Attrition have been a fixture on the goth/alternative scene since forming back in Coventry in 1980, the band on the A Permanent View album are Martin Bowes with Emke (Black Nail Cabaret), Yvette (Vaselyne), Joanne Wolf, Julia Niblock, Alia Miroshichenko, Annie Hogan, Vancorvid, Marietta Fox, Ian Arkley, Steve Clarke and Kris Force. The album was recorded at The Cage Studios in Covenrtry. A Permanent View? Black Maria Remixed is for Attrition completists and club DJ's only, it contains a variety of remixes of just 3 of the 8 songs on the original album, proving that there is always more than one way to play or mix any decent song, which is why this is a 20-song remix album, unless you're a DJ who wants to drop different mixes into your set, Or you are adding this to a vast playlist and hitting random play, you may find this is a bit too repetitive.
The album opens with The Alibi the Singapore Fountains re-mix, that keeps the central dark gothic vocals and operatic backing vocals surrounding them with lots of percussion and effects.
The first of nine versions of The Great Derailer is the Don Quibeats re-mix, that I assume has filtered the original through Q-base, added some thumping club beats to give it some dancefloor heft. The Chiasm remix of The Great Derailer has an ambient noises and skewered vocal opening, a proper dancefloor part, then it all falls away to almost spoken word interlude, this would confuse a dancefloor entirely.
The Switch Digital Murder remix by Martine has dark grizzled vocals and ululating strings over a driving beat, the long tones set against the beats are perfect for the techno EBM dancefloor.
The Alibi The Vaselyne second mix has a cool acoustic guitar backed by minimalist beats for the perfect Alibi to unfold feeling like it's somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa trying to avoid another awful conflict, the vocals switch around the speakers, this is my pick of the mixes so to speak.
The Great Derailer Kitty electro remix is a synth pop version that keeps the vocals upfront, to make clear all the horrors they are singing about in these darkest of times. Whatever The Great Derailer does the thing he shouldn't do is entertain you.
The Alibi Spank The Nun Remix is bleep, glitch disconcerting distortion of despair, the operatic background vocal cuts through the claustrophobia of this mix, that sounds like you're in a far too packed small pitch-black dark room. The Bellhead Mix follows and is slight in comparison, the computer games noises feel too gentle, when it goes almost spoken word your left in no doubt to the need for an Alibi.
The next version of The Great Derailer is the Chopstick Orchestra remix whose dark bass majesty and spaced-out electronica add more paranoia and fear to the lyrics.
The Alibi The Bold Eagle remix samples the Wedding March and other ambient twists in its intro, then explodes with odd, distended beats, if you aren't singing along by now then you clearly haven't heard the message yet, you may have got too deep onto the dancefloor.
The Great Derailer Fakzility remix is stomping techno dancefloor action. The Batboy Slim remix of it goes in an uplifting techno dancefloor groove, so you can throw shapes at all those dictators.
The Switch The Stability Issues Mark Rainbow mix is super claustrophobic, dark ambient malevolent wooshes of sound, with the vocals whispering from behind walls.
The Alibi Panoptica remix is full on thumping beats, EBM dubby drums and effects, that are almost impossible not to dance too. The Microwaved Minimal Mix strips things right back add in some violin, minimal beats and a gated clanking sound, the Perfect Alibi haunts your every waking moment.
The Great Derailer Lights Of Euphoria remix by Thomas Gaarn has a quite 80's synth drum sound, with the vocals quite upfront before strings swirl around, drawing you deeper into the modern dystopian malaise you have been thoroughly infiltrated.
The Alibi Solemn Shapes mix is perfect for throwing some rather slow solemn shapes in the dead of night, Casio style keyboard tones battle the strings to keep things taught and fraught.
The Great Derailer Satori mix is sparse acoustic guitar to begin with before a fusillade of distorting noise washes over you, like a stuck record repeating, a seemingly barely changing hissing noise, over the now buried vocals, clanging nasty hell soundscape droning almost reminiscent of Glenn Brancas guitar symphonies. The Khost Remix is a dark hellscape battering your mind with the motorik wall of industrial nastiness. The music goes all sub sonic when the vocals come in, like random samples, before the noise comes back, this would make me move to a different room in a club.
The album closes with Jenna Leigh Raine Witch mix of The Switch comes with slow ambient keyboard tonalities that feels like a quite relaxed come down coda.
Find out more at https://attritionuk.bandcamp.com/album/a-permanent-view-black-maria-remixed https://attrition.co.uk/ https://www.facebook.com/ATTRITIONMUSIC https://linktr.ee/attrition
