Snog

David Thrussell, an Australian musician, has sustained Snog as his longest-running and most productive endeavor. Although the project is most frequently linked to the industrial scene, its sound has drawn from an array of styles such as techno, folk, country, exotica, and experimental music. Snog’s output consistently critiques consumer culture and broader societal structures, regularly incorporating visuals that borrow from or mock corporate logos and slogans alongside lyrics that target organized religion and political themes. Beyond Snog, Thrussell has issued multiple spoken-word albums and soundtracks under his own name while pursuing more experimental material as Black Lung. He also runs The Omni Recording Corporation, which has put out dozens of reissues of both well-known and lesser-known country recordings as well as works by electronic pioneers including Bruce Haack, Atom Heart, and Felix Kubin.

Thrussell launched Snog in 1988 during his time at art school, where fellow students Tim McGrath and Julia Bourke completed the original lineup. Recording began in 1990, yet no labels expressed interest until the group moved to Germany and Machinery Records started issuing their material. The debut album Lies Inc. and its EBM club hit “Corporate Slave” both surfaced in 1992. Another Australian, Pieter Bourke—who would later collaborate with Lisa Gerrard—joined after the album’s release and contributed to the more techno-oriented follow-up Dear Valued Customer in 1994. Around the same period, Bourke and Thrussell formed the experimental side project Soma.

Following several years focused on Soma and Black Lung releases, Thrussell revived Snog in 1997, now operating chiefly as a solo concern, with Buy Me... I’ll Change Your Life. The album appeared on Thrussell’s own International Mind Control Corporation before receiving a U.S. release via Metropolis in 1998, the same label that had earlier issued the compilation Remote Control collecting Snog’s initial recordings. This record emphasized midtempo breakbeats that often approached trip-hop territory, incorporated country-style guitars, and included a Lee Hazlewood cover. I Snog Therefore I Am..., the first in a long series of Snog remix collections and the start of the project’s extended association with German imprint Hymen Records, arrived in 1999. Also that year came the full-length Third Mall from the Sun, which maintained the direction of the prior album while introducing further experimental, glitchy components to the Snog aesthetic. Relax into the Abyss, a remix album featuring contributions from Hymen artists such as Beefcake and Xingu Hill, followed in 2000.

Beyond the Valley of the Proles emerged in 2003 and marked Snog’s continued departure from its original industrial roots. Adventures in Capitalism, the project’s first DVD, likewise appeared that year. The 2006 album Vs. the Faecal Juggernaut of Mass Culture represented a partial return to uptempo electro-industrial textures, though it included acoustic bonus tracks as enhanced-CD material. A second Metropolis compilation, Sixteen Easy Tunes for the End Times, was also released that year. The Last Days of Rome arrived in 2007. The acoustic collection The Dissolving Satellite of Egoism Overturned and the proper album Last of the Great Romantics both appeared in 2010. Babes in Consumerland, Snog’s first release outside the Hymen catalog since the late ’90s, surfaced on Metropolis in 2013. It was succeeded by the full-length Compliance™ in 2015 and the remix sets The Clockwork Man in 2016 and Corporate Slave 2525 in 2017.