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More expressly political than their German counterparts Einstürzende Neubauten, Test Department followed the same tack: A creative use of the ethos in which diverse objects (including large amounts of scrap metal and power tools) can be used as instruments. Formed in London's New Cross in 1982 by Alistair Adams, Graham Cunningham, Tony Cudlip, Gus Ferguson and Paul Jamrozy, the quintet became renowned for the staging of huge multimedia events at obscure venues -- a railway works in Glasgow, a sand quarry, Cannon Street Station in London, a Welsh car factory -- and their political agenda, which has included action against apartheid, the rise of neo-Nazism and Britain's Criminal Justice Act. The quintet signed to Some Bizarre Records for 1984's Beating the Retreat, and outlined their socialist agenda set to music on the following year's Shoulder to Shoulder, recorded with "the South Wales Striking Miners' Choir." After forming their own Ministry of Power label to organize multimedia events, Test Department released two records -- The Unacceptable Face of Freedom and A Good Night Out -- in a MOP/Some Bizarre conjunction, but struck out on their own with 1988's Terra Firma. Test Dept.'s sixth album, The Gododdin, was followed by their most scathing criticism of British politics, Pax Britannica, in conjunction with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Choir. After releasing albums for Jungle Records and Dossier, the group gained a contract with the American industrial label Cleopatra in 1994 and released the fruit of their early-'90s work on Legacy (1990-1993). Signed to Cleopatra's subsidiary Invisible, Test Dept. released the new albums Totality (1995) and Tactics for Revolution (1998), as well as reissuing several previous works.
from Wikipedia:
Test Dept were an industrial music group from London, one of the most important and influential early industrial music acts. Their approach was marked by a strong commitment to radical socialist politics.
History
The group formed in the London suburb of New Cross in 1981. The core members of the group were Angus Farquhar, Graham Cunnington, Paul Jamrozy, Paul Hines and Toby Burdon. Other members who played with the group at various times included Alistair Adams, Neil Starr, John Eacott, Tony Cudlip, David Coulter, Gus Ferguson and Martin King. Comedian Vic Reeves also played bass in an early incarnation of the band. The slides and film for their multi-media events were the work of their visual director Brett Turnbull.
Their discography spans a wide variety of influences and styles, including a collaboration with the South Wales Striking Miners Choir in support of the miners' strike of 1984. They were particularly notable for complex and powerful percussion, as well as high-energy live performances. Like the German band Einstürzende Neubauten, with whom they are often compared, Test Dept used unconventional instruments such as scrap metal and industrial machinery as sound sources; however, Test Dept's use of these objects was far more rhythmic than was Neubauten's, and was often accompanied by film and slide shows. The group were noted for large-scale events in unusual site-specific locations, such as Waterloo station, Cannon Street station, Stirling Castle and the disused St Rollox Railway Works in Glasgow.
The band's album The Unacceptable Face of Freedom was praised by a music reviewer for The New York Times, claiming the album was notable for a "sophisticated use of sound-collage techniques and the helter-skelter momentum of its cyclical rhythms".
In later years the band's music became less industrial and took on many of the properties of techno. The band's political stance was energised by the passing of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.
The band split up in 1997, but its former members have continued to work in the fields of art and culture. Angus Farquhar re-established the ancient Gaelic Beltane Fire Festival, held yearly on the night before/morning of the first of May on Edinburgh's Calton Hill. Farquhar also formed NVA, an innovative theatre company specialising in large-scale site-specific events. Cunnington, who suffers from chronic rheumatoid arthritis, produced a one-man show in 1996 called Pain, recounting his experiences as a sufferer from this condition. Jamrozy works as an artist under the name of Satellitic.
