Re-Constriction: We Hardly Knew Ye

Re-Constriction continued over the next year to release albums by fresh new signings, albums like Vampire Rodent’s “Lullabye Land”, that were very different for industrial, and Swamp Terrorists’ “Combat Shock” and Numb’s “Death On The Installment Plan”, that were domestic releases of albums previously only available in Europe.

Also during this time period, Chase released his first cover compilation, “Shut Up Kitty”, which had industrial bands doing diverse pop and rock songs, re-conceived and re-designed in the industrial vein. The album was very popular, not the least for covers by KMFDM and Xorcist (doing a great industrial raping of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”).

This next period was a highlight of the industrial music of the time. The fantastic albums that Re-Constriction released such as the incredible synthcore band Apparatus’ self-titled EP, 16 Volt’s second album “Skin”, and Society Burning’s remix EP “Entropy Lingua”. These were songs that both had the ability to work as rock songs or to be dancable enough for club play, as well as being the best examples of American industrial music available.

Chase made the label the home for America’s industrial bands. There was very few other places that American industrial was featured at all. 21st Circuitry Records was very slow in releasing albums and much of the catalog was made up by Xorcist’s albums. Fifth Colvmn Records, put together by Jared of Chemlab, was also doing well at the time, but began to take a downhill turn soon afterwards.

With the release of some major albums by Clay People and Christ Analogue on the Re-Constriction label, things seemed to be going well enough. Chase had been quoted several times as saying that this type of music didn’t sell, but things were in full swing.

Soon after, though, Fifth Colvmn Records collapsed. It was a bad sign for the rest of the American industrial underground. Though mishandling was the main impetus behind the financial downfall of Fifth Colvmn, things were starting to take a turn for the worse. By 1997, Re-Constriction started to slow down. The releases dwindled and the quality of what was coming out became watered-down.

A few highlights appeared during this time in the form of tribute albums. Bucking the trend of pathetic money-grabbing band tributes, Re-Constriction stuck to its own sense of humor, releasing a wickedly funny TV theme cover album called “TV Terror: Felching A Dead Horse” (in collaboration with Permission magazine) and “CyberPunk Fiction”, a humorous re-working of

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