Adopted 1964 and re-named Stephen Thrower. Brought up in Yorkshire (apart from two years in Cheshire, directly beside the Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope). Schooled in various comprehensives: Marsden, Kinsley and Hemsworth.

In 1980, he formed Possession with Victor Watkins and Anna Virgina War (aka Ultrasound's Tiny, now recording as SIREN). They released one album: The Thin White Arms, Obtusely Angled At The Elbow, Methodically Dipping And Emerging (A-Mission, 1984), and a number of compilation tracks.

Thrower made contact with Throbbing Gristle by letter in 1979 and followed up his interest in the particular contribution of Peter Christopherson after learning that he and John Balance had left Psychic TV to found their own group, Coil. An exchange of letters exposed many shared interests and Thrower was soon invited to join them in the studio to record tracks for the first Coil album, Scatology (co-writing the tracks At The Heart Of It All and Solar Lodge). He moved to London in the summer of 1985, eventually leaving Possession and joining Coil full-time, beginning with their second album Horse Rotorvator and continuing with Gold is the Metal..., the Angelic Conversation soundtrack and The Unreleased Themes for Hellraiser. At the same time, Thrower became good friends with film-maker Derek Jarman, appearing in his films Imagining October, The Last of England and (fleetingly) Caravaggio. Then came Coil's Love's Secret Domain - a long period of heightened creativity and escalating excess for all concerned.

From 1987-89 Thrower wrote for the British cult film magazine Shock Xpress, edited by Skullflower/Ascension guitarist Stefan Jaworzyn. (Thrower, Jaworzyn and Savage Pencil/Edwin Pouncey would record a 7" EP together as Satin Chickens in 1992). When Shock Xpress folded, he began his own film journal - Eyeball: The European Sex and Horror Review - first published in 1989. It was the beginning of his parallel career as a writer on cult and avant-garde cinema. Eyeball would feature interviews with such legendary film-makers as Alejandro Jodorowsky, Paul Morrissey and Andrzej Zulawski, as well as contributions from other critics, and guests including Britain's foremost writer of horror fiction, Ramsey Campbell, underground film-maker Anna Thew, and the British film and documentary maker Ron Peck (Thrower appears briefly in Peck's Empire State).

Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the LSD sessions, relations between Thrower, Balance and Christopherson were becoming strained. Following minimal contribution to the album Stolen and Contaminated Songs (the track Wrim Wram Wrom is his last Coil recording) Thrower left the group in 1993.

Between 1990-1997 he played live and recorded with two other groups. Identical were a three-piece comprising Thrower (reeds), Gavin Mitchell (brass) and Orlando (keyboards). Their idiosyncratic live music (a combination of jazz and electronics) led to recordings being commissioned for performance artist Franko B and for Anna Thew's controversial Cling Film, commissioned by Channel 4 in 1993 and then censored on transmission due to the film's abundance of erect penises. Put Put, a band formed by These Recordspi Andy and Howard Jacques, featured Thrower once again on sax and clarinet, with Andy Diagram on trumpet against the Jacquespi rhythm section. Successive gigs built a dense wall of sound, captured for posterity on the Blast First compilation Three Fingers and a Fumb (sic). Studio recordings involving avant-garde composer/collagist John Wall developed a less rhythmic approach (see The Ash International compilation Mesmer Variations), culminating in a day-long show at The Beaconsfield Gallery in 1997, featuring Put Put in association with Bruce Gilbert and Panasonic.

At the same time as the split with Coil in 1993, Thrower met Simon Norris - their close and enduring friendship continues to this day. After ceasing other musical commitments, the pair began work on what was to become the first Cyclobe album, Luminous Darkness, released in 1999. Also completed in 1999, after five years of writing and research, was Thrower's first book, Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci, published to positive acclaim and hailed as the final word on the Italian director's career.

Other Places of Interest on the web:

• cyclobe.com