Because that, ultimately, is what makes a taboo worth breaking. Note to the reader: All band references and release details in this article are based on reconstructed underground lore and bootleg discographies. No official “Taboo IIIIIIIV” exists in mainstream catalogs. That is precisely the point.
The sound? Unforgiving. Side A featured Throbbing Gristle’s live recording of “Discipline” (Berlin, 1979) next to a Merzbow-esque precursor by a then-unknown Masami Akita, tracked with a 14-minute field recording of a slaughterhouse in Hamburg. Side B was pure dissonance: a Cabaret Voltaire demo, a spoken word piece by Lydia Lunch about urban decay, and a hidden loop of reversed church bells. taboo iiiiiiiv 19791985 better
The dynamic range is astonishing. The low-end on the SPK track rumbles in a way that 1979-81 punk recordings could not achieve. The high-frequency hiss is present, but it feels intentional—almost melodic. For cassette cultists, this volume is the Dark Side of the Moon of the dystopian underground. The cover art for Taboo IIIIIIIV is a single black-and-white photograph of a burning piano in an empty swimming pool. On the reverse, the tracklist is printed in a font that requires a magnifying glass to read. More importantly, the liner notes include a fake warning: “This recording contains subliminal frequencies that may induce temporal displacement. Play at low volume.” Because that, ultimately, is what makes a taboo
Why is it better? Because the earlier volumes were experiments. The later volumes were imitations. But Taboo IIIIIIIV (1983) is the eye of the storm. It is the sound of seven years of tension, violence, and artistic fury condensed into 90 minutes of chrome cassette. It is better because it knows it should not exist. It is better because even after forty years, it can still make your skin crawl and your speakers rattle. That is precisely the point
In the shadowy archives of post-punk, industrial music, and avant-garde tape trading, few phrases elicit as much confusion—and fervent devotion—as the keyword “taboo iiiiiiiv 19791985 better.” At first glance, it looks like a glitch: a Roman numeral stuttering into infinity, a date range that spans the tectonic shift from punk’s implosion to the dawn of goth and industrial, and a final, confrontational word: better .