he disturbing cover of this disc: in Buddhist hell, the punishment for liars is to have their tongue cut off, serves as metaphor—a comment on the perfidy of punk acts that are now easily assimilated caricatures for the music industry, while post-Throbbing Gristle projects continued to push its members on their own especial paths relatively unsullied by mainstream consumerism. Wrongly pegged (and therefore avoided) as merely a confrontational noise act, Throbbing Gristle expressed their social alienation and leftfield worldview without needing the approbation of their punk era peers. Their message was similar to the punk manifesto (decide for yourself, think for yourself, don’t be passive-get active) but where punk DIY meant three chords and a guitar, Throbbing Gristle went further: "Why start with three chords? You can start with no chords."

The overlapping deafening building wind tunnel hums of intro track “Industrial Introduction” is over in just over a minute, and as a big part of Throbbing Gristle’s music was confrontation I’m (fingers on volume dial) in expectation of a collision with a wall of overloaded synthesizers, P-Orridge ranting and Carter’s programmed pounding beats; a taste, that the young cover star could attest to, that is going to hurt. But, as ever, Gristle confound expectations leading instead into a sinister Depeche Mode electro melody countered with pretty little bells over the homemade drum machines pre-techno beats. “Distant Dreams – Part Two” has no fetishistic, fascistic or sadomasochistic imagery; just a processed vocal confiding “The thing I never mention / That defines my sense of death / It is love / Loves lost in time’s game of chance”.

The only really cold-blooded sounding track here is the performance of “Persuasion U.S.A.” recorded at their last ever gig, which creepy crawls along amid Gen’s exaggerated provincial patter, unconscious ranting and wordless screams. It seems devised to punish the watchers (and now listeners) with a thick black atmosphere punctured by an ossified and relentless beat. The shadowy final track, however, “His Arm was her Leg (Live at The Factory Manchester 18th May 1979 - Edit)” is the highlight here, balancing rock performance methodology with their experimental and improvisational roots. Cruelly cut short at 5:22 (the longer version is only 5:40) it builds from a bass line similar to the outro from The Cure’s “A Forest”, throbbing and distorting through filters. Rain-on-tin-roof percussion and sine wave rippled sound swings from left to right as the chanted title staggers from the mix.

It’s debatable whether another TG compilation is strictly necessary, but with popular opinion continuing to totally misrepresent their legacy, influence and message it seems that someone needs to set the record straight. A Taste of TG has an astonishing musical scope ranging from aural punishments to touching lullabies, but TG’s work was never as obvious or simplistic as simple black and white / noise and silence. Its hard to think of many collectives that dealt extensively in improvisational techniques and bloody serious (and seriously bloody) performance art that would feel comfortable releasing a song like “Something Came Over Me”—in which floating synths jizz across its insistent car indicator rhythm propelling P-Orridge’s six line cheeky pop lyric about discovering masturbation (“Was it white and sticky? / Mummy didn’t like it / Do it anyway”).

As such, A Taste of TG is a step to putting it right.