Thoroughly exciting and immeasurably influential, 20 Jazz Funk Greats is easily Throbbing Gristle’s crowning achievement, and one of the highlights of the post-punk era.

Throbbing Gristle are frequently and quite correctly credited for inventing the genre we commonly know as “industrial.” Their abrasive, post-punk, nihilist noisemaking ushered in a whole generation of alienated misanthropes who felt they could relate to machines better than to their fellow human beings.

After several albums of relentlessly abrasive material, however, Throbbing Gristle decided to go another direction on “20 Jazz Funk Greats.” The title is obviously tongue in cheek, but there is a grain of truth behind it. This is certainly TG’s jazziest, as well as their funkiest record.

Most of the tracks are laid back and subtle. hey are still just as menacing as ever, b