Inspired by the groundbreaking music of Chrome, Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, Portion Control, The Legendary Pink Dots, and others, Skinny Puppy experimented with electronic recording techniques and methods. the band composed multi-layered music generally using keyboards, synthesizers, found sounds, drum machines, live percussion, tape splices, samplers, and conventional rock music instruments. Whereas many contemporary remixes and re-edits of songs were created in order to make a song more suitable for dancing or different radio formats, Skinny Puppy approached remixing and re-editing as an artistic process of reinterpreting compositions, often using remixes to push their sound into styles of ambient, dub and techno. Skinny Puppy's often informal, improvisational approach to musical composition is indicated by use of the term brap, coined by them and defined as a verb meaning "to get together, hook up electronic instruments, get high, and record".
Skinny Puppy's first two proper releases, Bites and Remission, fall somewhere between the found-sound chaos of early Cabaret Voltaire and the abrasive, futuristic synthpop of the Units or Crash Course in Science. While the intense synth programming, abstract rhythms, and surreal samples--all Puppy trademarks--are present here, the albums owe as much to new wave as to industrial.
A subsequent EP, Chainsaw, featured a remix of Bites's "Assimilate" that earned the band some attention from club DJs. 1986's Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse earned Skinny Puppy greater attention, as "Dig It" and "Stairs and Flowers" became alternative club and college radio hits; the video for the former was played occasionally on MTV. The album is arguably less club-friendly than its predecessors, as the band continues to refine a claustrophobic, almost surreal sound that buries rhythm and melody. The follow-up, Cleanse, Fold, and Manipulate treads similar territory.
VIVIsectVI was a breakthrough for the band, with "Testure" becoming their biggest club hit to date, and the album itself was received warmly by college radio. The title of the album was a pun intended to associate vivisection with Satanism (ie. the "666 sect"). The album shows SP integrating more political and social themes: "Testure" is an animal rights song; "VX Gas Attack" concerns the use of chemical weapons; "State Aid" promotes sexual abstinence to stop the spread of AIDS/HIV.
Ogre had become very interested in Ministry and Al Jougensen's side projects, and he persuaded the rest of the band to allow Jourgensen to produce Rabies. While "Worlock" (a track Jourgensen didn't produce) remains an industrial club classic, the album was received coolly, as many thought Jourgensen's heavy metal guitar-based signatures did not compliment SP's more complex, intricate sonic sculptures. The band briefly disbanded afterward.
They reformed and returned to their electronic roots with Too Dark Park, a hallucinogenic album that owes as much to psychedelia as industrial music. Two years later, "Last Rights" covered similar territory, culminating in the epic sound sculpture "Download." Although their sound had moved away from industrial dance, these albums expanded the band's audience, and provided the template for many industrial bands of the 1990s.
Following "Last Rights", the band, poised for a major breakthrough in the wake of Nine Inch Nails' commercial success, left their longtime label Nettwerk for American Recordings. Their highly anticipated followup was unfortunately marred by personal tragedy - the death of Dwayne Goettel - and the band's inability to agree on a direction for the record. Numerous producers, including Martyn Atkins (PigFace/Invisible Records founder) and Roli Mosimann (Swans), came and went without success; finally the band regrouped with longtime collaborator Dave "Rave" Ogilvie to finish "The Process". The band expanded their range, working with gothic pop and heavy metal, alongside their familiar electronic textures. While seemingly rushed to completion following Goettel's death (it sounds half-finished in parts), it is an interesting change for the group. Unfortunately American Recordings, tired of waiting for the record, did little to promote it. Skinny Puppy broke up afterward.
With interests in filmmaking, they made a number of music videos, each attempting to further the theme and concept of the composition at hand. Most of these videos received little air play by major music video networks such as MTV (USA) and MuchMusic (Canada) and some were outright banned. For example the video for "Worlock" was universally banned because it is a "non stop gore fest" of clips from various horror movies. Because none of these clips were authorized for usage in the video it has never been commercially available.
Their concerts have been marked by their bizarre and bloody conceptual performance art, which for every concert was planned with the intention of challenging the notions of all who observed. Their music had some acceptance in dance clubs because of its danceable beats, but had little play on commercial radio. Skinny Puppy had little commercial success outside of Canada, but their influence on industrial music is immense.
The band began with the intention of doing something "raw" and "real." Ogre's vocals, one of Skinny Puppy's most recognizable features, are typically roughly growled snarls of half-sentences and fragmented stream of consciousness. Lyrical themes included animal rights, politics, religion, horror, drug abuse, disease, and environmental degradation; these themes were often lyrically and conceptually intertwined. Other core aspects of the Skinny Puppy sound include the mixture of heavy sampling and experimental noise with softer musical styles sometimes approaching synthpop.
Post-punk politics are a recurring theme utilised by Skinny Puppy. Some say the meaning of their name is that their music and lyrics give a view of the world from the eyes of a starving animal. They have long had an interest in animal rights; this is most obvious in their song Testure, which is about vivisection and other animal testing being scientific fraud. During many of their concerts Ogre would take the role of "scientist" and experiment on a stuffed animal. In 1988 they were arrested for their mocked-up vivisections, and found it ironic to be arrested for a parody of what was happening for real across the street from their concert. During their TGWOTR tour, criticism of the Bush regime was a recurring theme, particularly during their performance of VX Gas Attack, a song about atrocities perpetrated by Saddam Hussein, originally released while he was still considered an ally of the United States.
The last two studio albums are points of contention for old school Puppy fans. During the recording of The Process, the band broke up. Even more tragically, Dwayne Rudolph Goettel died, from an apparent heroin overdose at his parent's home, soon afterwards. Some people say that cEvin, Nivek, and Dwayne didn't connect as well on this album as they had earlier because their respective musical interests were diverging at the time, others claim it was the heroin.
Key and Ogre later reunited as Skinny Puppy for a one-off concert in Germany in 2003. Afterwards, they decided Skinny Puppy should continue as an ongoing project. The newly reconstituted Skinny Puppy released The Greater Wrong of the Right in 2004, their first studio album in 8 years, and have been continuing since, constantly evolving their sound.
There have been a number of Skinny Puppy side projects, both before, and after the breakup in 1995. The Tear Garden is a collaboration between cEvin and Edward Ka-Spel (and later most band members) of The Legendary Pink Dots. Other noteable side projects include Download, Hilt, Plateau, Cyberaktif (a collaboration between Key & Goettel and Bill Leeb, a.k.a. Wilhelm Schroeder), Rx (one-off collaboration between Ogre and Martin Atkins), ADuck (Goettel's side project), A CHUD Convention (one-off collaboration with a;GRUHM...), Ogre's contributions to Pigface, Ogre and Mark Walk's band ohGr and solo releases from cEvin Key.
Amnesia
Skinny Puppy Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Intolerable kick set in glass grasp a moment shattered
A lock on the door scraping demon trapped resides
Starving for freedom all my strength to keep inside
Tear it down
To summon heads rush all perception void and meaningless
Anti fathoms life in spite of it negate all feeling fractured
Mocked deplore naming reverse remote viewing
Empathetic lesion surrounding the guilt cannot deny
Tear it down a process to describe
Whatever truth means nothing
When adding no results times a shallow digging through
The mud thrown out so expectable intentions not up front
And the shit that never faced reflects the sliver
Looped a flaw rotates forever unresolved
Tear it down
The lyrics of Skinny Puppy's song Amnesia delve deep into the feelings of a person trapped in their own body, unable to escape their demons and craving freedom. The first verse speaks of a feeling of helplessness and a sense of not belonging in one's own skin, with the line "For reasons untold born a body mass no excuse for" illustrating a lack of agency over one’s own body. The second line, "Intolerable kick set in glass grasp a moment shattered," speaks to the fragility of the psyche and how easily it can be broken.
The second verse delves into the psychological imprisonment the person feels, with the line "A lock on the door scraping demon trapped resides" indicating the person is trapped by their own demons. The line "Starving for freedom all my strength to keep inside" showcases their inner turmoil and how much they crave to break free. The chorus, "Tear it down," shows the desperation of the situation and the need to break free from the emotional and psychological chains holding them back.
The third verse speaks to the person’s sense of disconnection from reality and their disillusionment with it. "Anti fathoms life in spite of it negate all feeling fractured" speaks to the person’s rejection of normalcy and their rejection of societal expectations. The line "Mocked deplore naming reverse remote viewing" showcases their discomfort with labels and the stereotypes that come with them. The final line, "Tear it down a process to describe/Whatever truth means nothing," speaks to the person’s rejection of traditional definitions of truth and the need to break free from these restrictive definitions.
Overall, the lyrics of Amnesia showcase the complex and difficult emotions of a person trapped by their own inner demons and seeking freedom. The song encourages listeners to break down societal and personal barriers in order to find inner peace and freedom.
Line by Line Meaning
For reasons untold born a body mass no excuse for
Being born with a body is no excuse for anything and we don’t know the reason for our existence.
Intolerable kick set in glass grasp a moment shattered
We experience a severe pain which feels like kicking glass, causing a moment to shatter into pieces.
A lock on the door scraping demon trapped resides
A demon resides within us, trapped and scraping to break free behind a locked door.
Starving for freedom all my strength to keep inside
We crave freedom but have the strength to keep our true selves hidden within us.
Tear it down
We want to tear down the barriers that keep us trapped and hidden.
If I could move heaven or hell I would
We would do whatever it takes to change our situation, even if it means moving heaven or hell.
To summon heads rush all perception void and meaningless
By summoning our thoughts, everything becomes meaningless and void of perception.
Anti fathoms life in spite of it negate all feeling fractured
We are against understanding life, we negate all feeling, and feel fractured as a result.
Mocked deplore naming reverse remote viewing
We are mocked for our beliefs, deploring the process of naming and engaging in reverse remote viewing.
Empathetic lesion surrounding the guilt cannot deny
We have a lesion of empathy which surrounds our guilt, and we cannot deny its presence.
Tear it down a process to describe
Our process of tearing down barriers can be described as violent and destructive.
Whatever truth means nothing
The truth holds no meaning for us anymore.
When adding no results times a shallow digging through
We get no results when we dig shallowly through our thoughts and feelings.
The mud thrown out so expectable intentions not up front
We throw out our thoughts and intentions, which are not up front or easily predictable.
And the shit that never faced reflects the sliver
The things we never faced in our lives reflect the small slivers of ourselves that are still hidden.
Looped a flaw rotates forever unresolved
Our flaws continue to rotate in a never-ending cycle, unresolved and unchanging.
Tear it down
We continue to want to tear down the barriers that keep us trapped and hidden.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind