Skinny Puppy: Remix Dystemper, Nine Inch Nails: Things Falling Apart

 

Currently enjoying “Remix Dystemper” by Skinny Puppy

In 1998, when Remix Dystemper first hit the shelves, Skinny Puppy had broken up following years of acrimony and the death of keyboardist Dwayne Goettel. Although they would reform a few years later as a duo, the remix album, featuring tracks drawn from over a decade of material, was very much a retrospective at the time of its release. Today, it feels like a look back at the first and arguably best chapter of the group’s history.

Equal parts remix album and tribute album, the disc features reworkings of notable tracks by artists who were influenced by the group – and the eclectic range of remixers suggests that the group’s influence was a lot broader than you might expect from a Canadian industrial band.

Many of the remixes are updated and more accessible versions of older, heavier singles; the God Lives Underwaterversion of “Testure” and the Günter Schulz mix of “Addiction” come to mind. Others, like the Ken “Hiwatt” Marshall remix of “Rodent” or the Adrian Sherwood mix of “Tin Omen,” top the source material in many ways.

There are even some heavy departures: Chris Vrenna offers a remarkably subdued mix of “Assimilate,” and Josh Winkcloses the album out with an extended techno version of “Chainsaw” that works surprisingly well.

They’re not all gems, of course. Guru contributes a hip hop take on “Censor” that feels misplaced at best. The Autechreremix of “The Killing Game” is so far removed from the original – and from any sort of musical structure – that calling it a “remix” is a stretch. And I do think the remixes of “Smothered Hope” and “Dig It” are two of the best tracks that future member Mark Walk has ever done, but that’s mainly because I kind of hate the rest of his work.

Back when it was released, Remix Dystemper was a great contemporary take on a lengthy body of work, and a great bridge between new audiences and the band’s back catalog. The extent to which that’s true today is probably the same extent to which kids these days are still listening to Deftones, but it’s a mighty fine record all the same.

-Matt Blair, 2010

Nine Inch Nails: “Things Falling Apart”

The only phenomenon more surprising than the five years it took Trent Reznor to finish The Fragile, his follow-up to The Downward Spiral, was the highly anticipated album's commercial failure. Maybe its epic double-disc size scared off fair-weather fans, or maybe Reznor's electronic angst proved too ambitious and enigmatic for those who had moved on to the more immediate, less challenging pleasures of the rap-metal set. Either way, The Fragile's varied sonic palette still holds up more than a year later, resonating as both an impressionistic sonic collage and a collection of songs. Reznor, for his part, doesn't appear too concerned with the public's fickle tastes. The new Things Falling Apart takes some of The Fragile's tracks and roughs them up even more, tossing them to a pack of remixers that chews them up like dog toys. As with Nine Inch Nails' previous remix collections, Reznor often dissects his own songs, which not only hints at a sense of perverse creative masochism, but also acknowledges the constant mutability of modern electronic music. With mixer Alan Moulder, Reznor strips down "Into The Void," then rebuilds the song from the ground up. On-U Sound mastermind, industrial music dabbler, and longtime Reznor ally Adrian Sherwood trips out "Starfuckers, Inc." with some of his patented dub techniques, cloaking the track with oppressive grit and echo. Benelli's liquid version of "The Frail" is even more subdued than the album cut, leading perfectly to Dave Ogilvie's own fuzzy techno take on "Starfuckers, Inc." Adding extra value to the already budget-priced collection is "The Great Collapse," a funky but muted unreleased track from the Fragile sessions that surely had plenty of company in Reznor's vaults, as well as a clanking cover of Gary Numan's "Metal" that once again points to the synth pioneer as an industrial-rock precursor.

-Joshua Klein, AVclub, 2000

Drive link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V5a68iaI6AToS0vljt6RSeZ2ENPkis-_/view?usp=drivesdk