Carte Blanche J.G. Thirlwell aka Foetus
Who hides behind Foetus? Born in Melbourne on January 29th, 1960, J.G. Thirlwell studied art at Melbourne State College before moving to London in 1978 where he joined the post-punk band PragVec. A multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, producer and singer, he’s also a king of aliases, and calls himself Clint Ruin, Frank Want as well as Fœtus, - a one man band created in 1978 upon his arrival in England, and his most mythical musical project. A paragon of industrial music, Foetus has a style as rich in instrumental variety as in the musical genres it explores: from rock to blues, from jazz to pop or metal. Its thematics are frequently laced with epic poetry, with a special interest for religion and myths, and an obsession with death, witnessed by evocative titles such as The Throne of Agony or Descent into the Inferno. Along with Beatles, Blue Öyster Cult, Sensational Alex Harvey Band covers. Another characteristic of Foetus, until 1995, was the ironic Dadaist wordplay with the band name like Foetus Art Terrorism, Scraping Foetus off the Wheel, Foetus Interruptus, or Foetus All-Nude Revue. Foetus is also a very peculiar visual identity with its easily recognizable record covers in red white and black, and the use of four letters for every album title.
If the band’s discography counts no less than 17 albums from 1981 to 2013 - with masterpieces like Hole (1984), Nail (1985) ou Thaw (1988) - Foetus works with other bands such as Wiseblood, Steroid Maximus, Baby Zizanie and mostly experimental band Manorexia, a reference to masculine anorexia, that he likens to “man’s spiritual famine”; for the strength of Thirwell’s rich dense and complex music, in turn discordant and harmonious, gentle and insanely violent, combining all sorts of sounds from classical to electronic, from jarring noise to poignant notes, lies in its symbolic, metaphysical dimension and in the way it holds before us a mirror of the world.
J.G. Thirlwell also works with other musicians and groups, notably contributing to albums by Nurse With Wound, Marc Almond, Marilyn Manson, Lydia Lunch, The The and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, for whom he co-wrote "Wings Off Flies" on From Her to Eternity, their first album. He remixed and produced other artists such as Faith No More, Nine Inch Nails, Pantera, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Zola Jesus, Front 242 and Swans. He was also commissioned by Bang on a Can, League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots and The Kronos Quartet, and to add another string to his bow, he’s composed scores for animation series like The Venture Bros for Adult Swim or Archer and Dicktown pour FX.
J.G. Thirlwell is an artist in permanent evolution, a chrysalid incessantly spawning butterflies, because through his art, he’s on a constant search for himself. This year he honors us with a performance that promises to galvanize the audience, a world premiere cine-concert for Harry Smith’s Heaven & Earth Magic.
