“…a satisfying ride into the heart and soul of imagination"
Something Stirs: a 12-song collection of attrition’s rarest and earliest recordings, many never before released.
Remixed and enhanced from the original 4 track-tapes and live recordings.
The raw post punk sound of the early live shows evolving into the dark electronic atmospheres of their first recorded works…
An essential insight into the evolution of one of the UK’s original gothic industrial groups…
The second release on the band’s newly formed label, Two Gods.
Cover artwork by by renowned US artist Matt Lombard.
ATTRITION are pioneers in a darker electronica. Formed in 1980 in Coventry, England, influenced by a mix of punk ideology and experimental art aesthetics, they emerged as part of the early '80s UK Industrial scene alongside contemporaries Coil, Test Department, Legendary Pink Dots, In The Nursery, Portion Control et al.
Founder Martin Bowes has steered the band through a 25-year career, fueled by a succession of critically acclaimed albums, live tours and appearances on a number of film soundtracks....
The band are currently touring Europe, the USA and South America in support of their recently released 25-year anniversary best of collection Tearing arms from Deities….
Websites: www.attrition.co.uk www.myspace.com/danteskitchen
From the Something Stirs sleevenotes…
'Cassette culture. The early ‘80s saw a boom in independently produced music. A post-punk DIY ethos perhaps best exemplified by the emergence of the cassette only labels. Bypassing the established music industry completely these labels recorded, produced and released their music in often bizarrely attractive packaging and, with little or no real marketing in any traditional sense, and were an effective alternative to the traditional route of career progression…
It worked.
For a while.
Like anything, times change. Cassettes became mainstream fashion.
Cassettes became outdated and were no longer the way forward.
25 years later it is the CDR and mp3 downloads that have turned the industry on it’s head yet again.
But there is a legacy that Attrition are proud to have been a part of.
We released many of our early works...recorded at home on our 4 track portastudio with an assortment of guitar pedals… on cassette labels in the UK, Europe and the US…
Some tracks from this period…most famously Monkey in a bin and Shrinkwrap, were re-recorded for subsequent vinyl releases, but many have been lost for the last 20 years, the original cassette mixes were long gone or the sound quality was really not something I wanted to release in 2006…
A friend lent me his old portastudio recently and I trawled through all the old 4 track tapes..(I knew I had been carrying them round with me for 20 years for a reason...)
Transferred to PC and cleaned up these recordings sounded so vibrant...the sound of an attrition that hardly anyone has heard in so long… and the roots of all our subsequent work.
Added to these recordings are 3 live tracks from our earliest incarnation… the only available recordings of us with our only drummer… from a live performance in our hometown, Coventry, from 1981… and never previously released..
Enjoy.
Martin Bowes. Coventry, England. 2006.'
