Skip to content
Mannequin Records celebrates 40 years of Nocturnal Emissions with a white vinyl reissue of their first album, Tissue Of Lies, originally released on the band's own Sterile Records label in 1980. Tissue Of Lies shows you Nocturnal Emissions' industrial roots, from noisy collages to classic power noise, reminiscent of early Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, Faust (Tapes period) or Conrad Schitzler's Schwarz.
The Nocturnal Emissions project, masterminded by Nigel Ayers, has been on the cutting edge of new music since the 1970s. Ayers has been described as a Guerrilla Sign Ontologist, cutting-up and pasting the contents of the human psyche. With a background in avant-garde art, his work has grown from audio visual installations through underground video works which changed the shape of British television. In the early '80s, Nocturnal Emissions hit London with a barrage of seminal funk pioneering the use of sound samplers, multi-cultural collage and electronic noise. They became a shape shifting chameleon lightening the darkness of post-industrial music, combining extremist performance art and video displays with apocalyptic beat music. Nocturnal Emissions have since been credited as a catalyst for a generation or two of sound workers. However, at the height of their success, the Emissions decided to shun the crass commercialism that had developed around them, and to develop their work as a secret alchemy. Nigel Ayers has continued to work with a strong underground of cult support, avoiding music industry fashions, and following his own creative path he concentrated on creating a strong sense of a wilderness identity through sound.