What?!! No Test Department thread?!?

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Scott just mentioned them on the Laibach thread revival. I was gonna search for them the other day but I just did it now and got nothing.

I love everything this band did in the 80's. Classic/Search:

Beating The Retreat
Shoulder To Shoulder
Unacceptable Face Of Freedom
A Good Night Out
Terra Firma
Gododdin

then it get a little wobbly with:

Proven In Action
Materia Prima
Pax Brittanica

and descends into disco horror via the Invisible label.

I have to go now. Please discuss among yourselves or point me to a thread I missed. I will return to extol their virtues further.

― sleeve (sleeve), Thursday, 15 December 2005 16:37 (7 years ago) Permalink

Their best record ever by far (and only one I still own) was their debut "Compulsation"/Pulsations" 12-inch. Wow, I wonder if that's worth anything on ebay now...(checks)...nope, didn't see it there.

Wasn't their debut album, *Beating the Retreat*, a box set? How many bands have ever debuted with box sets? I kinda liked that one at the time, too, but sold my copy eons ago. After that, I thought they got kinda too foofy for my tastes, recording with striking miner's choirs and all that stuff. (Who I'm sure deserved the help, don't get me wrong. I'm just not a striking miner's choir kinda guy MUSICALLY.)

(Actually, these titles sound familiar: Shoulder To Shoulder and
Unacceptable Face Of Freedom. Was one of them with the miner's choir? I forget. I'm pretty sure I must have heard one or both, back then.)

― xhuxk, Thursday, 15 December 2005 17:06 (7 years ago) Permalink

(So the obvious question is, how do I know their debut single is "their best record ever by far" if I haven't even heard most of their other records? Um, good question. But I did pay attention for a while, and they did seem to get less interesting as time progressed. I guess it's possible they got better again later, but I doubt it.)

― xhuxk, Thursday, 15 December 2005 17:22 (7 years ago) Permalink

Anyway, this says the single is worth $12.00:

http://www.boltbeats.com/rec-t.html

That came up fifth on google (for "test dept." compulsion pulsations search); this came up fourth, ha ha:

http://www.rocklist.net/swells.htm

― xhuxk, Thursday, 15 December 2005 17:26 (7 years ago) Permalink

'shoulder to shoulder' was with the south wales striking miner's choir and was a benefit album for the striking miners.

― stirmonster (stirmonster), Thursday, 15 December 2005 18:20 (7 years ago) Permalink

Compulsion/Pulsations may indeed be their finest moment. Also very partial to the track on the Some Bizarre "If You Can't Please Yourself...." LP.

Beating The Retreat was originally issued as a double EP on 45 in a box, then reissued as a single LP. It's quite good as well.

The other albums all have amazing moments, but they get more and more varied - Scottish folk music (Good Night Out side 2), vicious political rants by aggrieved miners (GNO Side 1, Unacceptable Face), multilayered rhythm workouts (most of Terra Firma), Russian ballads (TF again), etc. I think they are all worth investigating. Sometimes the wild diversity doesn't come across so well as a whole. Certainly a unique band - a bizarre marriage of theater, politics, industrial noise, and folk music. Does anybody know why they started to be so awful in the 90's? Loss of key members, perhaps?

― sleeve (sleeve), Thursday, 15 December 2005 19:10 (7 years ago) Permalink

t.d.a. - faces of freedom 12" was great too.

i think they got crap due to rave culture influences creeping in, key members leaving and various members having personal problems.

― stirmonster (stirmonster), Thursday, 15 December 2005 19:14 (7 years ago) Permalink

Sarah Jane Morris of "Don't Leave Me This Way" fame sings on A Good Night Out, IIRC.

― The Vintner's Lipogram (OleM), Friday, 16 December 2005 00:22 (7 years ago) Permalink

I can't believe my Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock thread was more popular than this one. That's what you get for mixing politics and theater with your industrial noise.

― sleeve (sleeve), Friday, 16 December 2005 17:33 (7 years ago) Permalink

Astonishing live spectacle, records never really worked at all for me. Be curious to know to what extent they were aware of/influenced by Laibach starting out.

― soukesian, Friday, 16 December 2005 19:24 (7 years ago) Permalink

A lot of Test Dept's stuff always seemed a bit dull to me. Like sleeve said, a little too "political," I think.

That being stated, however, "Gododdin" is a masterpiece. I seem to remember "Terra Firma" being pretty good, too.

― vartman (novaheat), Friday, 16 December 2005 19:27 (7 years ago) Permalink

that foldout sleeve that came with Unacceptable Face record was bloody awful to actually look at .. but i loved the music. very stern and serious stuff for serious times.

have to agree i saw them live once, many years later, expecting not a lot, and never experienced such a glorious noise .. the bass booms they managed out of their metal structures was beyond belief.

― mark e (mark e), Friday, 16 December 2005 20:20 (7 years ago) Permalink

A bit of random googling suggests Gray Cunnington and other key members are still active, though more on a performance art/theatre level. It's in my mind there was/is a scottish site-specific theatre group with a three initial name (not NSK!) that grew out of Test Dept.

My feeling is that their music has to be seen as just a part of a whole performance. And, yes, the political element was always a given.

― Soukesian, Friday, 16 December 2005 20:44 (7 years ago) Permalink

test dept. toured with laibach in eastern europe in the early 80's and were firm friends. the scottish site-specific group is called NVA. they are still going and in fact i did the music for one of their events a few weeks ago.

― stirmonster (stirmonster), Friday, 16 December 2005 21:23 (7 years ago) Permalink

Cool! Thanks for those links.

― sleeve (sleeve), Friday, 16 December 2005 21:28 (7 years ago) Permalink

Thanks for clearing up the Test Dept - Laibach connection. I've been wondering about that for years, as they seemed to emerge around the same time, doing work with a similar feel.

Thanks also for the NVA link. Always read about their activities after the event, maybe I'll be able to catch the next one.

― Soukesian, Saturday, 17 December 2005 10:40 (7 years ago) Permalink

6 years pass...

A revive of this thread could be timely. There has been a bit of twitter chat about TD lately, partly b/c the industrial revolution part of the Olympic opening ceremony was very TD-ish. Also there is a retrospective book planned for next year and even talk of more performances, which would be incredible.

― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Monday, 27 August 2012 13:25 (9 months ago) Permalink

yes! very much looking forward to the book. i contributed a short piece to it about how important the "shoulder to shoulder" album was to me as a teenager. fingers crossed for some performances.

― stirmonster, Monday, 27 August 2012 14:23 (9 months ago) Permalink

also, apparently danny boyle attended some of the large scale NVA / Test Dept. events in the late 80s/early90s so it seems fairly likely that was an influence on the industrial revolution segment of the opening ceremony.

― stirmonster, Monday, 27 August 2012 14:25 (9 months ago) Permalink

Cool, that would make sense. Much to my regret I never saw any of the large-scale TD events, but I saw a few of their late period club gigs when they had gone techno, which were a bit underwhelming. I also saw some of the early NVA events, which were breathtaking.

― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Monday, 27 August 2012 14:34 (9 months ago) Permalink

3 weeks pass...

http://testdept.org.uk/redux/

So, not a full-scale reunion then but a "computer based audio-visual performance environment". Shame.

― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Monday, 17 September 2012 21:41 (9 months ago) Permalink

3 months pass...

First performance of TD:Redux at a festival in Belgium last week. Maybe it's unfair to judge by a shaky youtube clip, but it seems a bit underwhelming tbh. Still, I'll probably go if it hits my town.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukxQGgMJeTc

― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Monday, 17 December 2012 15:57 (6 months ago) Permalink

gah

― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Monday, 17 December 2012 15:57 (6 months ago) Permalink

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