Manufacture was an

electronic body music Electronic body music (EBM) is a genre of electronic music that combines elements of industrial music and synth-punk with elements of dance music. It developed in the early 1980s in Western Europe, as an outgrowth of both the punk and the in ...

group from

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

, who released two albums on

Nettwerk Nettwerk Music Group is an independent record label founded in 1984. The Vancouver-based company was created by principals Terry McBride and Mark Jowett as a record label to distribute recordings by the band Moev, but the label expanded in Ca ...

between 1988 and 1991.Ariana Paoletti
"Manufacture Brought European Industrial EBM to Boston"
''

Noisey ''Vice'' (stylized in all caps) is a Canadian-American magazine focused on lifestyle, arts, culture, and news/politics. It was founded in 1994 in Montreal as an alternative punk magazine, and its founders later launched the youth media company ...

'', October 15, 2013. They are best known for their 1988 debut single "As the End Draws Near", a collaboration with labelmate

Sarah McLachlan Sarah Ann McLachlan (born January 28, 1968) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. As of 2015, she had sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is ''Surfacing (album), Surfacing'' (1997), for which she won two G ...

. The band was formed when Brian Bothwell, a video artist and student at Boston's

School of the Museum of Fine Arts The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (Museum School, SMFA at Tufts, or SMFA; formerly the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) is a dedicated art school within Tufts University, a private research university in Massa ...

heard a song by electronic musician Perry Geyer on the radio and contacted Geyer to offer to make a video. They began performing around Boston with a show that consisted of instrumental electronic body music with experimental video projections. After signing to Nettwerk, they met McLachlan soon after beginning to record their debut album in

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

; she was recording her debut album ''

Touch The somatosensory system, or somatic sensory system is a subset of the sensory nervous system. The main functions of the somatosensory system are the perception of external stimuli, the perception of internal stimuli, and the regulation of bo ...

'' for Nettwerk at the same time. After being invited to contribute vocals to a track they were working on, she returned the next day with the lyrics to "As the End Draws Near". The song was included in its original form on the band's 1988 debut album ''Terrorvision'', and on a 12" single featuring an extended remix which was later included on McLachlan's 1996 compilation album ''

Rarities, B-Sides and Other Stuff ''Rarities, B-Sides & Other Stuff'' is an album by Sarah McLachlan released in Canada on 25 June 1996. It is a compilation of tracks that McLachlan recorded for film soundtracks, remixes of her own songs, covers of songs by other artists, live ...

''. The band's original proposal for the video would have featured McLachlan portraying the sole survivor of a nuclear apocalypse; however, Nettwerk did not have the budget to fly McLachlan to Boston for filming, and so a different video concept was pursued. The band released its second album ''Voice of World Control'' in 1991, but subsequently broke up. Bothwell went on to direct music videos for other artists. Geyer became a member of The Sky Dwellers, a

trance Trance is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli (but nevertheless capable of pursuing and realizing an aim) or is selectively responsive in following the dir ...

group which also included

Greg Hawkes Gregory A. Hawkes (born October 22, 1952) is an American musician who is best known as the keyboardist and founding member of the American new wave band the Cars. Hawkes is credited with helping popularize new wave and synth-pop in American popu ...

The Cars The Cars were an American Rock music, rock band formed in Boston in 1976. Emerging from the New wave music, new wave Subculture, scene in the late 1970s, they consisted of Ric Ocasek (rhythm guitar), Benjamin Orr (bass guitar), Elliot Easton (l ...

. He bought The Cars'

Syncro Sound Syncro Sound was a recording studio in Boston, Massachusetts, active from 1981 through 1986. It was owned by The Cars, who recorded their fourth album, '' Shake It Up'', there. Various other musicians, both nationally known and from the local scene, ...

studios, and continued to operate it as CyberSound Studios. Brian Bothwell died on January 10, 2025, at the age of 66.

Discography

*''Terrorvision'' (1988) *''Voice of World Control'' (1991)

References

American electronic body music groups Musical groups from Boston {{US-band-stub