Manufacture was an
electronic body music
Electronic body music (acronymized to EBM) is a genre of electronic music that combines elements of industrial music and synth-punk with elements of disco and dance music. It developed in the early 1980s in Western Europe as an outgrowth of bo ...
group from
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
, who released two albums on
Nettwerk
Nettwerk Music Group is the umbrella company for Nettwerk Records, Nettwerk Management, and Nettwerk One Publishing.
Established in 1984, the Vancouver-based company was created by Nettwerk principals Terry McBride and Mark Jowett as a record ...
between 1988 and 1991.
[Ariana Paoletti]
"Manufacture Brought European Industrial EBM to Boston"
''Noisey
''Vice'' (stylized in all caps) is a Canadian-American magazine focused on lifestyle, arts, culture, and news/politics. Founded in 1994 in Montreal as an alternative punk magazine, the founders later launched the youth media company Vice Media, ...
'', October 15, 2013. They are best known for their 1988 debut single "As the End Draws Near", a collaboration with labelmate
Sarah McLachlan
Sarah Ann McLachlan Order of Canada, OC Order of British Columbia, OBC (born January 28, 1968) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. As of 2015, she had sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is ''Surfacing ( ...
.
[
The band was formed when Brian Bothwell, a video artist and student at Boston's ]School of the Museum of Fine Arts
The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (Museum School, SMFA at Tufts, or SMFA; formerly the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) is the art school of Tufts University, a private research university in Boston, Massachus ...
heard a song by electronic musician Perry Geyer on the radio and contacted Geyer to offer to make a video.[ They began performing around Boston with a show that consisted of instrumental electronic body music with experimental video projections.][
After signing to Nettwerk, they met McLachlan soon after beginning to record their debut album in ]Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
, British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
;[ she was recording her debut album '']Touch
In physiology, the somatosensory system is the network of neural structures in the brain and body that produce the perception of touch (haptic perception), as well as temperature (thermoception), body position (proprioception), and pain. It is ...
'' for Nettwerk at the same time. After being invited to contribute vocals to a track they were working on, she returned the next day with the lyrics to "As the End Draws Near".[ The song was included in its original form on the band's 1988 debut album ''Terrorvision'', and on a 12" single featuring an extended remix which was later included on McLachlan's 1996 compilation album '']Rarities, B-Sides and Other Stuff
''Rarities, B-Sides & Other Stuff'' is a 1996 album by Sarah McLachlan.
It is a compilation of tracks that McLachlan recorded for film soundtracks, remixes of her own songs, covers of songs by other artists, and material that she recorded in c ...
''. The band's original proposal for the video would have featured McLachlan portraying the sole survivor of a nuclear apocalypse; however, Nettwerk did not have the budget to fly McLachlan to Boston for filming, and so a different video concept was pursued.[
The band released its second album ''Voice of World Control'' in 1991, but subsequently broke up.][
Bothwell went on to direct music videos for other artists.][ Geyer became a member of The Sky Dwellers, a ]trance
Trance is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli (but nevertheless capable of pursuing and realizing an aim) or is selectively responsive in following the dir ...
group which also included Greg Hawkes
Gregory A. Hawkes (born October 22, 1952) is an American musician best known as the keyboardist for the rock band The Cars.
Hawkes, a native of Fulton, Maryland, United States, attended Atholton High School where he played in a band called Teeth ...
of The Cars
The Cars were an American rock band formed in Boston in 1976. Emerging from the new wave scene in the late 1970s, they consisted of Ric Ocasek ( rhythm guitar), Benjamin Orr (bass guitar), Elliot Easton (lead guitar), Greg Hawkes (keyboards), ...
.[David Wildman, "Cyberculture steers a 6-hour marathon". '']Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'', November 26, 1995. He bought The Cars' SynchroSound studios, and continued to operate it as CyberSound Studios.[
]
Discography
*''Terrorvision'' (1988)
*''Voice of World Control'' (1991)
References
American electronic body music groups
Musical groups from Boston
{{US-band-stub