Monte Cazazza

Monte Cazazza is a San Francisco-based industrial music pioneer, artist and filmmaker and a genuinely unique artist whose influence on culture in the 20th century has yet to be recognized. The Cynic is Monte's first album since the early '80s. His original releases were through Throbbing Gristle's Industrial Records and San Fran's Subterranean Records. He was regularly featured in the seminal RE/Search magazine and books. In the early '90s, Mute Records gathered most of his earlier recordings together for a Worst Of Monte Cazazza compilation. This early work was harsh, mostly perceived as violently anti-social and often quite shocking. The Cynic sees him unwittingly mine a vein of highly in vogue "retro" synth-pop and TV theme tune soundtracks in a uniquely Monte way. The album is a Rolls Royce release for those industrial/noise fans who can hear beyond the adolescent screech-fests that the genre has been reduced to. To that end, The Wire magazine is publishing a major, Jack Sargent-written feature that serves as a great overview of his often mysterious career, which has frequently seen Monte self-sabotage any attempt to have the outside world engage with his work.