklon B Zombie" and debut album The Second Annual Report the following year. P-Orridge's lyrics mainly revolved around mysticism, extremist political ideologies, sexuality, dark or underground aspects of society, and idiosyncratic manipulation of language inspired by the techniques of William S. Burroughs.

The band released several subsequent studio and live albums – including D.o.A: The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle (1978), 20 Jazz Funk Greats (1979), and Heathen Earth (1980) – on their own record label Industrial Records, building a reputation with their transgressive and confrontational aesthetics; they included the extensive use of disturbing visual imagery, such as ironic fascist and Nazi symbolism and pornography, as well as that of noise and sound manipulation influenced by the works of Burroughs and Brion Gysin.

Throbbing Gristle dissolved in 1981 due to interpersonal differences; the individual members went on to participate in other projects, such as Psychic TV, Coil, and Chris & Cosey. The band was reformed in 2004, and released three more studio albums – TG Now (2004), Part Two (2007), and The Third Mind Movements (2009) – before disbanding again after P-Orridge's departure in October 2010 and Christopherson's death the following month. The band's final studio project, a cover version of the 1970 Nico album Desertshore entitled Desertshore/The Final Report, was released in 2012 under the moniker X-TG.

History

First era: 1976–1981

Throbbing Gristle evolved from the performance art group COUM Transmissions, formed in Kingston upon Hull by a group of performers including Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti. The name Throbbing Gristle derives from the Yorkshire slang word for a male erection. In 1973 COUM moved from Hull to Hackney, London, where P-Orridge and Tutti met Chris Carter, then working as a sound recordist in television, and Peter Christopherson, then a member of the graphic design collective Hipgnosis; the four built a recording studio in Hackney which they dubbed "The Death Factory" and began performing music together. The last known performance of COUM Transmissions – Prostitution, an exhibition held in October 1976 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London – was also the public debut of Throbbing Gristle. The provocative sexual content of the exhibition led Conservative Member of Parliament Nicholas Fairbairn to dub the group "wreckers of civilisation".

Throbbing Gristle's confrontational live performances and use of often disturbing imagery, including pornography and photographs of Nazi concentration camps, earned the group a notorious reputation, but they maintained that their mission was to challenge and explore the darker and obsessive sides of the human condition rather than to make attractive music. Throbbing Gristle made extensive use of pre-recorded tape samples and effects units, some of which they had designed or modified themselves, to produce a distinctive, highly distorted sound, usually accompanied by lyrics or spoken-word performances by Tutti or P-Orridge. Though they asserted that they wanted to provoke their audience into thinking for themselves rather than promote any specific political agenda, Throbbing Gristle frequently associated with the anarcho-punk scene. They appeared in the fanzine Toxic Grafity with a condensation of their own propaganda parody series, Industrial News.

In November 1977, they released their debut live/studio album The Second Annual Report. First pressed in a limited run of 786 copies on the band's Industrial Records label, it was rereleased on Mute Records following high demand; however, this later release was reversed, with all tracks playing backwards and in reverse order. This was followed by the single "United / Zyklon B Zombie", and by the albums D.o.A: The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle (1978), 20 Jazz Funk Greats (1979), and Heathen Earth (1980), along with a number of non-album singles. In 1980, the band composed a soundtrack for Neil Ruttenberg's horror movie Mask of Sarnath.