''Cleanse Fold and Manipulate'' is the third studio album by Canadian
electro-industrial
Electro-industrial is a music genre that emerged from industrial music in the early 1980s. While EBM (electronic body music) has a minimal structure and clean production, electro-industrial tends to have a grittier, complex and layered sound wi ...
group
Skinny Puppy
Skinny Puppy is a Canadian industrial music group formed in Vancouver in 1982. The group is among the founders of the industrial rock and electro-industrial genres. Initially envisioned as an experimental side-project by cEvin Key (Kevin Crompton ...
. The album was released in 1987 and was supported by a single, "
Addiction
Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to engage in certain behaviors, one of which is the usage of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use o ...
".
The album was further supported by the ''Head Trauma'' tour, which spanned across
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
and
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
. ''
Ain't it Dead Yet?'', a recording of the group performing in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
, Canada, was released on video in 1989 and CD in 1991.
Music
''Cleanse Fold and Manipulate'' explores a number of different topics concerning medicine, society, and politics. The song "First Aid" addresses what was the growing
AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...
epidemic of the 1980s, while "Second Tooth" concerns with the struggles faced by
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
veterans, namely
post-traumatic stress
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on a ...
.
The song "Deep Down Trauma Hounds" was written following a string of teenage
suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...
s in the United States.
Nivek Ogre
Kevin Graham Ogilvie (born December 5, 1962), known professionally as Nivek Ogre, is a Canadian musician, performance artist and actor, best known for his work with the industrial music group Skinny Puppy, which he co-founded with cEvin Key. Sinc ...
, the group's vocalist and songwriter, said of the suicides:
Other songs on the album pay homage to
horror film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes.
Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...
s. The song "The Mourn" is based on the
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
ese extreme horror movie ''
Flower of Flesh and Blood
is a 1985 Japanese horror film written and directed by Hideshi Hino. The second film in the ''Guinea Pig'' film series, it is based on a manga by Hino, and stars Hiroshi Tamura and Kirara Yūgao. The film's plot concerns a man dressed as a samu ...
'' from the ''
Guinea Pig
The guinea pig or domestic guinea pig (''Cavia porcellus''), also known as the cavy or domestic cavy (), is a species of rodent belonging to the genus ''Cavia'' in the family Caviidae. Breeders tend to use the word ''cavy'' to describe the ani ...
'' film series. According to the group, the film was the closest they had ever come to seeing what they felt was a real
snuff movie
A snuff film, or snuff movie, or snuff video, is a type of film that shows, or purports to show, scenes of actual homicide. The concept of snuff films became known to the general public during the 1970s, when an urban legend alleged that a clan ...
.
Footage from the film has since been used in their live shows.
Release
''Cleanse Fold and Manipulate'' was released on June 25, 1987. Eyeball paperweights were distributed by
Capitol Records
Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note ...
to help promote the album.
The record sold 80,000 copies by October 1988, with 90 percent of sales being outside
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
.
Critical reception
Tim DiGravina of
Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
said the album was "hard to recommend". He went on to say while it did contain one of the band's best songs, "Deep Down Trauma Hounds", much of the album was ambient and fragmentary. Still, he added, "fans of industrial music will appreciate the album's formidable beats and coarse
sound samples that seem to be generated from warping the sounds of heavy machinery. Perhaps more than other any place in Skinny Puppy's discography, Ogre's vocals work like spoken-word stream-of-conscious dementia, with more emphasis on evil tones than on any relation to their music". He concluded by saying the album was primarily recommendable to die hard fans.
Evelyn Erskine from the ''
Ottawa Citizen
The ''Ottawa Citizen'' is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
History
Established as ''The Bytown Packet'' in 1845 by William Harris (journalist), William Harris, it was renamed the '' ...
'' gave the album a favorable review, saying the album was "dark and frightening", and described the flow of its songs as "cinematic". Erskine remarked that the album was weakened by the band's overreliance on gothic horror elements.
''
Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...
'' magazine recommended the album, calling it "the right combination of gloom-and-doom lyrics and throbbing, metallic music".
''
People
A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...
'' magazine said listening to the album was "like stepping into a nightmare being experienced by the
Phantom of the Opera
''The Phantom of the Opera'' (french: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) is a novel by French author Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serial in from 23 September 1909 to 8 January 1910, and was released in volume form in late March 1910 by Pierr ...
" and concluded that the band was "too garish for extended exposure but, in small doses, they are extremely powerful".
Mike Saunders of the ''
Sun-Sentinel
The ''Sun Sentinel'' (also known as the ''South Florida Sun Sentinel'', known until 2008 as the ''Sun-Sentinel'', and stylized on its masthead as ''SunSentinel'') is the main daily newspaper of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as well as surrounding Br ...
'' thought the album was an intriguing accomplishment, but that the initial "voyeuristic thrill" received from listening wears off before the album ends.
Frances Litman from the ''
Times Colonist
The ''Times Colonist'' is an English-language daily newspaper in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. It was formed by the Sept. 2, 1980 merger of the ''Victoria Daily Times'', established in 1884, and the ''British Colonist'' (later the ''Daily Co ...
'' thought the album was tamer than the band's previous work and only recommended it to club-goers.
Track listing
Additional notes
*To promote the album,
Capitol Records
Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note ...
(who were responsible for the release of Skinny Puppy music outside of Canada) distributed eyeball
paperweight
A paperweight is a small solid object heavy enough, when placed on top of papers, to keep them from blowing away in a breeze or from moving under the strokes of a painting brush (as with Chinese calligraphy). While any object, such as a stone, ...
s.
*''Cleanse Fold and Manipulate'' is a
cyclical album: the end of track 10, "Epilogue", segues into the beginning of track 1, "First Aid."
*In response to the cover's source image by Gilmore: "It is an image from the original 1960s movie of ''
Village Of The Damned''. There is a little tongue-in-cheek history behind using that image as the manager for
Images In Vogue
Images in Vogue is a Canadian new wave group formed in 1981 in Vancouver. It originally consisted of vocalist Dale Martindale, guitarist Don Gordon (later of Numb), synth players Joe Vizvary and Glen Nelson, bassist Gary Smith, and percussioni ...
, a band that
C. Key used to be in before Skinny Puppy, was a former child model from
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
and had a role in the movie. But the face on the cover was another child actor from the movie."
*"Draining Faces" was featured on ''
The Blair Witch Project
''The Blair Witch Project'' is a 1999 American supernatural horror film written, directed and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez (director), Eduardo Sánchez. It is a fictional story of three student filmmakers—Heather Donahue, Mic ...
''
soundtrack
A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...
.
Personnel
All information from
Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
.
Musicians
*
Nivek Ogre
Kevin Graham Ogilvie (born December 5, 1962), known professionally as Nivek Ogre, is a Canadian musician, performance artist and actor, best known for his work with the industrial music group Skinny Puppy, which he co-founded with cEvin Key. Sinc ...
– voices, lyrics, objects, audio sculpture
*
cEvin Key
Kevin William Crompton (born February 13, 1961), known professionally as cEvin Key, is a Canadian musician, songwriter, producer, and composer. He is best known as a member of the industrial music group Skinny Puppy, which he co-founded in 1982 ...
– synthesizers, guitar, drums, bass, voices, lyrics, sampling, sequencing, sounds, objects, radio, tapes, sequencers
*
Dwayne Goettel
Dwayne Rudolph Goettel (February 1, 1964August 23, 1995) was a Canadian electronic musician, best known for his work in the industrial music group Skinny Puppy. Starting his career playing for a variety of acts around Edmonton, he joined Skinny Pu ...
– synthesizers, guitar, drums, background vocals sampling, tape, sequencing, radio, sequencers , synthesizers, guitar, drums, bass, voices, lyrics, sampling, sequencing, sounds, objects, radio, tapes, sequencers and set ALL the input of Crompton a.k.a. cEvin Key to entropy.
* Peter Rave – guitar
Production
* Producers – cEvin Key, Dave Ogilvie
* Engineers – cEvin Key, Dave Ogilvie
*
Mastering – Pete Norman
* Cover artwork –
Steven R. Gilmore
Steven R. Gilmore is a Canadian artist and graphic designer most known for his work on album cover design, particularly his role as in-house artist for Nettwerk Records for much of the 1980s and 1990s. He has designed record album sleeves for ba ...
References
{{Authority control
1987 albums
Skinny Puppy albums
Nettwerk Records albums