Right now I’m fixated on the histories of certain music genres, particularly industrial music and doom metal.

“Industrial” as a name came from the record label (Industrial Records) that Throbbing Gristle, an art collective/band from the late 70’s, created. They’re widely understood to be the first industrial band, but the roots for it go way back to the 40’s with musique concrète, a style of music that made use of recorded sounds and noises as part of musical compositions. The album Metal Machine Music by Lou Reed in 1975 also had an influence on the genre: the entire album is composed of looped and edited sounds rather than traditionally-recorded instrumentation. It’s one of the first major albums to treat the recording studio as another instrument, rather than just a means of getting a band’s sound recorded.