"Where the hell has he been?" you ask yourself. The inscrutable J.G. Thirlwell.  That Foetus guy.  That guy who can turn the whole world on with his snarl.
 
  "I thought id be dead by 30", says JGT," and lived my life that way; then when reality strikes, and you start to die, you go, 'hold on...maybe I changed my mind'!  That’s when I knew i had to turn my life around..."

  Spiraling out of control and wrestling with chemical demons and mental imbalance, Thirlwell lost a couple of years somewhere along the way.  Thankfully, putting the phoenix in FOETUS, J.G. has proved to have an iron wrapped survival instinct.

  Out of the heavens, he resurfaces -- smirking, with both barrels loaded and pointed right between your eyes.
 
  In the front barrel is Flow.  Created under the beloved and most well-known alias, Foetus, Flow is, like the man says, "an Italian wedding cake: many layers, fattening, sweet and it’ll rot your teeth."
 
  Throughout his long illustrious career Thirlwell has been anything but conventional. (He can’t even stick to one musical sobriquet; he requires several: Steroid Maximus, Clint Ruin, Wiseblood, DJ OTEFSU, myriad Foetus hybrids, and the brand new Manorexia.)  Seen as a seminal  and influential force behind that thing the kids call "industrial", he has proved himself to be in fact a genre-defying and boundary-leaping artist.  Over the course of more than a dozen albums he has stretched from yearning orchestral soundscapes, meticulously organised chaos, blistering big band pastiche, crunching hard rock and even inventing stupefying collisions of genres and forms with a raw emotion and irresistable musicality; an accomplished remixer and producer, he’s worked his magic on the likes of NIN, Pantera, White Zombie, JSBX, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Coil and countless others.
 
  Flow is a prime example of his resilience. Foetus is the most personal of all his musical project, and this album resounds his struggles over the past few years and reflects a deeper musical invention and complexity of programming along with the intensity, dis-ease and cunning linguistics: Flow keeps that Foetal train rolling with occasional passing nods to past work, yet reaches beyond the insissipation of former Foetus oeuvres to the opposite realm of spatiality and brand new untouched vistas, both upward and sideways; Foetus zigzags wildly from seductive samba to grinding steely futuristic stomp, bebop/gospel to world music from a world we'd rather not inhabit.
 
  Parallel to the release of Flow, Thirlwell's Ectopic Ents Inc will be releasing Volvox Turbo by Manorexia, his latest alter-ego, exclusively thru his website, www.foetus.org.  Tapping into his instincts, Thirlwell completed the instrumental album within six weeks -- a record time for him. An intensely psychological symphony, the album orbits several multiethnic soundscapes -- from Moroccan to Martian -- and manipulates those studio mistakes others try to avoid into 14 strangely compelling merging movements.  It's been called "a noir narrative filled with anticipation, foreboding and icy climaxes."  It resonates more with deep listening.  It’s a killer acid trip without the LSD.
 
  2001 will also see JGT touring the US and Europe with the new FOETUS live band.
 
  Also on the horizon: expect to see Blow, (aka Over-Flow) the interpretive companion album to Flow featuring remixes from Flow by Amon Tobin, DJ Food, PanSonic, Kid 606, Charlie Clouser and others, in the fall.