Bleep

The inimitable Chris Carter released his sophomore solo LP Mondo Beat in 1985. Dropping a half-decade after his Industrial Records debut The Space Between, this sextet of tunes has come to establish itself as one of the essential works of the extended Throbbing Gristle catalogue. Think of Mondo Beat as TG’s Liquid Swords.

Mondo Beat is best-known for ‘Moonlight’, a track that is now considered an essential piece in the story of industrial music and New Beat. The chugging synth bassline, dreamy spools of melody and zip-zap rhythm bring to mind D.A.F. if they’d slipped into a sort of Lynchian reverie, possibly with a Cocteau Twins LP spinning away in the background. It’s still a masterpiece all these years later.

The tracks ‘Noevil’ and ‘Mondo B’ run with the ‘Moonlight’ template, albeit removing some of the more harmonious elements to concentrate on groove and texture. ‘Real Life’ and ‘Beyond Temptation’ lead the listener down a darker path - while the former comes across like The Pet Shop Boys reimagined by Bauhaus, ‘Beyond Temptation’ is the sort of lacerated EBM delight that finds itself in vogue once more at the time of this reissue. Completing the record is the murky anti-music experiment ‘Nobadhairdo’.

Chris Carter’s Mondo Beat shows us what happens when industrial musicians try a little tenderness.