Toronto-based label Artoffact Records announced in April that it would be reissuing the entire Nettwerk Records-owned catalogue of electronic and experimental group Download. The releases will come this summer, for the first time ever, on vinyl.
Download recorded three albums and one full-length
EP for Nettwerk between 1996 and 2000: The Eyes of Stanley
Pain, III, and Effector, along with the Sidewinder EP.
Those albums, particularly The Eyes of Stanley Pain, have become
legendary to electronic music fans and Skinny Puppy collectors
alike. Famously, all the artwork, save for that on Effector, was
done by Dave McKean.
Download started as a post-Skinny Puppy project,
following the break-up of the famous industrial band in the mid-90s,
initially as a collaboration between Cevin Key and the
late Dwayne Goettel. Dead Voices on Air mastermind Mark
Spybey, as well as Phil Western (AKA Philth) also
joined the band. The band has recorded several albums for
Nettwerk, Metropolis Records, and Key's own Subsconscious
Communications imprint, and the majority of these have been
reissued on vinyl by Artoffact.
Mark Spybey on
recording The Eyes of Stanley Pain:
"Much of the Eyes of Stanley Pain and Sidewinder were recorded within a month, in very different circumstances to Furnace and Microscopic (which were largely made up of edited improvisations) shortly after Dwayne passed away and Phil’s temporary exit from the band. cEvin and I [Mark Spybey] held the fort and Ken Marshall engineered the recordings. Most of the recordings were done by cEvin and me with a lot of help from Ken. There was more of an emphasis on creating coherent song structures featuring more of my vocals. Extended members of the family contributed in passing and Anthony Valcic entered late in the day to help. Anthony and Ken for example did a lot of work on Glassblower, and my vocals were recorded in Bryan Adams' studio. It all came together very quickly. cEvin and I were determined to create a harsher, more aggressive feel to this album."
Details about the four new reissues can be found
online at these links:
http://www.stormingthebase.com/download-iii-2lp-vinyl-splatter/
http://www.stormingthebase.com/download-effector-2lp-vinyl-splatter/
http://www.stormingthebase.com/download-effector-2lp-vinyl-splatter/