Each month in the magazine we play an artist or group a series of tracks which they are asked to comment on – with no prior knowledge of what they are about to hear.

In The Wire 502 it is the turn of industrial pioneers Test Dept.

Here you can listen to a mix of the tracks our correspondent Mike Barnes played to Test Dept during the interview, which is published in full in The Wire 502. To find out what they said about them, subscribers can read the interview in our online magazine library here. Or you can buy a copy of the magazine in our online shop.

But first, a brief biography of our subject:

Test Dept formed in South London in 1981. Their percussion based music played on scrap metal and found materials was augmented by electronics and samples, and their ultra-physical approach made them a striking proposition both sonically and visually. The group’s 1982 debut album History (The Strength Of Metal In Motion) was the first of many self-released cassettes. They achieved greater exposure on signing to Some Bizzare and releasing Beating The Retreat in 1984. Their political activism was most overtly demonstrated on 1985’s Shoulder To Shoulder, recorded during the UK miners' strike with the South Wales Striking Miners Choir. Live, Test Dept used multiple slide and film projections and worked collectively with artists from other disciplines under the banner Ministry Of Power.

They made a number of ambitious site-specific performances around London, at Arch 69 and the Titan Arch railway arches at Waterloo, and Bishops Bridge Maintenance Depot at Paddington Station. Elsewhere, with theatre group Brith Gof, they staged Gododdin, based on a heroic medieval Welsh poem, in an abandoned car factory in Cardiff. Test Dept’s musical ambitions expanded further on Pax Britannica (1991), initially performed at St Rollox Railway Works in Glasgow. John Eacott’s score was played by Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Schola Cantorum of Edinburgh and conducted by James MacMillan.

Through the 90s Test Dept pursued a more electronic tack, partly as a reaction to the passing of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994. They split in 1997 but resumed activities in 2014 around founder members Paul Jamrozy and Graham Cunnington. Their large-scale film installation DS30 utilised Dunston Staiths, an industrial building in Gateshead, to mark the 30th anniversary of the miners' strike.

Test Dept's most recent album is Disturbance (2019), and they are now working on a new one for Artoffact, who this month are set to release the archival box set Industrial Overture: Studio & Live Recordings 1982-85.

The jukebox with Cunnington and Jamrozy took place via Zoom.

Tracklist (with timestamp):

Tools You Can Trust (00:00)
“Messy Body Thrust”
From Yet More Proof
(Red Energy Dynamo) 1985

Einstürzende Neubauten (02:04)
“Tanz Debil”
From Kollaps
(ZickZack) 1981

Mikhail Karikis (05:26)
Sounds From Beneath
(YouTube) 2010

The Beatn*gs (12:07)
“Television”
From The Beatn*gs
(Alternative Tentacles) 1988

Diamanda Galás (17:49)
“Panoptikon”
From Diamanda Galás
(Metalanguage) 1984

Faust (32:57)
“It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl”
From So Far
(Polydor) 1972

Charles Hayward (40:25)
“Smell Of Metal”
From Skew-Whiff: A Tribute To Mark Rothko
(Sub Rosa) 1990

Arvo Pärt (45:10)
Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten
From Tabula Rasa
(ECM) 1984

Vic Reeves (50:54)
“I Remember Punk Rock”
From I Will Cure You
(Island) 1991