Spectrum Compendium: Archival documentation of the post-industrial underground Spectrum Magazine Archive 1998-2002

by Richard Stevenson

Ambient/ Industrial/ Experimental Music Culture Magazine was one of the most well respected underground zines dealing with post-industrial music in the late 1990s to early 2000s. Although produced and published in Melbourne Australia, Spectrum focused on the global scene, with a particular focus on the dark ambient, death industrial, heavy electronics, power electronics, neo-classical, martial industrial and neo-folk genres of music.

Spectrum covered a very active period internationally which can now be considered as one of the critical eras for the development and evolution of the post-industrial movement. During its years of activity, the five issues of Spectrum were distributed through an extensive underground network of artists, labels and mail-orders, but have long since been sold out, and remain unavailable other than as rare collectables.

Twenty years on from the release of the first issue of Spectrum in 1998, Spectrum Compendium brings together reprints of all five issues, along with a wealth of interviews and reviews originally intended for the planned but ultimately abandoned sixth issue of Spectrum.

Spectrum Compendium functions as a critical publication to shine a light on the often obscured post-industrial underground. It is also a celebration of, and an archival document charting, the activities of key artists and labels during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Featured Bad Sector / Black Lung / Brighter Death Now / Caul / Cold Spring / Crowd Control Activities / C17H19No3 / Death In June / Der Blutharsch / Desiderii Marginis / Deutsch Nepal / Dream Into Dust / Endvra / Folkstorm / Genocide Organ / Gruntsplatter / Hazard / House Of Low Culture / I-Burn / Ildfrost / Imminent Starvation / Inade / IRM / Iron Halo Device / Isomer / John Murphy / Kerovnian / Knifeladder / LAW / Malignant Records / Megaptera / Middle Pillar / Militia / MZ.412 / Navicon Torture Technologies / Nový Svĕt / Ordo Equilibrio / The Protagonist / Raison D'être / Sanctum / Schloss Tegal / Shining Vril / Shinjuku Thief / Skincage / Slaughter Productions / Spectre / StateArt / Stone Glass Steel / Stratvm Terror / Terra Sancta / Tertium Non Data / Toroidh / Tribe Of Circle / Warren Mead / Vox Barbara / Yen Pox.

Genres: Music

392 pages, Paperback

Published March 15, 2019

About the author

Richard Stevenson is an underground music writer and avid supporter of obscure and difficult forms of music, having been dedicated to the post-industrial underground since the late 1990s. He has published two zines: Spectrum: Ambient/ Industrial/ Experimental Music Culture Magazine (five issues 1998-2001) and Noise Receptor Journal: sound with impact – analysing the abstract (seven issues 2013-2019).

Reviews

[T · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than enough teeth and guts to adequately chronicle the noise/post-industrial/darkambient scene(s) I'd come to graft to. Interviews were great, nothing sterile, and lots of old ads that charm the pants off. Needing a great fix of all the spine that is within the varying musical organisms that rise up threu tradition and anti-tradition.. I was so very pleased.