Test Dept

Test Dept, sometimes credited as Test Department or Test Dept. is an industrial music group from London, considered one of the most influential in the genre. Their approach was marked by the use of "found" material, re-constructed to better serve their purpose, of making "more" with "less". The group return to the fray with a call to action, having re-emerged in recent years to engage in the cultural and political climate, utilising their extensive archive and exploring new ways of expression in a strategic programme of actions including performance, installation and the publication of their book Total State Machine. Disturbance, their newest album continues this process of exploration. Test Dept have looked at the through-lines in the themes of their early works, which expressed an opposition to the expansion of the neo-liberal consensus; and now, in these politically turbulent times, have produced a work from within the maelstrom of its demise. A document of creative resistance and a radical response of social solidarity against the straightjacket of mediocrity.