J.G. Thirlwell

The extraordinarily versatile musician JG Thirlwell, active under many aliases and in many groups, works in fields ranging from postpunk rock to cartoon music to contemporary classical composition. His works juxtapose various styles, forming connections between his areas of musical interest. Thirlwell was born on January 29, 1960, in Melbourne. He studied art for a short time at Melbourne State College but moved to London at 18 and immersed himself in the city's punk and postpunk scenes. He performed in the band PragVEC and then formed his own band, Foetus. In the 1980s, he used the names Frank Want and Clint Ruin, contributing to recordings by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (he co-wrote the Bad Seeds song Wings Off Flies), The The, and other bands of the day. With Foetus (which had many offshoots, all of whose names contained the word "Foetus"), he released his debut single, OKFM/Spite Your Face, on his own Self-Immolation label. Thirlwell released four full-length albums during this period: Deaf, Ache, Hole, and Nail. Performing with the Immaculate Consumptive group consisting of Cave, Lydia Lunch, and Marc Almond, he visited New York and then decided to move there permanently. There, he released numerous albums and EPs, and he was active as a producer for such high-profile groups as Faith No More, Nine Inch Nails, Pantera, and The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. After about 2000, Thirlwell turned increasingly to composition, both as the writer of scores for adult cartoons such as Adult Swim and Dicktown and for avant-garde classical ensembles. He has been the recipient of commissions from Bang on a Can, the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots, and the Kronos Quartet, among other organizations. Thirlwell formed two experimental instrumental groups, Steroid Maximus and Manorexia, and he has organized sound installations as far afield as Kaliningrad, Russia. Much of his music, whether released in a classical or a rock context, includes a great variety of elements from noise, big band, punk rock, African and Cuban percussion, and more, mixing strings, percussion, electronic distortion, brass, electric guitars, electronic sounds, and voice. Under the title JG Thirlwell: Dystonia, the Mivos Quartet released a collection of Thirlwell's classical pieces on the Cantaloupe label in 2023.
© James Manheim /TiVo