The Hand that Feeds

reviews

Electroage's webzine Favorite - September 2000

"Attrition’s Martin Bowes has always approached his take on electro-gothic music with a precise and artistic touch, and this collection of remixes only enhances that aspect of the band. Unlike most remix albums, The Hand That Feeds is not a showcase for other bands to deconstruct the original material and dominate with their own styles, this album handles the original songs with a great deal of respect, improving and strengthening the original material.

Attrition have always been a nexus of industrial fury, gothic drama, ambient structural finesse and classical chamber orchestrations. Stunning in scope, character and intellect, Martin Bowes has always been a paragon of true creative prowess, holding in two hands the past and future of music, and smashing them together with a calculated and charismatic menace. Bowes will build his dark industrial music with all the compassion and attention to detail of a classical musician, and with this to work with, the remixers on The Hand That Feeds have a lot to live up to, and they do it.

Cold Genius and Waste Not Want….More are turned into moments of darkly electronic minimalist dance tracks by Polaxe and D.O.S. respectively, after which a heavy punch is delivered by Stromkern’s apocalyptic assault on Cosmetic Citizen, a track that single-handedly reinvents “industrial-gothic”, mixing the banshee vocals of Julia Waller down against the elegant menace of Bowes’ voice, all against a raging and beautiful electronic storm. Chris And Cosey place a sinister electronica pulse under I Am (Eternity), while In The Nursery apply their skeletal filmic touches to the same song. A wicked Middle Eastern gothic groove propels Morbus Kitahara’s mix of White Men Talk, creating a truly engaging and vaguely ominous piece of music. Attrition remix The Mercy Machine, a violent and extremely visual track, and heighten the surreal theme of submitting to a strange bio-machine. Of particular note is The Truth remix of Ephemeral by Craig Ward; the Ephemera was a limited-edition release of Bowes’ sound experimentations, and Ward here gives them a sublime beat while maintaining the original cold minimalism.

Each mix does justice to the original tracks and often improves them by an overall update of the sound. Also, the remixers all take the opportunity to soften the edges or tone down the sometimes abrasive mock-operatic vocals of Julia Waller, and this is an improvement much needed. The Hand That Feeds is a monumental release; it takes a brilliant band and augments or highlights their strengths and artistically smoothes the rough spots, allowing Attrition’s true capabilities to ultimately shine through."

Freq. zine. UK. 2000

O hail and wail, the Goth revolution lingers... In glorious cinema-like
splendor, Martin Bowes and Attrition present us with a double CD collection of some of the most little known but well done Goth extravaganzas chronicling some seventeen years of persistent vision and beauty of sound.
Over time, Mr.Bowes and his various collaborators have done much for the bringing together of electronics with raw form music, and though I doubt anyone would rush to give credit to him for this, perhaps we should re-think it all. Attrition is somewhere just to the upper left hand corner of the Gothic world, riding off-center of Industrial Dance and crawling out from under some stacks of baroque centuries old Classical. There is a definite remembrance involved in listening to this collection of the late Eighties/early Nineties, a time when gay clubs in America were just about the only haven for lovers of the darker side, for the kids who wanted to paint themselves and go dance. Now of course, this is all just a fashion statement in the minds of many, and goth clubs turn into tourist attractions in almost every city of the world.

Every now and again, one can hear the question being asked concerning how it is that over and over again there is this resurgence of the black-clad, death abiding, vampire worship trend in outcast youth. How does the market rebuild itself over and over and over and who are the icons of the genre? Certainly there is no danger of thinking that death and darkness are only explored by children of recent times. As Colette wrote in 1936 "...There is always a moment in the lives of the very young when death seems as natural and as attractive as life..." and one only needs to study history, of any
time, and any place, to learn that youth has always speculated on the wonders of the dark, on the nether.That this preocupation has found its way to expression in modern times through musick and through its surrounding cultures and fashions should be of no suprise. As for the icons of this mystery in the sense of now, Martin Bowes deserves to be considered a major force in the proliferation of darkness as a way of light.

And how polite and considerate of Attrition to put together this sort of
"Best of.." to waken the memories and pull down the shrouds. I have caught the big lump in my sad throat with almost every track, carried back and heralding my own zombie walk through youth as I listen and remember. It is only now with this nearly 20 year perspective that I realized how much of that was soundtracked by Attrition. Less obvious in name than Bauhaus or the late Roz Williams and his Christian Death, but nevertheless as powerful and influential. Perhaps more so as Attrition did give us that bridge from vampire land over to the isles of the likes of Skinny Puppy and Coil. And Goth-Industrial has led a lot of us back into early Jazz and Blues and further still past to all forms of Classical music and literature and art.
Forever there will be the speculation that the exploration of darkness as a beautiful place will lessen our fear of it all, ease the pain a little.

The Hand That Feeds is like a sweet melancholic map through the years of this apparent dream. From 1986 there is the eighth track "Dreamsleep", from the album In The Realm of the Hungry Ghosts which speaks of all this, and all like this, "I have climbed the peak to seek new sensation/Can't retrace my steps trapped in my own creation". Then there is the matter of the other CD in the set. This is a collection of remixes. I do not generally like remixes, don't understand the idea behind it. Why bother with others' interpretations of someone else's musick? Still, this being now, and now being the time everything is rehashed for dancability, I will say there is a
certain fun in having the subject being some of the world's slowest music turned fast. Like chasing up the barbituates with E's. No big suprise, but the best effort on this portion of the set is "I Am (Eternity)" by Chris 'n' Cosey. Less clubby than the rest, more true to the nature of the music and therefore quite more in the traditions, C&C's version almost succeeds in not exploring the what if of Attrition having been an millennial rave band. Almost. Actually, I want to go to the club which plays Attrition remixes and explore for myself the idea of dancing faster, if not happier. I suppose it can be said then that this remix album has opened my mind to the idea more
than any other, and it is still Attrition after all, and thankfully
recognizable as such.

-Lilly Novak-