Ministry's definitive awe-inspiring album The Land Of Rape And Honey was released 30 years ago today.
Ministry's masterful and important album isn't just a sonic delight; it's a phenomenal trailblazing work that employed pioneering sounds, effects, and techniques. Nothing sounded like The Land Of Rape And Honey at the time of its release. The album was an aural assault; intense aggro-death metal fused with distortion, layered beats and samples; a masterpiece that went on to revolutionize and inspire the industrial scene.
The Land Of Rape And Honey reinvigorated Al Jourgensen creatively, and he revisited ideas and themes he formulated in 1981 prior to his dreadful (to him, anyway) Arista British Al days. Though Ministry had already embraced darker vibes on 1986's Twitch, it wasn't until The Land Of Rape And Honey that Jourgensen truly came into his own.
Jourgensen credits artists like William Burroughs and Brion Gysin with inspiring him to experiment with different methods of tape editing, and through a random slice and dice technique he was able to create a unique audio collage that sounded like nothing before it. Jourgensen discussed his creative process for the record in an interview with Revolver:
"The concept of it was basically a random, anarchy driven, fractal chaos. You take a bunch of pieces of tape, you throw 'em on the floor, and you put 'em back at random. And that's what Rape and Honey was. That comes more from the authors than it does the noise bands. I was more author-inspired than I was music-inspired."
The title The Land Of Rape and Honey was famously inspired by a souvenir mug Jourgensen obtained while on tour in Saskatchewan. He recalled to the Quietus:
"Everyone reads into the title like there's an underlying premise, but we were touring Canada and wound up in a place named Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Just some truck stop. We weren't even playing there. The one coffee mug on our bus had broken when the driver hit the brakes, so I went in and bought a new one. It had a picture of a little bee and a bundle of wheat, and it said "Saskatoon, Saskatchewan: The Land Of Rape And Honey."
[Historical sidenote: one of Tilsdale, Saskatchewan's major crops is rapeseed (also known as canola). Tilsdale's motto was established in 1958 as "The Land Of Rape And Honey" but due to growing opposition the motto was changed to "Opportunity Grows Here" in 2016.]
Bottom line: Ministry's The Land Of Rape And Honey is a seminal industrial/alternative/metal album. The timeless work truly paved the way for legions of bands, and the record is as vital and poignant in 2018 as it was 30 years ago.
For more insight into the album, watch a fascinating interview with Chris Connelly below:
Published October 11th, 2018
