Biography
In 1981, New Jersey natives Chris Shepard and Mike Mangino launched the industrial duo Smersh. Working inside a basement facility in Piscataway, they generated abrasive proto-techno material on rudimentary analog synthesizers and drum machines. The pair met each Monday to compose and capture an original piece that was never revisited or performed publicly, restricting their activity exclusively to the studio. Their style fused piercing, shouted vocals and overdriven guitars with exploratory yet functional electronic rhythms, thereby producing a rudimentary blueprint for the industrial and EBM styles that later achieved wider visibility. Countless self-issued cassettes helped Smersh attract listeners overseas, resulting in occasional vinyl and CD editions on scattered European imprints, yet the project stayed largely unknown until Shepard’s death in 1994 brought it to a close.
A comprehensive Smersh discography remains elusive because most recordings surfaced as small-run cassettes on the duo’s own label, which lacked a formal name until it became Atlas King in 1991. Even so, the group occupied a notable position within the 1980s cassette underground and appeared on prominent tape imprints such as Sound of Pig and Ladd-Frith. Ron Lessard’s Massachusetts-based noise and industrial label RRRecords assembled The Beat from 20,000 Fathoms, an LP drawn from assorted Smersh cassettes, in 1986; the same year U.K. label Dead Man’s Curve released another LP, The Part of the Animal That People Don’t Like. Belgian EBM and industrial concern KK Records followed with the EP The Greatest Story Ever Distorted in 1988 and the album Emmanuelle Goes to Bangkok in 1990. Swedish experimental and techno outfit Börft Records, long linked to the band Frak, issued the 7" “3 Bangs” in 1991 and the cassette Depth Charge in 1993, while German label Vuz Records put out the 7" EP Super-Deformed in 1994.
Chris Shepard’s death from cystic fibrosis in 1994 ended both Smersh and the Atlas King label. Mike Mangino subsequently pursued other projects and eventually started Mirandette Popular, a CD-R imprint that issued previously unreleased Smersh material alongside recordings from his newer endeavors. German label Bastet Recordings released the limited CD-R compilation Happy Spaceship in 1999. Years afterward, blogs and free-form stations such as WFMU brought renewed attention to the duo’s pioneering industrial and proto-techno work. San Francisco-based Dark Entries, operated by Rutgers alumnus Josh Cheon, who had earlier DJed at a student station on the Piscataway campus, issued Cassette Pets, a 2012 double-LP anthology containing seventeen tracks that trace the full arc of Smersh’s output from guitar-heavy industrial pieces to electro instrumentals. Three years later the label followed with the single-LP collection Super Heavy Solid Waste, which concentrated on aggressive, rhythm-driven industrial dance tracks. In 2016 Dark Entries released Selected Deep House Anthems, an EP of four selections taken from the 1991 Deep House Anthems cassette; the next year the label presented Sideways, a 12" whose A-side holds an eighteen-minute 1989 recording and whose B-side features remixes by Tadd Mullinix under the JTC and Charles Manier names.
A comprehensive Smersh discography remains elusive because most recordings surfaced as small-run cassettes on the duo’s own label, which lacked a formal name until it became Atlas King in 1991. Even so, the group occupied a notable position within the 1980s cassette underground and appeared on prominent tape imprints such as Sound of Pig and Ladd-Frith. Ron Lessard’s Massachusetts-based noise and industrial label RRRecords assembled The Beat from 20,000 Fathoms, an LP drawn from assorted Smersh cassettes, in 1986; the same year U.K. label Dead Man’s Curve released another LP, The Part of the Animal That People Don’t Like. Belgian EBM and industrial concern KK Records followed with the EP The Greatest Story Ever Distorted in 1988 and the album Emmanuelle Goes to Bangkok in 1990. Swedish experimental and techno outfit Börft Records, long linked to the band Frak, issued the 7" “3 Bangs” in 1991 and the cassette Depth Charge in 1993, while German label Vuz Records put out the 7" EP Super-Deformed in 1994.
Chris Shepard’s death from cystic fibrosis in 1994 ended both Smersh and the Atlas King label. Mike Mangino subsequently pursued other projects and eventually started Mirandette Popular, a CD-R imprint that issued previously unreleased Smersh material alongside recordings from his newer endeavors. German label Bastet Recordings released the limited CD-R compilation Happy Spaceship in 1999. Years afterward, blogs and free-form stations such as WFMU brought renewed attention to the duo’s pioneering industrial and proto-techno work. San Francisco-based Dark Entries, operated by Rutgers alumnus Josh Cheon, who had earlier DJed at a student station on the Piscataway campus, issued Cassette Pets, a 2012 double-LP anthology containing seventeen tracks that trace the full arc of Smersh’s output from guitar-heavy industrial pieces to electro instrumentals. Three years later the label followed with the single-LP collection Super Heavy Solid Waste, which concentrated on aggressive, rhythm-driven industrial dance tracks. In 2016 Dark Entries released Selected Deep House Anthems, an EP of four selections taken from the 1991 Deep House Anthems cassette; the next year the label presented Sideways, a 12" whose A-side holds an eighteen-minute 1989 recording and whose B-side features remixes by Tadd Mullinix under the JTC and Charles Manier names.
Albums