Industrial music often gets the rap of sounding cold or distant, but not Chicago’s rising Body Shop. The Florida transplants recently released Sex Body, an EP that challenges that stereotype, with a bracing sound that blends danger and wit and a reputation for confrontational live shows. The music drips with danger and sex, but isn’t just empty provocation. Body Shop want you to get sweaty with them, but that’s not all.
“When we play, I don’t want a sense of remove. I use a ribbon mic. I like the breathiness. I want the listener to feel like I’m in their ear. We are talking to the audience, not at them. I want to create a feeling. Come closer. Share the space. I want to give people a peek into the intimacy of our band. I want the audience and listeners to feel like they are not alone in the world. I am very into what people can tap into when they are singing and dancing,” says lead singer Kit Dee.
“We revel in danger and tightrope walking. It is the best feeling watching Kit dive into the audience. We don’t go on stage with a plan. We want to be in the moment. The unplanned interactions on stage make it exciting. We want the audience to be thinking, ‘Are they gonna fuck or finish the song?'” says guitarist Sam Crow.
The songs on Sex Body blend industrial, dance music, and punk into a mesmerizing vibe that eschews coldness in favor of connection. Rather than keeping the listener at a distance, Dee and her bandmates beckon you to join them. If you like groups like Adult., who also blend sensuality, politics, and humor into their dance punk, Sex Body will be on repeat. Body Shop also cite Cabaret Voltaire and Algebra Suicide as key influences.
“The space between you and the screen creates this desirability for immediate physical presence. Even that real experience is being marketed back to us. Experiencing things together can be recomodified too, “says guitarist Lou Larsen.
“I have a history in antifascism and sex work, and those experiences are part of our message. If someone is offering you a chance to connect and it has a price tag on it, don’t do it,” Dee adds.
One of the key distinctions of Body Shop is their acknowledgement that they, too, can get caught up in the consumption and commodification of experiences and people. They’re not standing outside of the malaise of 21st-century life. They are in the thick of it, too, and the complexity of making art and making a living from art creates its own tensions. “We couldn’t be distant if we tried,” says Crow. “It would be contrary to our state of being. Sex Body is us taking a shot at making colder music,” he laughs.
Most of us are hooked on digital media, more consumers than active viewers or listeners. Convenience is nice, but there is something irreplaceable about physical media and the relationship that develops with it, not to mention that physical media is resistant to being removed from services, making it more resilient against marginalization. The band appreciates the experiences that physical media provide and the ways they create connections.
“Recently, it seemed like physical media was becoming obsolete. I am interested in why that was happening. With so many people reliant on digital media, collecting tapes or vinyl or CDs reminds us of the joy and importance of receiving physical objects,” Dee says.
“I consume lots of music passively, but when I’m into an artist, I want to have a connection to them. I want to be able to hold the work in my hands, to see the artwork on something better than a screen. I want to know who was involved in creating it. Reading liner notes and catalogs that come with music help you get to know who was involved and other bands you might like,” Crow adds.
There is also the record of that particular period of time that recordings on physical media document. “You are committed to what you have done. You can’t change it. I like the permanence of it,” Larsen explains.
Body Shop have undergone some changes since their inception, but they have been locked into a shared vision since 2023. Dee and Crow discovered Lou Larsen at a Spread Joy show, and the chemistry was immediate. “Before we left the show, I asked Lou to join our band, just based on the conversation,” Crow says. “When I joined, they were pivoting from more of a rock band to programming the drums. But now, we are bringing back live drums,” Larsen adds. Pixel Grip’s Tyler Ommen produced and played drums on Sex Body.
With themes of commodification of people and experiences, the band name makes intuitive sense, but it actually has a surprising origin. The band initially had a different focus and sound. At that point, the name was a nod to the band’s Motor City fixation.
“We are obsessed with garage rock and Detroit. Body Shop sounded different at first, but even as we changed our sound, we still loved the name. We had all this car imagery going, and we kept it. [J.G. Ballard’s novel] Crash was in our subconscious,” Dee explains.
Being open to where creativity and collaboration take them plays a huge role in their restless sound. “My guitar teacher told me about a now-closed area club called Medusa’s, which was an all-ages dance club where people from all corners of different music scenes hung out. That openness inspires us. You don’t have to just be a punk rocker or a hip-hop head. As this band moved from a garage punk sound to now, that’s always in my mind,” Larsen explains.
“You get rewarded for sticking to one thing, but there are too many cool things out there for me to limit myself,” Dee says.
Next up for Body Shop are more shows, an as-yet-undisclosed festival slot, more music videos, and, hopefully, shows in Europe. They also have plenty of material on deck for the follow-up to Sex Body, and are hopeful they can land their dream gig of opening for Cabaret Voltaire this fall in Chicago.
“We are truly hitting our stride,” Dee says. “There is a focus in our world on the power we have to hurt each other, but we are trying to focus on the power we have to share with each other to learn from each other. I am very concerned with the world’s need for community and my own needs for it, too.”
