・name: COUP DE GRACE
・area: USA - EUROPE
・member: Michael Moynihan
・involved projects: Blood Axis, Sleep Chamber, Blood Conspiracy, Boyd Rice And Friends, Witch-Hunt, etc.
・organized label: Coup De Grace Productions
・accomplice labels: Coup De Grace Productions, Club Moral, Cthulhu Records, Inner-X-Musick, Gut Level Music, Tellus, Warcom Media, Korm Plastics
Influenced by first wave Industrial music artists such as SPK and Throbbing Gristle, Moynihan started his first musical project in 1984, a power electronics project named Coup de Grace, for which he produced cassettes, image booklets, essays and performed live. In 1988, at the age of 18, Moynihan published an edition of Friedrich Nietzsche's The Antichrist featuring artwork by Trevor Brown.
According to Moynihan, a cassette from his project Coupe de Grace was received by a group called Club Moral in Belgium, resulting in a positive review in an art and music magazine called Force Mental. This resulted in an invitation for Moynihan to come to Europe, which he accepted, and resulted in a small European tour for Coup de Grace. Here, he came in contact with Cthulhu Records. Upon returning to Boston in the United States, he was invited to join the experimental music group Sleep Chamber.
While a member of Sleep Chamber, Moynihan met Thomas Thorn. According to Moynihan, a falling out occurred between Thorn and John Zewizz, founder of Sleep Chamber, resulting in Moynihan leaving Sleep Chamber and moving to Belgium, where he lived in a warehouse on invitation by Club Moral. During this time, Moynihan described himself as a Skinhead. Living without electricity, a low monthly fee and illegally in Belgium, Moynihan stated it was "worth the risk" but had to install many of his own utilities.
Thorn, who had formed a new group called Slave State, visited Moynihan in Belgium and the two played in a room beneath the warehouse where Moynihan was staying at this time. After the show, Moynihan became displeased with his illegal status and visited the founders of Cthulhu Records in Germany for a few days.
After returning to the US in 1989, Moynihan formed the musical group Blood Axis and no longer produced music under the name of Coup de Grace.
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