downLOAD

Rising from the ashes of Vancouver's Skinny Puppy, perhaps the most influential industrial band of them all, the phoenix Download first appeared in 1995 with the abrasively experimental Furnace and its follow-up EP, Microscopic. Comprised at this time of the core of cEvin Key and the now-late Dwayne Goettel, the duo was augmented by Philth and Mark Spybey (formerly of Zoviet France and currently with Dead Voices on Air). The following year saw the release of The Eyes of Stanley Pain and its companion EP, Sidewinder (although on these CDs, Philth had been replaced by Ken Marshall). Maintaining the harshness of its predecessors, these CDs combined elements of house funk, avant-garde experimentations, and industrial ambience. During this same time, a third permutation of Download (Key and Goettel working with Phil Western) composed a soundtrack for Jim VanBebber's film, Charlie's Family. Although just as experimental as their previous works, this soundtrack was more ambient and atmospheric than the band's previous efforts, showing the diversity as well as the compositional strengths of Key and Goettel. III was again an obvious departure from their previous style, with Dwayne passing away and Spybey's departure (due to creative differences and Spybey's "Dead Voices On Air" project), Key, Philth, and Anthony Valcic continued on and recorded - with an almost improvisational effort, III is a mesh of beautiful analog synths and sequencers with "quarky" rhythms. Effector, is also quite a departure from the other releases. Once again, download's music has managed to evolve in to a sound that stands out above other electronic music. Effector is full of harsh, mind-bending, experimental beats that somehow mesh together. This album, as with all download albums, is great to listen to as a whole, with each song being an organic chapter of a book.