Mute: Experimentalists of the Independent Music Movement

2017 | Music & Dance

Mute is one of the most revered and influential indie labels of all time. Through the music of its tight-knit community of artists--ranging from Cabaret Voltaire, Nick Cave's The Birthday Party and Moby to Depeche Mode, Erasure, and Goldfrapp--it has had an incalculable impact on popular music for forty years.Daniel Miller created Mute to release his debut single ("Warm Leatherette"/ "T.V.O.D."), a pioneering electronic sound with a defiantly DIY punk attitude. Mute quickly established a reputation for cultivating the experimental, releasing cutting-edge industrial sounds, and chart-topping electronic music by the likes of Depeche Mode and Yazoo. The label was equally at home with the savage punk of Nick Cave's The Birthday Party and--to critical acclaim--his next outfit, The Bad Seeds. It also proved to be an Internet pioneer, launching the online site Mute Liberation Technologies in 1994.Mute features stunning artwork and photography--much of it previously unseen--and revelatory behind-the-scenes insights from the vibrant cast who have worked with the label.

Daniel Miller (Author)

Terry Burrows (Author)