We use cookies on our website to provide you with the best experience. Most of these are essential and already present.
We do require your explicit consent to save your cart and browsing history between visits. Read about cookies we use here.
Your cart and preferences will not be saved if you leave the site.
play

Throbbing Gristle

Thirty-Second Annual Report

Label: Industrial Records

Format: LP

Genre: Experimental

In stock

€144.00
VAT exempt
+
-

Thirty years on from the original, Throbbing Gristle returned to the source material of The Second Annual Report - their catastrophic debut of November 1977, pressed in a run of 785 copies on their own Industrial Records with white labels, a "Nothing Short Of A Total War" sticker, and a Xerox warning strip about the shortcomings of the pressing - and reinterpreted it live at La Grande Halle-La Villette, Paris, on 6 June 2008. That performance was captured in full and issued as this 12" 180gm LP, Thirty-Second Annual Report, on the newly reactivated Industrial Records (IR2008/2). Limited to 777 copies - the number deliberately chosen to mirror the original pressing. Genesis P-Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Peter Christopherson, and Chris Carter, operating at full capacity in a contemporary PA environment, with all the weight of modern sound reproduction behind them.

The vinyl configuration is: Side A - three movements of "Slug Bait" (6:40 / 8:16 / 2:33) plus "Maggot Death" (4:40); Side B - "After Cease To Exist" in a single unbroken 20:33 stretch, the complete soundtrack to the COUM Transmissions film premiered in Arnhem in 1977. The accompanying black CD extends the document with "Industrial Introduction," three additional "Maggot Death" versions, and "Zyklon B Zombie" - material that would not fit within the vinyl format. What TG delivered was not a faithful recreation but a reinterpretation: the structural skeleton of the original retained, the flesh replaced entirely. Of the sampled dialogue from the first record - a police interview with a child offender - only one fragment survives. The rest is rebuilt from the inside out with the precision and controlled ferocity of a group that had never lost its ideological clarity.

This is the no-frame edition: stickered plain sleeve, numbered copy, LP + black CD. The framed acrylic edition was the more widely documented presentation of this release, but the content is identical - the same pressing, the same disc. The Thirty-Second Annual Report completes a circle that began with the ICA "Prostitution" exhibition in 1977, which prompted questions in Parliament and the "Wreckers of Civilisation" headline. An extraordinary document of a group still operating at the exact centre of its own logic.

Details
Cat. number: IR2008/2, IR2008/3
Year: 2008
Notes:
"The Thirty-Second Annual Report Industrial Records Ltd. is proud to announce a special limited edition in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the release of Throbbing Gristle's first album 'The Second Annual Report' as well as to mark and celebrate the official re-activation of the Industrial Records label. This 12" 180gm vinyl LP comprises a recording of Throbbing Gristle's live demonstration at La Villette in Paris on 6th June 2008 at which they performed a reinterpretation of their original album. This album is pre-framed in bespoke, high-quality white gloss acrylic with an easy access clear window for removal of the record/sleeve (see photos above) and ready to hang. Purchasers of this unique object will also receive a special 'black' extended CD version, which includes extra tracks that would not fit on the vinyl format. In addition, all buyers of the framed edition will have access to a free digital download of the extended version and a PDF booklet of text and photos. The framed edition is limited to 777 copies, the same number as the original pressing." (from the official site of THROBBING GRISTLE) The track durations from some LP tracks are different from the CD versions.