JG Thirlwell | |
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 Thirlwell recording atBC Studios in 2016 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | James George Thirlwell |
| Also known as | Clint Ruin Frank Want Foetus |
| Born | (1960-01-29)29 January 1960 (age 65) Melbourne, Australia |
| Genres | |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1980–present |
| Labels | Self Immolation Big Cat Ectopic Ents Ipecac Recordings Williams Street Tzadik |
| Website | foetus.org |
James George Thirlwell (born 29 January 1960), styled asJG Thirlwell and also known asClint Ruin,Frank Want, andFoetus, among otherpseudonyms, is an Australian musician, composer, and record producer known forjuxtaposing a variety of different musical styles.
Thirlwell was born inMelbourne,Australia. He briefly studied fine art at Melbourne State College (now part of theUniversity of Melbourne) before moving in 1978 to London, England, where he played with thepost-punk bandprag VEC and formed the first of his numerous musical projects,Foetus. In the 1980s, under the pseudonyms Clint Ruin and Frank Want, he contributed to various releases byNurse With Wound,Marc Almond,The The andNick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He co-wrote "Wings Off Flies" onFrom Her to Eternity, the first Bad Seeds album. LongtimeNick Cave associateMick Harvey would later report that Thirlwell's time in the band was cut short, in part, by a clash between Thirlwell's highly structured studio routine as contrasted with Cave and the Bad Seeds' then habit of "shambling through it" while recording.[2]
Thirlwell released his first7-inch single,OKFM/Spite Your Face, in 1981, on his own Self-Immolation record label in his first incarnation as Foetus. Over the next few years he would release two more singles, a 12" EP, and four full-length albums,Deaf,Ache,Hole andNail (Some Bizzare Records). After visiting the United States during a live stint with the Immaculate Consumptive (Lydia Lunch, Nick Cave and Marc Almond) Thirlwell settled in New York City, where he is still based. Since his move he has released several singles, fourteen EPs (includingStinkfist, with fellow New York artist Lydia Lunch), and seventeen full-length albums.
In addition to being a prolific artist in his own right, Thirlwell has remixed and produced numerous pieces for artists includingFaith No More,Nine Inch Nails,Pantera,Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, The The,Zola Jesus,Front 242, andSwans. He has also done voice-over work forMTV and other entities.
Since 2000, Thirlwell has become more active as a composer, having written commissions forBang on a Can,League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots, and theKronos Quartet, and scoring cartoonsThe Venture Bros. forAdult Swim andArcher forFX. His most recent project was scoring theJohn Hodgman andDavid Rees cartoon detective showDicktown.
He also revived his primary instrumental project,Steroid Maximus, and initiated a more experimental instrumental project inManorexia. He continues to write and perform regularly as a solo artist and with various ensembles. He is also a member of the freq_out sound art collective, and has created solo sound installations in Kaliningrad, Santarcangelo and Vienna.
Thirlwell's music—released under his various project names ofFoetus,Wiseblood,Steroid Maximus, Baby Zizanie, Manorexia and others—includes elements of20th-century classical music,noise,big band,Americana,jazz,punk rock, African and Cuban percussion, and epic/horror film soundtracks. Much of Thirlwell's aural output is built on a percussive, rock music-type structure, though to call it rock music would be inaccurate. His music employs elements of many genres: with an often frenzied aesthetic, Thirlwell's music combines percussion, strings, distortion, brass, electric guitars, electronic sounds and voice. Recurring lyrical themes include destruction, persecution, anxiety, abuse, incest, masochism, angst, self-destruction, self-abuse, lust, prejudice, murder, failure and machismo, often expressed using American colloquialism andblack humour.
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Throughout the span of his career, Thirlwell has toyed with his own identity by releasing music in the guise of numerousalter egos. During the earliest phases of his recording, Thirlwell's "groups" were composed of a plethora of fictional characters: Foetus Under Glass supposedly consisted of Frank Want, Phillip Toss and two Brazilian statistics collectors; Scraping Foetus off the Wheel was claimed to be the work of Want and Clint Ruin. Furthering the confusion, Thirlwell adopted these personas outside of his own recordings; for example, Frank Want can be found on The The'sSoul Mining and on releases byOrange Juice, with whom he appeared onTop of the Pops.
The persona of Clint Ruin was particularly notable in this context; during the mid-1980s and early 1990s Thirlwell exclusively went by this pseudonym, even conducting interviews as Ruin. As Ruin, Thirlwell was a member of Wiseblood withRoli Mosimann andFlesh Volcano withMarc Almond. He also recorded two collaborative EPs with Lydia Lunch, and starred in and scored films byRichard Kern under the Ruin alias. Ruin is also credited on numerous releases for a variety of roles withBoss Hog,Coil, Fur Bible, Annie Hogan, Nurse With Wound,Pigface,Sonic Youth, Workdogs and others.
This practice seems to have been discontinued since 1995, and "JG Thirlwell" is credited on all subsequent musical recordings.
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