NON TOXIQUE LOST: founded in 1982 in Mainz/Germany, based in Berlin since 1995 - political, electronic, experimental music.

L-R:
Peter Prieur (aka 'Pogo') (vocals), Achim Wollscheid (synthesizers, guitar),
Sea Wanton (vocals, synthesizers), T.poem (†) (bass, violin, effects),
image courtesy of 'cherrypop', 1982

'Pogo' proposed the name for the band. Being then in 1982 a big fan of 'Cosey Fanni Tutti' (who played guitar with 'Throbbing Gristle'), and the 'Zyklon B Zombie' was his beloved song. So he proposed the name of another poison-gas as a band-name. 'LOST' had been used at World War I by the german army against the french army. It's a acronym of the names 'Lommel' and 'Steinkopf', the both german scientists, who developed this weapon (about those 2 scientists you will, still nowaddays, not find many informations at the web).

L-R: Sea Wanton + Achim Wollscheid, 2008

"Non Toxique Lost' began in the early '80s as a German industrial band that had stuck true ..to the avant-garde / difficult listening propositions to also come through Throbbing Gristle ..and Dome. While plenty of other industrialists such as Psychic TV and Einstürzende Neubauten ..honed their craft for occluded electronics with sinister motives into downright catchy tunes, ..'Non Toxique Lost' chose a murky collage strategy for metal bashing, undulating electronic ..arppegiations, and megaphone vocal barking. Wanton was the first album for 'Non Toxique Lost', ..recorded between 1982 and 1984 and released a year later on vinyl. There's an aggressive deconstruction of sound within the primitive synth-punk arrangements which get splattered into amassed distortion from guitar freakouts blowing out of way too small amplifiers on top of lumbering electronic loops, all of which get cut up and mangled on tape. One of the early members of 'Non Toxique Lost' was Achim Wollscheid, who had also begun his solo project of DIY musique concrete called S.B.O.T.H.I. before developing his highly conceptual sound art projects throughout the late '90s. It seems that 'Non Toxique Lost' is still around, although Wollscheid left many years ago. Either way, Wanton is a fascinating document of art-damaged noise from this little known German industrial project." (source: 'Aquarius Records', San Francisco, USA)

L-R: Jammin' Unit, Sea Wanton
image courtesy of 'adsx' (Alexander Ton, 2015)

"fuck yeah. Non Toxique Lost's 'ogre-sse' ain't for the weak. dropped in 2005 but sounds like it crawled outta a 1983 dumpster fire - in the best way. this ain't music, it's audio violence. recorded live across Germany during the peak of industrial madness. Berlin, Frankfurt, Amsterdam - these cats were spreading sonic plague. what hits hard? the rawness. zero polish. zero fucks given. Achim Wollscheid on electronics and guitar? absolute madman. Steffen Schütze dragging bass and violin through broken glass. Sea Wanton's vocals? sounds like a possessed priest having a seizure. tracks like "kriegstanz" and "der tod des soldaten" are pure mechanical warfare. "pdg"? 3 minutes of pure noise terrorism. love it. but nah, not perfect. some tracks bleed together. after "wer keinen schmerz mehr spürt", your ears need a goddamn break. the whole thing's relentless - which is the point, i get it - but feels like being punched in the face for 45 minutes straight. also, zero warmth. this album hates comfort. if you want melody, go listen to abba. this is anti-music. vinyl-on-demand pressed only 500 copies. limited shit. white label promo? forget about it. makes it feel like you're holding forbidden data. which you kinda are. funny thing? despite all the chaos, there's a twisted kind of beauty. in the wreckage. like finding a rose growing in a bombed-out church. "montmartre" almost sounds... human? until it doesn't. bottom line: "ogre-sse" isn't an album you enjoy. it's one you survive." (source: https://non-toxique-lostma.bandcamp.com/album/ogre-sse)

"NON TOXIQUE LOST – 026750,9 (CD by Klanggalerie) The name Non Toxique Lost is one I heard in the early 1980s, and I occasionally came across the music on compilation cassettes, but I never truly got to listen to it. Later, in Vital Weekly days, I reviewed some of their releases, and even in the most recent one, Vital Weekly 1302, I mentioned that they are still largely unknown to me. As I said before, the music from Non Toxique Lost isn’t easily defined. There are lots of elements in this music, going from old school industrial music, the rhythmic variety, there is some typical German Neubauten-like noise and singing, with a similar punky aggression, some improvised rattling on guitars and percussion, and even something that sounds like pop music in my ears (but, hey, feel free to use that term widely). It somehow sounds like Neue Welle music from all those years ago; the side of the scene releasing music on labels as Zick Zack (whose owner passed away some weeks ago), and not the die-hard cassette scene, even when NTL released many of the earliest releases on that format. Non Toxique Lost’s music is heavy on the vocals of founding member Sea Wanton, which isn’t the musical one, so his approach is more speaking and spelling, like ghostly mumbling, evoking the dark spirits of the past, like a radio play about the descent into madness and a voodoo ritual. The music follows the voice, like a guiding light, freely played on synthesisers, percussive (mostly non-traditional sticks and metal, I think), guitars and lots of things covered by clouds of mystery. A dark and intense release, which perhaps makes it all less poppy – compelling it surely is." (source: Vital Weekly, September 2025) L-R: Jammin' Unit, Sea Wanton, 2018 "Non Toxique Lost stand as one of the lesser-known, though still important bands to appear from Berlin’s early 80’s industrial scene. 026750,9 is the bands thirty fifth album, which appeared in the latter part of last year on Klanggalerie as a CD. The album takes in eleven tracks- each of which have runtimes between two and six minutes. Things kick off with “Seit Gestern” which blends murkily stabbing textures, drifting/ eerily mumbled Germanic vocals, and sinister yet reverberating tonal stretches. As we move through the first half of the album, we come to eerily pumping/ hissing beat work, junk metal unease, and the wavering tonally buzz of “Sing Einfach Mit”. As we move into the second half, we have the track “10” which mixes drifting feedback wails, loose electro stabs, baying harmonics, and building galloping ‘n’ pumping skeletal beats/ distant- yet-distressed vocal ranting. There’s the cluttering junk tones, out-of-tune guitar choppiness, loose cold percussive stabs, and slightly reverbed/ hissing male vocals of “Le Roi”. With the album playing out pulsing bass lines, knocking percussive elements, and mumbled male vocals of “Auch Nur Ein Name Von Vielen”. As an album 026750,9  sits at the murky/ more noise-bound side of the industrial scene, with a decidedly abstract/slightly bleak sci-fi edged to proceeds.  Always great to see a project with this sort of history still plugging away at it." (source: Musiquemachine, February 2026)