Official press release:
Founded in 1997 by Dominick Fernow simultaneously alongside his classic noise project Prurient, the legendary Hospital Productions is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. In honor of the occasion, the label has announced a showcase at Brooklyn, NY’s Warsaw on November 5th which will feature appearances from extreme music pioneers Godflesh (performing their landmark album Streetcleaner in its entirety) as well as collaborative sets featuring Philadelphia’s Nothing alongside Jesu and Prurient. More details on the showcase are listed below and tickets are available for purchase here.
Through over 500 releases since its inception, ranging from the apocalyptic to the sublime, Hospital Productions has built a catalog and cult following bordering on downright fetishism that expresses and supports a global vision with singular curation. From 2006-2011, the label manifested itself as an infamous brick and mortar store, into which one had to climb through a trap door down a ladder into a hidden basement in Manhattan’s East Village. Emphasizing ‘productions’ over ‘records’, the shop focused on releases only procured from artists and labels directly, often in handmade and obsessive packaging. Hospital offered an alternative to the regular rotation of weekly record distribution, acting as a resource for the most obscure sonic art and as a meeting point for New York City’s underground.
Currently located in Berlin, following Fernow’s Berghain residency as Vatican Shadow, Hospital Productions’ presents its uncompromising 20th Anniversary in New York City – the space that Fernow calls the label’s spiritual home. The all-day festival will commence with a diverse line up of the label’s past and present, alongside Fernow’s paramount inspirations including: Skin Crime (first show in over 10 years), Orphx, Dedekind Cut, Clay Rendering, Dual Action/Dust Belt (collaboration set), Ames Sanglantes, Alberich/Lussuria (collaboration set), Geography Of Hell (debut in USA), Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement (debut in USA) with DJ sets by Becka Diamond, Nikki Sneakers, and longtime ally to Justin Broadrick, Regis.
Headlining the NYC anniversary event, extreme music forefathers Godflesh will be performing their magnificent album, Streetcleaner, live. Unilaterally regarded as one of the pioneers of Britain’s late 80’s burgeoning collision of punk, grindcore and electronic movements, Godflesh’s unmatched creation of ethereal metallic atmospheres, stark existential lyrics and crushing dance rhythms credited only as “machine” are what makes Streetcleaner stand alone timelessly. Godflesh inimitably wove industrial aesthetics into corners of music otherwise left untouched. The fearless and constantly innovative world that Godflesh cultivated reached across musical barrier after barrier, which continues to influence decades of artists has earned them a throne in a genre of their own.
Opposing forces, tension, and common ground between disparate subcultures defines Hospital’s influential aesthetic of contradiction. From that spirit, Philadelphia’s Nothing will join forces with Jesu (Justin Broadrick of Godflesh) for a special collaboration set with Prurient. Coincidentally, sections of Nothing’s first sought after EP was one of the rare recordings to emerge from the Hospital basement studio and rehearsal space operated by the imprint’s chief engineer Kris Lapke (Alberich). Representing three generations of independent music, this collaboration sits at the heart of the Hospital ideology of collaboration.
Hospital Productions will also be celebrating its 20 Years at the following worldwide events:
8/26 – Montemor-o-Velho Castle, PT | Festival Forte
9/22 – Tbilissi, GE | Bassiani
10/14 – Berlin, DE | Berghain
POPGUN & QUO VADIS PRESENT:
HOSPITAL PRODUCTIONS 20 YEARS
November 5, 2017 – Warsaw
261 Driggs Avenue, Brooklyn NY
2PM | All Ages | Advance Tickets
