Connelly-Chin Pairing Delivers Dirges and High-Energy Funk

Industrial dance music veterans Meg Lee Chin and Chris Connelly both record for Martin Atkins’ venerable Invisible label, and both spent time in Pigface, the Atkins-led industrial super group in which numerous underground luminaries have participated. But they revealed little else in common on Wednesday at the Knitting Factory.

Connelly was in Ministry and industrial trashmeisters the Revolting Cocks, but some later solo work ventured into the quirky, depressive territory of ‘60s oddball Scott Walker. Accompanying himself on guitar Wednesday, he briskly surveyed his catalog as well as the recently released album “Private Education.” The dirge-like quality of such numbers as “Prayer” was quickly wearisome, as Connelly’s vibrato-tinged wailing was more tortured than torchy. A defiant, anthem-like tune did liven things up, but all that painful sincerity was definitely an acquired taste.

Chin’s high-energy headlining turn was a surprisingly funky affair, with political and social overtones in such numbers as “Nutopia,” her Pigface-era reinvention of Allen Ginsberg’s classic poem “Howl.” The Taiwan-born London resident once auditioned for Garbage, and her music often had a vague similarity to that band’s, mostly in the propulsive electronic intensity. But it felt more organic and raw, and Chin’s vocals were more rapped than sung.

Camouflage-clad and pigtailed, she bellowed and howled while leading her quartet through selections from 1999’s “Piece and Love” and other works. Far from the industrial music stereotype of being relentlessly atonal or monochromatic, her sound incorporated hip-hop rhythms, crunchy dub reggae, herky-jerky soul, thrashy R&B; and hypnotic blues. In short, it came fetchingly close to being pop. Like, radical.