Label: Mute
Format: 4CD / 10" / Blu-ray / Book Box
Genre: Electronic
Preorder: Release Date: 6th December 2024
Throbbing Gristle and Mute’s partnership continues with the release of TG Berlin, a lavish box set chronicling their previously unreleased work in Berlin around a very special series of live events at the Volksbühne in 2005/2006. 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, and, while the band were in Berlin, they recorded two final songs alongside a 48-minute piece of new music.
The box set - which comprises of 4 CDs, a Blu Ray, a 10” vinyl and a photo book featuring unseen photographs from the time - collates both of these performances, alongside the TG Berlin Studio Session, which comprises of 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. TG Berlin will also include the “rehearsal” for In The Shadow of the Sun, recorded on New Year’s Day at the iconic 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, and what an encore!) – tracks that had lost none of their potency in the intervening years – plus the released track, ‘Splitting Sky’ and more. The performance is also included as a Blu Ray within the box set.
Formed in 1975, Throbbing Gristle - Chris Carter, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (1950-2020) and Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson (1955-2010), fully delivered on punk’s failed promise to explore extreme culture as a way of sabotaging systems of control. Their impact on music, culture and the arts has been immeasurable, and still felt today across music, film, theatre, and fine art.
TG Berlin is a numbered limited edition box set of 1000 - will not be repressed. The Blu-Ray of the full-length concert film, TG Berlin Studio Session 2005 - 2006, In the Shadow of the Sun (Rehearsal at the Volksbühne, Berlin, New Year's Day, 2006), and photo book, with previously unseen photographs by Paul Heartfield and new sleeve notes by award winning Scottish visual artist Lucy McKenzie, are all exclusive to this box set.