Cleanse Fold & Manipulate [Original recording reissued]

Skinny Puppy | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 19, 2001)
• Original Release Date: 1987
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued
• Label: Nettwerk Records
• ASIN: B00005LOQS
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #31,614 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #23 in Music > Alternative Rock > Goth & Industrial > Industrial > Industrial Dance
  • #80 in Music > Alternative Rock > Goth & Industrial > Industrial > Alt Industrial

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dramatic end of the 80's, April 6, 2002

By 

Michael Thompson (New York City, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cleanse Fold & Manipulate (Audio CD)

While most Skinny Puppy albums are easily labeled "dark", CFM is certainly one of the most. Cevin Key later reflected that the production technology employed had as much to do with it as did the mindset of the band at the time. This was the band's first album written completely to hard disk, and the use of the computer as arranger certainly added a cold, technical element to it.

Musically, the CD broke new ground for the group. While many of SP's songs made references to film samples, and often began or ended in dark, ambient loops, whole tracks here are devoted to such. Draining Faces, The Mourn, and Epilogue contain a track long presentation of film samples, loops, and general background noise that are crafted in a way to create dark, haunting pieces. While more dismissive comparisons have been made to Pink Floyd, this element made a lasting and distinct impact. In a strange crossover, SP's use of film in its tracks led it back into film; for example, many years later, the Blair Witch filmmakers listed Draining Faces as a track on a tape found in the project's abandoned car.

Other tracks were more accessible to the DJ booth. The second track, Addiction, which was also released as one of two singles, features the layered and rhythmic approach that would be the signature of many CDs to come from SP. While a song with serious lyrical content, Ogre's vocal style on this was actually a dig on Front Line Assembly and former SP member Bill Leeb's vocal style. The second to last track, Anger, while devoid of most lyrical or musically thematic content, provides a fantastic conclusion to the album - a driving, pounding beat comprised of six or seven separate elements all beautifully orchestrated into one, with Ogre's clenched-teeth ranting moving in and out of the track.

On a slightly critical note, some of the tracks seemed to rely on pre-set synthesizer sounds (some of them you'd hear on a The Cars album!) rather than the fantastic abilities of Dwayne Gottell and his multi timbral, polyphoic signature pads and noises.

SP's promo shot for this album featured Nivek Ogre sporting massive bruises to his face and appearing to be an inch from death; most of his lyrical content on this album was highly focused on the politics of repression and violence. Songs like Second Tooth, Tear Or Beat, and Deep Down Trauma Hounds are all suggestive of the contrived politcal power of many third world countries during the cold war eighties.

An essential album, for it represents more or less the last of SP's eighties sound before Vivisect VI gave it a head start into the 90's.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Breakdown amidst the mixtures of Skinny Puppy, May 17, 2004

By 

mrgrieves08 (tucson) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cleanse Fold & Manipulate (Audio CD)

Although I am a huge fan of All of SP's music, as far as I am concerned nothing that they have done compares to Cleanse Fold and Manipulate, even though Vivisect VI ans Too Park Park are also great great albums in their own rights. If you are thinking of buying their reunion album, or better yet catching one of their few US concerts, and want to see just how far they have evolved, by all means get this album now! Of course, CF&M represents Skinny Puppy in their gloomiest and darkest era, and this is truly a beutifully punishing album to listen to. Tracks like Shadow Cast, Draining Faces and the Mourn meld gothic horror, ingenious sampling, with industrial percussion like no other band ever has, :wumpscut: probably coming the closest on Eevil Young Flesh. On other tracks such as Addiction and deep down Trauma Hounds, cEVIN and Goettel manage to meld seamlessly catchy, even dancy beats with the menacing lyrics provided by Ogre, which as always have something to say about the ills of contemporary society, without sounding preachy or pretentious. And who said Industrial music couldn't be a vehicle for social change! Cleanse Fold and Manipulate sounds as fresh and original as any Industrial music out today, being far more original and inventive too, and is an essential album for any fan of industrial music, ebm or darkwave.
Brap On!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Their First Awesome CD!, May 26, 2005

By 

Mike (North Bergen, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cleanse Fold & Manipulate (Audio CD)

For the first few years in their career, Skinny Puppy released some fine material in the Industrial/EBM movement that was just getting bigger and bigger. Yet for me, Manipulate is the first SP album that began to prove that the band was here to stay. Manipulate easily proved that SP could do more things with loops, beats, and synths. It proved that they were evolving as a tight unit and had plenty to say to the masses.

This would be their first great socio-political conscious record played to a moody, creepy background. Issues such as political agendas (Trauma Hounds) and abortion (First Aid) are fiercely played and sung. Mention about people's rights and countless deaths, among other problematic realities, run throughout the album. Sampling in this album is also better than on previous releases.

First time I bought this cd, it crept me out mainly because the music and lyrics were so chilling. It also got me hooked for more and I haven't stopped listening to it since. Draining Faces and Addiction are among the best, not to mention the very chilling ender, Anger / Epilogue. Manipulate makes a fine first impression to an SP newcomer and shows how important they are in the Industrial/EBM music.