Sunday, 11 October 2015

Music of the Abstract: Hamburger Lady by Throbbing Gristle



From fun heavy metal to one of the most legitimately disturbing songs I've ever encountered, so much so I'm including a warning for any readers of this post to play the video at their own precaution. Not inherently because anyone who listens to it will be disturbed, but because after the first sounds I heard hearing it in a CD compilation, it lifted the hairs on the back of my neck. Throbbing Gristle are one of the most acclaimed but also most notorious bands to come from Britain, and deciding to base a song lyrically on a letter documenting a real life female burn victim, nicknamed the "Hamburger Lady" because of the severity of the burn injuries, is as unsettling as you can get. Setting this to electronic drones that, for a 1978 released song, sound like they were composed yesterday, a monotonous throb offset by various scratching noises, just adds to the horror of the material. 

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