Towering Inferno was the duo of musicians Richard Wolfson and Andy Saunders . Wolfson was also a performance artist , cameraman and journalist , and had previously worked with Saunders in several groups . Wolfson and Saunders , both of European-Jewish descent , formed Towering Inferno in 1985 as an " ambient , techno and heavy metal " multimedia stage project that involved electronics and film . The duo toured Europe , augmenting their performances with slide and super 8 projectors . In 1986 they met Hungarian performance poet Endre Szkárosi in Italy at the Bologna Festival and were impressed by his cryptic works which challenged Communist dictatorship and explored European identity . Wolfson and Saunders decided to explore their own identities and spent the next five years on the road filming , performing and creating what became '' Kaddish '' , named for the Jewish prayer of the same name . Roger Riley , a visual director who accompanied Wolfson and Saunders across Europe , said that " The long gestation of the project gave it a depth and richness it would not otherwise have had " . They travelled thousands of miles , performing in Europe 's underground circuit in venues as diverse as riding stables and slaughterhouses . These images , including those from a visit to the Dachau concentration camp , stimulated the creative process . Saunders said that they were also influenced by their experiences as children in synagogue , in particular sounds of the shofar , kaddish and the choirs . He said he found it unusual the other Jewish musicians like Bob Dylan , Lou Reed and Leonard Cohen tended to shy away from their " Jewishness " rather than embrace it . Towering Inferno began performing '' Kaddish '' in the mid-1980s , and started recording it in 1991 . The duo described the work , which included references to the history and folk-lore of Central and Eastern Europe and to the Shoah , as " a dream history of Europe in the wake of the Holocaust "
Shoah
The Holocaust
Kaddish (Towering Inferno album)