Review: Johnny Jewel - KARL (Original Soundtrack)

Johnny Jewel releases Karl, and this is a reason of joy for me. More than one reason, actually!
I am a long time fan of Johnny Jewel, and I try to suck in everything he does. After I first heard one of his productions with the band Chromatics being played on the internet station "Flashback Alternatives" many years ago.
And later listening to his contributions to the Drive soundtrack, oh my god was that cool!
I did not see any promo or running-up stuff in advance to this release, so the release dropped on me like a bomb... a surprise-bomb, haha!
Apparently there is a new movie about fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, and Johnny did the soundtrack!
I was more or less indifferent to Mr. Lagerfeld, or "Karl", like the album calls him, so far. (Sorry to admit that - I was probably wrong on that!)
I am not rich and not so much interested in the haute couture, and it was only when TJ Maxx started to sell Karl Lagerfeld items, too, that I actually bought and owned something by his brand.
I am born and living in Hamburg, Germany, and Lagerfeld is probably one of the most famous "Hamburgers" - both dead and alive. Or can you name someone else out of Hamburg, instantly? (Maybe the Techno-band Scooter).

As such, the Hamburg press of course was always full of Lagerfeld stories, and as I grew up into that, I guess it rather dulled me. And the press focused more on the various scandals and outrages of his life, naturally. Over and over again.
While the outside world could focus more on his talents and fashion, I suppose.

But let's not talk fashion, let's talk music, and listen to music, of course.

I guess most people know Jewel for the various band projects he was involved in (even "earning" him a performance on Twin Peaks, with Chromatics, in the Roadhouse!), and might be surprised to learn that he also does a lot of work for TV and movie soundtracks. And that material is very good!

With other artists or bands, that were both of the regular, stage-performing kind and that did soundtrack production too, one often feels that one of these "habits" is their main body of work, and the rest is more like a side-thing. (e.g. it might sound sacrilegious, but post 70s Tangerine Dream is a total soundtrack band for me, and that material feels even more powerful than the "normal" albums they did in those years. Fans of the movies "Thief" or "Miracle Mile" might agree!)

It's not like that with Johnny at all, while both of these endeavours feel related, each of the two is brilliant in different ways.

And, luckily, both endeavours are included in this album, as there are segments of his band production, in between the more soundtrack-like... sounds.
For example, a shorter edit of "Tick of the clock" (also featured in the above-mentioned "Drive", with Ryan Gosling... in a very cool Scorpio jacket).
And Chromatics' "Disintegration", one of my all time favorite songs ever. A bittersweet, synth only, ambient composition.

I assume the soundtrack tracks are exclusive, on the other hand (or at least most of them?). And they are beautiful!
Finally, there is even a track called "Hamburg". I feel this city does not get much love, especially not by the music world, so, as a "Hamburger" myself, it's nice to hear something like that.

The entire album is a ten out of ten, of course. And even if what I wrote above catches your interest only remotely, consider listening to it!

I did not see the "Karl" movie in advance to writing the review, so I am curious about that, too!

https://johnnyjewel.bandcamp.com/album/karl-original-soundtrack

Listening suggestions:
#1 Desire - The Young & The Restless https://johnnyjewel.bandcamp.com/track/the-young-the-restless
#2 Hamburg https://johnnyjewel.bandcamp.com/track/hamburg

Note: No AI has been used when writing this review!

Candi Carpenter releases short movie "Reincarnation", and it seems the former country pop darling is born again as a rock star witch

I must admit that I caught a first glimpse of Candi Carpenter in a way that's way uncool for a "DIY music journalist" like me, and that is that the youtube feed slapped it right across my face a few months ago. So, no research, digging, or cleverness on my part, just, boom! there it is.
I noted them in my mind as "interesting" and added them on my "artists to keep in watch list". Which is a list I keep for artists that appear ground-breaking or might blow up in the future.

And I was not disappointed in that regard, because a while later they released "the fear of being human remains" music video, and, yeah, that was one of the best things that happened to me in the entire year.
When you see the video, in the beginning, you see them suspended on some kind of knife-throwers circus wheel, which also looks like these "hypnosis" wheel animations from the mid 20th century. Oh, and did I mention there is also a skeletal body. They are suspended in... "something" that might symbolize the night sky, stars flying by, or maybe it's a metaphor for eternity and the flux of æons, like the ancient greeks believed it.
there is a spoken word "intro" by Carpenter, that sets the mood for the entire piece, and also their entire work of music, i guess. Carpenter recounts an early encounter with death (likely auto-biographic), then muses about cultural taboos, including morality. They end with "I don't know why everything I think about is so ***ed up".

Then the song begins for real (or for good) and, to my surprise, it's a very cool alternative rock or indie number. Like the best of the 90s stuff, think hole or the pumpkins for part of the style.
The rest is contemporary and / or their own creation. I also appreciate that the guitar chords, and their own voice, often sound uncannily "detuned", like the song is slipping apart, in the same way our sense of rationality or morality might fall apart while watching the video (in a good way).
The video is a visual masterpiece too, there are claymotion sequences (like ye olde mtv video), green and black are dominating colors, the singer is getting a suntan in a coffin or jumping into the sheets with what looks like a skeleton.

but it never feels like "shock the audience for shocking the audience's sake", or fake, or insincere. and the notion of clay figures and coffin tans should make it clear that there is a big slice of humor and (dark) comedy involved.

after that "experience", i decided to finally research their past music trajectory. i found a piece published by "fox news" (yikes!) from 2020 which hails them as "Carpenter is taking the country world by storm, working with the likes of Dolly Parton and Brandi Carlile" and explains that "The country singer's adventures in music began when she wrote her first song at 3, a hymn called 'Jesus Care for Me.'"

And that's quite an extreme transformation, going from a country pop darling that sings hymns for sweet jesus, to a musician that now practices witch craft and sings about intimacy with skeletons and other "creatures of the night".

It's a sensitive topic, and I only read glimpses about it, so I don't go to too deep into it, but it seems that Carpenter experienced their childhood and upbringing as having elements of christian cults, and also religious hypocrisy. to a large degree.
and that their new, darker music, is an attempt to "heal" this religious trauma. and also an attempt to help and heal others. And i wish them much success in that, and also much success with their music, in general!

Now, let's get back to the "Reincarnation", which might be a fitting title. If you relate it to the other things I wrote above.

The full title is "REINCARNATION (THE SHORT FILM VIDEO SEMI-ANIMATED MOTION PICTURE MOVIE) visual EP". From what I can see, the "short movie" consists mostly of various music videos Carpenter did for their songs, stitched together in one seamless sequence of things. (well maybe not just one sequence, as really a lot is happening here!).

apart from "the fear of being human", many other good song by them are included.

as you might have guessed already, the short movie accompanies the release of their Reincarnation EP (so i guess if the movie is the "visual EP", the actual release is the "audio EP"), which is now available everywhere. and well worth checking out!

"Reincarnation" full short movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IJrt2Ls1DA

"Reincarnation" EP https://ffm.to/candicarpenter_Reincarnation

Website https://www.candicarpenter.com/

Jodorowsky after Dune (Did you know he became very successful as an author of comic books?)

Note: No AI in any form has been used when writing this text.

Jodorowsky's works were one of my first big, big loves, and not just in the field of scifi, but when talking about media, stories, art, when I was a teenager, even before William Gibson really hit me, before Neo and The Matrix, or before I became lost within the stories of Stanislaw Lem.
How was that possible, or rather, how did that happen?
Well, I guess, and it's an educated guess (I hope!) that the majority of people these days know Jodorowsky because he did not make Dune. And that is quite the feat indeed, becoming famous for a movie that... you did not even end up making!
The story is covered elsewhere already, just go and dig on the internet. In the 70s, Jodorowsky got the rights to Dune (or he thought he could get them, can't remember exactly), then went on a completely whacked out cruise around the world, in order to recruit Pink Floyd, H.R. Giger, Orson Welles, future set and special FX artists of Star Wars and Alien... and then it went "kaboom!" as expected, even blew a few people's brains out (i.e. they became "mental unstable" for a while).

In the end, David Lynch got to make Dune instead, and, much much later, Denis Villeneuve got to make a more well-received version. (BTW, as Pink Floyd was in the trailer for that version of Dune, my educated guess is that Denis Villeneuve sought out to rip-off Jodo's ideas for good).

So, I assume people know all of this. But, I think there is a thing that is lesser known, which is what happened to Jodorowsky afterwards.
And this is that he became a comic book artist (or "graphic novel", like the art folk like to say these days). And I kid you not, he went into the comics industry, and became very, very well known and famous by making comic books for teenagers and young adults (like me when I first read them).
At least on the outside label.

Because the truth is that he took the most outrageous ideas he had for his dune movie. and even expanded them. he added some other strange ideas. and also used some of the earlier ones he had. and used that to build his comics (aka "graphic novels"). and for later comics, he came up with just as outrageous ideas.

i should add that he rarely painted (drawed?) them. he recruited other people for that, like moebius (author of the well known "blueberry" comics) or a host (army?) of others.

the books were a creative collab between him and the artists.

so... yeah, how to describe his comics? it's usually scifi, but his own style, i'd say... often very cyberpunk, there is also stuff that is like space operas, but never with a clean "black vs white" morality... more like a dirty version of epic scifi franchises...

the stories are full of references to psychoactive substances, religious cults, conspiracy, tarot, tantra, there is real violence (often getting very nasty), there is intimacy... let's just say that when some big US corporation brought his "before the incal" series to the american audience, they literally enlisted artists to "paint the clothes back on" for some panels! (quite a few panels, actually).

but it's never 100% nihilism, there are also shiny heroes and a possible, positive ending...

that's the universe, the future of mankind, like these books envision. books? well, comics, and i hope you are able to consider comics as real, serious "books".

okay some people will scream now: "wait, i know jodorowsky, but he did not do comics, he made movies, like el topo or the holy mountain".

yes, that is true. but his major body of work is his comics books (aka "graphic novels", hah!)

i suppose he is one of the most prolific comic authors in the 20th and 21th century. it is hard to find a complete list or index. but it must be close to 100 of volumes (or more).
"the incal" alone has a dozen of spin off series that are completed by now, and new spin offs seem to spawn every year.

plus it's not just scifi anymore, there are western comics, comics set in the middle ages, fantasy books. oddly enough, they stay similar to his other works, and even the western ones are about drugs, divine intervention / punishment, mystical conspiracies.
ah well.

all i can say is i highly recommend jodorowsky's comic books.

my top 5 of comics one should (could) check out by him:

1. The Incal (with Jean Giraud / Moebius)
2. The Metabarons / La Caste de Méta-Barons (with Juan Giménez)
3. Before The Incal / Avant l’Incal (with Zoran Janjetov)
4. The Technofathers / Les Technopères (with Zoran Janjetov, too)
5. Megalex (With Fred Beltran)

Non-erotic nudity as a metaphor for the creative process or: How to keep that productive streak running

Non-erotic nudity as a metaphor for the creative process or: How to keep that productive streak running

How to keep that creative streak running (Looking back at my life as an artist)

I often think stuff like: how could I sum up my biography as an artist, what advice could I give to others, is there something others could learn... some information to share.

Either way, the other day I turned on TV to watch a movie, and it seemed like the movie was not on yet, as the end of another movie was playing, a movie I did not know.
So there was a football (soccer) game going on, when suddenly some middle aged dude ran onto the pitch, unclothed. A sports streak, a thing that is not entirely unknown to happen in Europe. Turned out he was some friendly but boring loser with an even more boring job, had fallen out of favor, was in a financial and otherwise crisis, and was somehow involved in sports bets in order to find a remedy to his situation.
Now he was literally running for his bare life (pun intended), trying to dodge any kind of security, as the crowd in the stadium, and the millions of people in front of TV, cheered him on. Turns out he had to run for 3:18 straight, without being toppled or tripping, in order to beat the world record in - tada - "sports streaking".
He did succeed, and in the end this solved all his problems. Wonderful!

Why do I tell you this? Because, I think this little sequence of 3 and ⅓ minutes, perfectly sums up what creativity and the artist's life is about. It's a marvelous metaphor, really.

If you want to be a musician, or artist, and if you want to really get somewhere, and are not just doing it for hobby, or to become an unknown "in-house" producer for some label, or a similarly plain fate, ask yourself this:

Would you be comfortable in a situation like this? Being completely unclothed, millions watch you, several dozen chase you and try to topple you, and you must stay up, you must not trip, you must not allow yourself to be pushed to the ground?
And no, there is nothing "romantic" about this situation, you don't look above average, it's totally un-erotic nudity, no kink or fetish thing, and millions of people are free to laugh at you and your bare self, hate you, point at you, mock you, criticise you?

Because *that* is what art and music is about. You put your innermost emotions, thoughts, feelings, *secrets*, out to the world. Things that can be seen as embarrassing, shocking, ugly, or even just "stupid and dumb".
Normal people hide behind a shield, a shell, a protective layer, if you want to call it that. Where they are allowed to keep a lot of themselves, their moods, their true thoughts, to themselves. And that can give a sense of security and stability. To them.
But an artist does not have that security.
And don't think you could still keep something about yourself - to yourself. Once you are "moderately" known, they will come for you, and strip away everything that is left, of your "secrets".
The lions are hungry, and they come to devour you.

Oh, and the security force? That's a metaphor for the army of humans that are jealous, mean, evil, that see you, see how you are, do not like this, and try to stop you. You need to be able to dodge their attempts. And also be able not to trip by yourself.
And be able to keep running, and running, and running...

So, if you are able to put yourself in such a situation, in your own imagination, and you are comfortable with it, and you have the courage...

Then congrats, you really are an artist.

I should add two more notes to this otherwise finished text, because it is easy to be misunderstood:

In many European countries, being unclothed is semi-legal or not entirely illegal. I know that in other countries (hello USA!), there are different sensitivities.

And, most importantly, "nudity" really is just a metaphor in the entire text. Just like I said!
It's a metaphor for showing your creativity and thoughts, and everything else, out to the world. I don't mean "literal" nudity in this text! So please do not misunderstand it.

To trick the devil: the "blasphemous" symbolism of european folk stories and fairy tales

Christianity is a pretty unique religion in one regard. Other religions, or systems of spirituality have concepts of "good vs evil" too, or even ultimate irredeemable "evil" deities and forces. But, in nearly all these cases, these "evil" deities sometimes *do* actually do things that can be considered good.

For example, there could be a myth, where an evil force resurrects someone's child, not because they are so nice and helpful, but because they made a bargain, or want to spite someone (or something) else or whatever.
In some myths, forces that are mostly considered to be evil did important parts of the creation of the world, for example in the greek myths. So they actually *did* achieve something good. Maybe not in a direct, or straight forward way, but in its consequences.

For faithful christians on the other hand, the devil, satan, lucifer, is not only the absolute of all evils, but any faithful soul must, under no circumstance, ever petition the antichrist, call out to a demon, or to anyone who is in "league" with the legions of hell, or anything in this vein.
While in other religions, like I said above, under some circumstances, and they might be very rare, an "evil" spirit might be employed by a human to do something - "good".

This brings us to traditional european folk stories and fairy tales, for example the famous collections by the brothers grimm.
These deal with the devil quite a lot.
Often there is a person who calls out to some "demonic" force straight away. For example, in order to cure one's children, wife, husband... or to gain worldly riches, to overcome poverty. Sometimes the devil or a minion appears to a person in need and makes an offer.
In other cases, a mysterious object or secret is the cure or object of desire. and a "wise man" or "witch" tells our troubled protagonist that the object is only to be found in the underworld, and they need to go there and face the dark forces in order to get it.

And, just like expected, dealing with lucifer in such way, or enjoying the communion of demons, is not what was expected, there is evilness attached to it, and now our protagonist is in deep trouble.
The message, at the surface is: calling out to un-christian, dark, occult forces, will lead to evil, punishment, and ultimately death.
But the story does not end here, our poor protagonist starts to think and struggle, and with the help of others (or even alone) they are able to "outwit" the devil, trick the underworld in some way, and ultimately reign victorious.

These tales seem harmless enough (they can still be pretty grimm, though), and seemingly portray a message of faith to good christian souls: stay on your course, dont talk to demons, dont look to the ground and into the underworld.

But, if we think logically about it. These protagonists actually *did* gain something. By going to these dark, infernal, whatever forces.
Yes, they barely escaped death or eternal punishment in some cases. But they were brave and clever, and now their children are cured, wealth has come to them, they are kings and queens, maybe future rulers of the world.
And none of these quite good things would have happened if they *did* nothing. If they had avoided calling out to... these forces they were warned about.

And that's not really a "good" message to faithful believers, right?

I am not sure in which way the christian scholars of those times were aware of this "dangerous" symbolism in those stories. I know that a lot of them were against the belief in mystical forces outside of what the bible allows, including fairy tales (with their stories about pixies and ghosts and witches).
but just like alcohol, gambling, and many other things, these were so popular amongst the population, that they could not really weed this out. so i guess they had to accept that those folk stories got happily passed on by the general populace, while gnashing their teeth in the shadows themselves.

Interestingly, the above mentioned "infernal logic" of those folk stories mirrors similar "logic" in traditional pagan or other religions.
for example, if you go to a shaman somewhere, and ask them if it's possible to gain something out of dealing with a "chaotic" or "infernal" force, spirit, even deity, they might say "it is possible. but you have to be really clever and cunning about it. you might have to trick them".

or a shaman might tell their listeners that, at one point in their journey through life, they *have* to encounter and deal with an unpleasant and fiery realm, unless they want to remain in their starting conditions forever.

Just like the protagonists in our fairy tales!

So it's quite possible that in those classic tales, some remnants of the pagan religions that existed in europe. before the advance of christianity, still exist.

Note: No AI has been used when writing this text

The ultra-niche genre of political horror movies

There is a tiny sub-genre of movies I am pretty fond of; "political horror movies".
It's not the 60s and 70s anymore, and movies with a political theme or overt political plots have become pretty rare (maybe they even were already rare back then). Most political movies deal with shady business operations, shady government operations, or both. Horror movies do not seem to fit well to any kind of politics.
Because what would be political to a group of people getting butchered near a crystal lake?

Either way, oddly enough, these movies exist, and a lot of them are pretty damn well!

Let's take a look at some of them. (Major spoilers ahead, so take care if you have not seen these movies yet)

The Serpent and The Rainbow https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096071/

Was Craven is one of the "maestros" of the horror genre, of course. After all, he created the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series. And a lot of other classics.
This one stars Bill Pullman and Cathy Tyson. It tells the story of a scientist who is sent to Haiti in the late 70s by a pharma corp in order to investigate the case of people coming back to life due to a "voodoo drug". The business people think such a drug might come in mighty handy for western medicine, too (makes sense, right?).

During these days, Haiti was under the brutal reign of the fascist government by the Duvalier family. But it seems resistance is already growing...
As a non-believer in the occult, and a "western outsider", our scientist finds it hard to penetrate haitian society and it's voodoo underground. It turns out nothing is as it seems, there are a lot of crooks and strange characters.
And it turns out haiti's voodoo elite priests are more or less split into two camps. There are evil, black wizards who are aligned with, support and uphold the fascist government. The good, benevolent voodoo mages on the other hand are unaligned and do not want to have anything to do with the police and government brutality that is happening; they try to stay "unpolitical" though, and are reluctant to join the revolutionary citizens (but will they, in the end?).

as the movie goes on, our protagonist finally gets initiated in the voodoo mysteries of haiti, in more than one way.

It seems the movie is based on a real-world book by an "ethnobotanist" who studied cases of "zombification" in haiti.
The movie itself has its moments of cheese and camp, it's not some ultra-serious, ultra-intellectual dry affair... it's done by wes craven, after all.
But the whole thing is less cheesy than the above description might imply.
The whole portrayal of voodoo and magic is astonishingly complex.
For example, there is a female, haiti-based scientist that tries to explain the syncretism of a scientific worldview, catholicism, and voodoo magic. she is a psychiatric scientist and voodoo practitioner at the same time.
and she shows him, by leading the protagonist to the sight of a ceremonial burial with one of the most beautiful and haunting compositions i ever heard in a movie...

Suspiria Remake https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034415/?ref_=fn_t_1

the original suspiria, of course, is one of the all time great in horror movies. btw, i read somewhere that the "strange" colors of the original movie were there because the director used a recording technique that was already outdated by the time the movie was made! very interesting.

the remake has tilda swinton and dakota johnson. the story and everything is actually quite different from the original. it is more like a completely new movie, that has just some of the elements of the first one.

the movie takes place in 1977 in west berlin. international viewers might not know this, but this was the time of the so called "deutscher herbst". a left wing struggle against the german government. there were armed terrorists groups, but also a lot of more peaceful protests. the scent of revolution really was in the air, and a "comrade" later told me that germany was really a matchstick's length away from revolution in that year... (he was still an infant when all this happened, so what does he know, really?).

and unlike the original movie, this political backdrop is very visible in the movie. and audible, too, as the movie starts with the sound of a left wing bomb attack going off...

but there is not just the left side making their agitation audible. there is also the theme of fascism and post-fascism. buried, dark secrets in the history of germany, the nazi trauma. and our protagonists are entangled in this, one way or the other.

the "witches coven" that is the central part of the movie seems to be the still eye in the storm here, strangely devoid of the politics that is going on in the outside world.
but in my interpretation, there is an intended synchronicity in the plot; the hierarchy, the struggle for power, the brutality, the lies and deceit, well, everything that is going on in this spiritual, symbolic "witched world" actually mimics the themes of fascism, power abuse, struggle for freedom, that is happening in parallel, in the outside world.

and, of course, the witches mirror feminist politics. both in a negative and positive sense.

Pan's Labyrinth https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457430/

Maybe the most known political horror movie, and one where it is quite clear that it is a horror movie, and a political movie. one where one does not have to fear to be criticized of "dragging politics" into an otherwise normal movie.

it's set in the world and time of fascist spain.
i don't think i need to write much about its content, as i guess most people know this movie already.
but let me add that, just like in the suspiria re-make, the story seems to roll out on two levels.
the magic struggle and quest of the protagonist (a young witch, once again) mirrors the events that happen in the outside world, including the political ones.

Medusa Touch https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077921/

Oh oh, the medusa touch. this movie left quite the mark on me. there is richard burton and lino ventura in it. the entire world of the movie feels very depressing and austere, and i think only 1970s movies can feel this bleak (maybe people actually were quite depressed in that decade?).

there are two protagonists in the movie, lino ventura, the detective, who is called upon to investigate the death of an author, who is played by richard burton. he surprisingly comes back to life, though, and is put into a coma. this is when the mystery begins
in flashbacks we then witness the life of our author, which was quite bleak and depressive too, and reminds me of the hardships "pink" has to experience in pink floyd's "the wall" opera.

he also realizes he has supernatural gifts, but he does not use these to do good things, instead he does very bad things, like telekinetically killing people through accidents. he is haunted by this and feels guilty, to the point he seeks the help of a chirologist and a therapist. he feels he is only capable of doing evil, and wants to get rid of this cursed magic gift.

so where is the politics? well, one day our protagonist has an "epiphany" and thinks he finally found a way to use his dark powers in a good way; by using them to punish the "wickedness" of mankind. he starts by slaughtering a whole crew of astronauts on their way to the moon, because he felt the money of the space program had better been used to feel hungry people or for medical research.
towards the end of the movie, he tries to snuff out the upper echelon of british society by collapsing a cathedral on top of them.
in the end, he seeks to help out the anti-nuclear protesters that we see in the beginning of the movie, by blowing up the nuclear power plant that they are protesting against. which would have irradiated most of great britain, i suppose.
so, in this movie the protagonists are not really aligned with any political movement or group. it is political, because of the "anti-establishment" hatred of our author, which is especially visible in the rhetoric he uses to defend his magic attacks (despite all this evil stuff, he really thinks he is ultimately following a good cause with this mayhem).
which, i guess, makes it a political horror movie, too!

do you know more movies in this weird sub-niche of movies? let me know!

Do you remember the very heavy 90s rock band "Therapy?"

Hey friends,
This is a text I have written for a small fanzine / blog, about the band "Therapy?".
Wanted to share it here, too, maybe someone is interested in it :-)
Note: No AI was used in writing this text.

And here it goes:

Do you remember the very heavy 90s rock band "Therapy?"

To answer the question in the title right away: I guess most people in the world of today will not remember or know the band. But, on the other hand, they are still very active, touring, releasing albums, and still got plenty of their old fans or even new ones. So, even if the "mainstream" of society did - time itself did not forget the band.

Now that we answered the title question pre-maturely, we could end the text right away... but I won't. Also I don't want to just talk about their best songs, hit songs, or how much I loved the band as a teen.

I want to peek a bit deeper, and look at the "logic" behind the band, the sound... and how they somehow connected a plentitude of genres in the 90s... and then slipped right through the net.

As you know, the 90s were the decade where "commercially cheesy" music was at an all-time high. Boybands, Girlbands, Eurodance, happy elated pop and pop-dance songs everywhere.
"Credibility" was no longer seen as a viable concept. By no-one.
Right at the start of the decade, it still shocked the audience when Milli Vanilli got exposed - no, not in a NSFW moment. It turned out they merely lip synced to their "songs".
People objected to that! Can you imagine that?
Because as the 90s went on, nobody could have cared less if the various members of all the boy- and girl-bands did sing, could sing, wanted to sing, or if their music just came out of the can and by studio session vocalists.
(Not to slag off these bands - just want to show how quickly "values" can change).

But as a reaction to this, the 90s also had an underground. Or a massive range of underground subcultures, to be more specific.

Industrial Rock, Industrial Metal, Black Metal, Death Metal, Grunge, Psychobilly, Trip Hop, Jungle, Rave, Gabba, Speedcore...

And this was the complete opposite of the happy 90s mainstream! Super twisted, super dark music. Usually by people who lived very troubled lives themselves...

Therapy? originated from Northern Ireland, and started as an "alt rock" band with serious metal and industrial influences.
A lot of the early songs were "brilliant noise", there were no hooks, no sing a longs, there were vocal samples about psychiatric conditions, true crime killers... sincere disturbia. Often sampled out of transgressive movies and other discarded media.

So far, so good... or "so far, so dark".

But then something changed, the members alluded to this in interviews etc, but it's hard to pinpoint why that happened.

They decided to make more "simple" rock songs too. With hooks. With verse / chorus structure. With "catchy" melodies. For example, about their song "Lonely, Cryin, Only", the band stated that it was an attempt to "write in the style of Ramones meets Roy Orbison".
And this is when things went really off the hook.
When listening to the band back then, I did not realise how "deranged", but how "brilliant" this concept is, at the same time.

There were suddenly albums like "Troublegum" or "Infernal Love". And I would describe the sound as Industrial Metal soundscapes, with heavy metal riffs, "alternative rock" style drums (i.e. swinging percussion, not that simple stuff of more traditional metal groups) - and extremely good melodies, sing-a-long "hooks"...
Therapy? had some of the most saccharine, melancholic, soothing, beautiful melodies and harmonies of the 90s... no, of all eras of music.
And yes, at the same time, their guitars were ultra hard, ultra distorted.

(The "industrial" part is less visible on Troublegum btw - maybe that one is more traditional)

Pop / fun metal was a thing in the 90s already. But Therapy? did not feel as a parody. They managed to blend these two very different ideas of "music" very well.
Hell no, not just two ideas. It's like a patchwork of 90s music (they even got some MTV rotation for jungle remixes of their songs).

The major labels and the MTV loved this, the band became big because of these... they alienated their "underground" fans with this more approachable sound, then they got tired of it, and alienated their new "overground" fans by making more "strange" albums again... and then they struggled to survive, but somehow, they managed.

On a side note, I read an interview somewhere where the singer expressed "guilt" for maybe starting the "nu metal" sound of the later 90s and the early millennium... huh?
But regardless of that, rest assured, Therapy? were more influential than you think.

This was my short retrospective for a band that got forgotten by the rest of the world, even though their sound might be bigger than ever. Maybe you enjoy their songs, too!

My top 5 Therapy? favorite songs:

1. Lonely Cryin' Only
2. Ghost Train
3. Loose
4. Teethgrinder
5. Stories