Steve Kirby founded Industrial Coast in 2018 as a way to get some of his favourite noise artists on to cassette for the first time. Six years later, the Middlesbrough based label has grown into an underground staple, churning out a formidable catalogue of tapes, ultra limited compilations and black label vinyl.

Industrial Coast also operates as a distro for hard to find US labels like Deathbead, No Rent and Enmossed, and has also branched out into live promotion, with new events strand A Monday Night In Middlesbrough bringing artists like Wolf Eyes, Russell Haswell and CM von Hausswolff to the North East of England. “The grand vision is to make Middlesbrough a destination point for experimental sound,” says Kirby.

The Idealist
“Spirit Land”
From Psych Dub

Kirby credits iDEAL label owner Joachim Nordwall with encouraging him to start a label, and Nordwall has lent his support since, popping up on various Industrial Coast compilations and kicking off the label’s new Black Series of hand stamped cassettes and 12"s. Psych Dub finds Nordwall exploring his dancefloor side, assembling five tracks of murky, skeletal techno infused with a distinctly hallucinogenic undercurrent.

Stalingrad
“Side One”
From She Called Herself Tania

In their first incarnation, Stalingrad were a fearsome UK hardcore group notorious for incorporating harsh noise into their design. 25 years on from the recording of their debut LP, the band (sort of) reconvene for a new record. She Called Herself Tania is less a straightforward reformation, more a refracted reflection on the band and its history. Assembled with an extended line-up of 18 contributors, it laces together hardcore thrash, dissected beats and audio footage of band members decrying the cosy nostalgia of the band reunion.

Vanity Productions
“Keep The Children Safe”
From Keep The Children Safe

Kirby has a philanthropic side, using Industrial Coast as a way to fundraise for some worthy causes. Last year’s 90 minute tape compilation Keep The Children Safe raised money for Medical Aid For Palestinians (MAP UK). Included within were tracks from Finlay Shakespeare, Karim Mass and Pale World, but here’s a highlight of the collection – a cut of pensive, dark cloud ambient music from Posh Isolation founder Christian Stadsgaard’s Vanity Production project.

Cruel Diagonals
“Disobedience”
From Women Invented Noise Vol II: Amplify Iranian Voices

The sequel to Industrial Coast’s 2021 compilation Girls Invented Noise Not Industrial Coast kicks off with an exclusive track from the Los Angeles based musician Megan Mitchell aka Cruel Diagonals. Mitchell’s music places her classically trained vocal amid a mixture of fluid electronic tones and field recordings captured in nature or industrial zones. “Disobedience” is a captivating example of the way she conflates the natural and the unnatural. At first, her ecclesiastic multitracked vocal feels at one with the drifting synth tones, but gradually a harshness of tone creeps in before the track tears apart at the seams.

Crazy Doberman x God Is War
“Side 1”
From Waking Up With Remixes In Your Ears

Two Industrial Coast staples collide – the John Olson affiliated free jazz powerhouse Crazy Doberman and Mackenzie Chami’s industrial beats product God Is War. The latter is let loose on the former’s 2020 cassette Waking Up With Moths In Your Ears, and the results are predictably full tilt – mad flurries of snare, yelps of horn and manic cascades of piano are further layered, spliced and distilled into a single, sustained ten minute eruption of sound.

Nigel Ayers
“ERotic 2023 Spunky Remix”
From Evil Roger – Deconstructed​/​/​Reconstructed

One of Industrial Coast’s more intriguing recent discoveries has been Evil Roger, a mysterious and to date anonymous musician whose sole identified recording – a tape of malevolent, slate grey industrial electronics dated to 1981 – was discovered by one of Kirby’s contacts in a northern charity shop. Industrial Coast reissued the cassette, and for this compilation asked a number of industrial/noise luminaries to create their own interpretations. Nigel Ayers of Nocturnal Emissions delivers one of the compilation’s stand outs, his remix offering both coruscating noise textures and a sense of cavernous ambient space.

Knifedoutofexistence
“Shaved Women”
From Crass: Deconstructed/Reconstructed

Industrial Coast’s Deconstructed/Reconstructed series of compilations feature often radical reinterpretations of punk, metal and DIY groups – The Clash, Extreme Noise Terror, Conflict and Swell Maps – condoned (if not necessarily endorsed) by the artists themselves. In 2022 it was the turn of anarcho torchbearers Crass, with 20 acts stepping up and 50 per cent of proceeds going to Inquest, a charity concerned with state related deaths in England and Wales. Knifedoutofexistence takes Eve Libertine’s “Shaved Women” and renders it as a howl of feedback-scorched power electronics almost as fearsome and righteous as the original.

Read Louis Pattison's Unlimited Editions report of Industrial Coast in full in The Wire 482. Wire subscribers can also read the article online via the digital library of back issues.