Founded at the start of the 1980s, Test Department belonged to the second wave of industrial bands that arrived on the post-punk scene in the wake of bands like Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire and SPK. Unlike these, Test Dept employed a much more percussive style, based mostly on rhythm instruments built from industrial scrap, and also engaged more aggressively in political agitation. The musicians from Glasgow had got together in the London Docklands, not only accompanying the 1984 British miners’ strike with plenty of words and noise, but also upholding the mythological image of the industry worker at a time of increasing unemployment and spreading rationalization. Their first publication, the limited cassette edition Ecstacy [sic!] Under Duress, is packaged in a brown sack and containes image motifs, full of allusions, from mining, the steel industry and mechanical engineering.

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