A Generated Brap on Skinny Puppy

Before she left town, a good friend told me that since I was a "nice boy," I should stay away from Skinny Puppy. I nevertheless wandered into their world a few months later. They reminded me of the Cocteau Twins — if the Twins were on fire, or drowning, or about to go nuclear. The keyboards were sublime and haunting, the vocals provocative in a boots on the ground sort of way. I was already getting into A Split-Second, Front 242, and Nitzer Ebb, so Skinny Puppy felt like the next logical step in my growing obsession with bands creating unreal soundscapes. Someone even gifted me Too Dark Park for Christmas the year it came out. 

I often wonder why they aren’t the biggest band in the world. I guess I’m hearing something sacred and spiritual that most people don’t—maybe something they never intended—but the musicality under the noise is real, and it runs deep. There’s so much composition and detail in their work that it reminds me of the classical music I grew up on—the sense that nothing is accidental, that themes are moving and changing beneath the surface whether you’re tracking them or not. Something the Cocteau Twins also do magnificently. I still don’t understand how sounds shaped by marijuana and heroin can end up so audibly visceral. 

• Puppy was my gateway to O Yuki Conjugate, Lorn, the Lustmord/Robert Rich imaginary soundtrack for the film Stalker, just to name a few. 
• In 1992 I nearly threw up after a dance-off to Spasmolytic at the Galleria in Rexburg, Idaho, formerly Ricks College now BYUI.
• In the early 2000s my wife heard someone listening to Skinny Puppy in the USU design studio, an accident that introduced me to my brother from another mother. 
• He and I got to see Skinny Puppy in concert in 2014, which felt less like attending a show and more like something coming full circle. I had to teach in church the next day, it did not go well. 
• There was someone else there that night, front and center. He sort of looked like Martin Gore. A few years later, I saw him sitting in the hallway, waiting for his turn to DJ for our college radio station and we got acquainted. 
• The next time we ran into each other, he was playing keyboards for Indigo Waves, when they opened for the Ocean Blue. 
• Check out Tear or Beat, Icebreaker, One Time One Place, Incision, Rodent, Harsh Stone White, Dal, Survivalisto, Blue Serge, Inquisition, Tsudanama...
• Handover is out of print but the tracks Ovirt, Village, and Point deserve a shout out. 
• Favorite album? Probably Remission or maybe VIVISectVI.
• If you listen on headphones Download seems like the terrifying "soundtrack" of someone dying from an overdose. I can't listen to it anymore. 

I’m drawn to things that don’t sit right on the surface—music that’s more layered than it needs to be, theology that leaves room for mystery, friendships that happen in odd places because two people notice the same thing at the same time. The best things don’t announce themselves. People gather in unexpected places, and the ones worth knowing are usually the ones who heard something in the noise. Here's to you Nivek, Cevin, and Dwayne (RIP).

Brap On!