Genesis P-Orridge With Pigface - The Howler: An English Breakfast

Some records are meticulously planned. The Howler: An English Breakfast exists because the right collection of strange minds happened to collide in a Chicago studio at exactly the right moment.

Recorded in 1996–97 at Martin Atkins’ Mattress Factory / Invisible Records studio in Chicago, The Howler: An English Breakfast brings Genesis P-Orridge into the constantly shifting orbit of Pigface. Atkins had assembled a murky foundation of dub rhythms, loops, tape delays, and experimental electronics, with source material from Mick Harris of Scorn and Napalm Death, when P-Orridge entered the studio to deliver the sprawling spoken-word performance at its center.

The resulting music is closer to experimental dub, industrial psychedelia, and sound collage than conventional industrial rock. Bass frequencies crawl underneath echoing percussion while loops and unidentified sounds drift in and out of focus. P-Orridge’s voice hangs above everything, shifting between narration, incantation, provocation, and stream-of-consciousness performance. It feels less like a collection of songs than stumbling into a transmission already in progress.

There’s a wonderfully improvised quality to its creation. P-Orridge arrived without the text they intended to read, forcing the pages to be faxed from their Brooklyn office to Invisible Records, enlarged on a photocopier, and taken directly into the session. Atkins later described the recording as a snapshot of the rampant creativity surrounding Pigface and Invisible Records during the period.

Some of this material previously surfaced in connection with Pigface’s 1997 A New High in Low, but this 2026 Overdrive/Invisible Records release gives the complete session its first dedicated vinyl edition, newly remastered by Tom Whittaker and divided into four extended parts totaling nearly 50 minutes.

The Howler: An English Breakfast is a fascinating artifact from the experimental industrial underground of the 1990s: dub-heavy, hypnotic, confrontational, and gloriously unrestrained, with Genesis P-Orridge and Pigface operating far outside the boundaries of anything resembling a conventional song.