Something of a legend was Chicago’s Wax Trax.

Jim Nash and Dannie Flesher’s label has its routes in their 70s record store with releases from 1981 up until the end of the 90s. The label closed in 2001 after its final release: KMFDM’s Beat By Beat By Beat DVD.

Pushing the early work of Ministry and Revolting Cocks, together with their licensing of European releases from KMFDM, Front 242, Front Line Assembly, Coil, Chris & Cosey, My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, Suicide and Meat Beat Manifesto (and a whole lot more) meant that Wax Trax! will be forever cemented as one of the important electro/industrial labels.

“As important as Chess Records was to blues and soul music, Chicago’s Wax Trax imprint was just as significant to the punk rock, new wave and industrial genres.” (Richard Giraldi, Chicago Sun-Times)

The label suffered difficulties in the early 90s

Following a bankruptcy filing, Wax Trax! was bought by New York-based TVT Records in 1992, with Nash and Flesher retaining creative control of the label. TVT continued to use the Wax Trax! imprint for years, even after Nash’s death from AIDS-related complications on October 10, 1995.

Rude 66, an artist I came across as a remixer on a great piece of italo/electro from Raiders of the Lost ARP on Dublin’s Lunar Disko Records, recorded this last year for his Cosmic Overdrive show on Intergalactic FM.

Sixty minutes of 80s/90s industrial from a label at the forefront of the sound.

Rude 66 – Wax Trax Megamix (Cosmic Overdrive special)
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