UK brothers Klive and Nigel Humberstone are more than just siblings – they’re identical twins, leading to a theme they’ve observed more than once in their joint careers. They form the core of In The Nursery, an active creative partnership that has now stretched across nearly fifty years of numerous remarkable albums, creative projects and more. While they initially found a footing in a 1980s underground defined by the lingering impact of post-punk, electronic experimentation and the gelling of what could be called industrial music, they’ve ultimately become something more sui generis, not quite categorizable as any one thing except their own sound. Call it modern classical music, dark wave, explorations of numerous sonic or linguistic approaches or the desire to create – to quote the title of their early 2026 album collecting some late 1980s demos – a soundtrack to an imaginary film, what In The Nursery does is ultimately its own distinct creative expression.
Born near London, the Humberstones were raised in a family with a creative bent, as their father Arthur Humberstone was a quietly legendary figure in British animation in particular, with credits on film and TV work including Yellow Submarine, Watership Down and The Plague Dogs. They went to separate colleges in Sheffield, leading to the origin of In The Nursery in the early 1980s, initially with the participation of guitarist Anthony Bennett. Following an initial EP release and a single on the short-lived Paragon label and a subsequent EP on New European, after which Bennett departed, they found a home on Sweatbox, releasing three albums of vivid, dramatic and unusual electronic-centered compositions, including their appropriately titled debut Twins, Stormhorse – the first album they specifically considered as an imaginary soundtrack – and Köda. Being on Sweatbox also meant rubbing shoulders with other British experimentalists like Meat Beat Manifesto, all leading to wider attention in a transnational industrial scene in particular. This was accentuated by the addition of two further notable members during this run: Dolores Marguerite C, a multilingual vocalist of French origin, and the simply named Q, who added a further distinct element in the form of martial snare drumming.
1989 saw the release of a retrospective compilation, Counterpoint, showcasing some of their strongest individual moments on Sweatbox such as “Breach Birth,” “Iskra,” “Elegy” and “Workcorps (Fist Style).” This was also one of their first releases on Wax Trax in America, directly bringing their work to the wide ranging scene centered around that imprint in particular. After Sweatbox ceased to be, their debut for the Third Mind label in the UK, 1990’s L’Esprit, further showed where the band was heading in the new decade, being a mostly instrumental presentation that used further developments in electronic software to create strongly atmospheric songs via classical orchestra sounds and sonic elements. This not only led to further albums in this vein but, given how readily this work lent itself to comparisons to film music, their first of many movie soundtracks, 1993’s An Ambush of Ghosts. Following 1994’s Anatomy of a Poet, Q left the band, but a variety of snare drummers, most regularly David Elektrik, have continued in the role since, while over time a number of classically trained performers have participated in studio recordings to further texture the group’s work; Dolores Marguerite C can be found over most of the group’s core albums still.
In 1995, the band founded what’s been their own label for releases since, ITN Corporation, with the Scatter compilation, plus various reissues and new work to follow, notably the start of what they term their Optical Music Series. This work revolves around a series of commissioned soundtracks for various famous or newly appreciated silent films from the past, starting in 1996 with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and continuing irregularly for many years. Their work turned up in trailers and beyond for any number of current films as well, while they also explored more dance-specific work until the name Les Jumeaux. They also worked with Andrew Weatherall and his Sabres of Paradise project, including a striking, mournful remix of the song “Haunted Dancehall” that gained unexpected fame in a few years to follow when it featured heavily on BBC radio playlists following the accidental death of Princess Diana. Meanwhile, their own core albums continued, aiming to broaden and explore further sonic and technical approaches as well as pursuing specific themes, including the 1998 multilingual lyric/vocalist project Lingua, the 2002 collection Cause + Effect, where the group offered their work to others to remix, and 2011’s Blind Sound, one of their darkest albums all around in terms of sheer sonic presence and impact, as well as one featuring the most vocals they’d recorded in some time.
Taking the band’s story into the 2020s and up to early 2026, In the Nursery have kept active, not least of which was a project started with the 2020 COVID pandemic and the rise of Bandcamp Fridays in particular. Amid various other releases of various live performances, early tapes and other obscurities, along with the occasional new compilation, the Miscellanea series, starting in May 2020, became a multivolume digital spelunking through their archives, including remixes, instrumentals, and much more besides. Their most recent full original album, 2022’s HUMBERSTONE, continued and further explored the theme of family and personal nostalgia from their 2017 release 1961, each showing the band’s now truly trademark mix of technological and acoustic instrumentation remains vividly strong. Where the brothers go next with their remarkable gifts will yet but seen, but their work remains a compelling argument for the drive for striking out to make a distinct mark, and eschewing the need to follow a specific scene in favor of creating one’s own.