VIVIsectVI

VIVIsectVI
Studio album by Skinny Puppy
Released	September 12, 1988
Recorded	Mid-1988
Genre	Industrial, electronic, noise
Length	42:54 (original) 60:56 (re-issue)
Label	Nettwerk
Producer	Dave Ogilvie, cEvin Key[1]
Skinny Puppy chronology
Cleanse Fold and Manipulate (1987) VIVIsectVI (1988) Rabies (1989)
Singles from VIVIsectVI
"Censor" Released: 1988 "Testure" Released: 1988

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[2]
Melody Maker	Favorable[3]

VIVIsectVI (pronounced "Vivisect Six") is the fourth studio album by Canadian industrial music group Skinny Puppy. The title of the album is a pun associating vivisection with Satanism.^[4] This is the only Skinny Puppy album on which Dave Ogilvie (credited as "Rave") is given songwriting credit and listed as an official member of the band. This was also the only album (until 2004's The Greater Wrong of the Right) to feature a photo of the band. Dave Ogilvie is not included in the photo. The cover artwork was done by Steven R. Gilmore, a longtime collaborator with the band; the photo was taken by Kevin Westenberg.^[5][6]

The album was released in September 1988 by Nettwerk Records and was supported by the VIVIsectVI tour as well as two singles, "Censor" (titled "Dogshit" on the album) and "Testure". "Testure" maintained a steady position on Billboard's Hot Dance Music chart and would go on to be one of the groups most influential (and successful) singles.^[7] VIVIsectVI was named as one of the best albums of 1988 by Melody Maker, being placed 13th on their End of Year Critics list.^[8]

Overview

Production notes

Skinny Puppy's primary goal with VIVIsectVI was to provide a vicious depiction of vivisection and shine a spotlight on other issues regarding animal rights.^[9] The group's singer and songwriter Nivek Ogre explained his stance on animal testing to Vinyl Propaganda in 1988, stating the following:

When I was young, growing up, I always thought that animal experimentation was necessary, that there was some reason for it, that there was some good being done with it... [I'm now against] all of it. All animal experimentation. Every bit of it. My brother’s a doctor, too; it’s a very hardline stance. But, yes. I mean, the only reason we’re living longer nowadays is because of the food we’re eating, and the foods we’re not eating, and the preventative medicine that we’re taking upon ourselves, isn’t that correct?^[4]

On the album's name, Ogre went on to say:

[It's] just taking a shot at what Jimmy Swaggart will do with Mr. Ed … we just thought, well, look at this …we’ll break down all the syllables, and we’ll add our own interpretation at the end, a roman numeral – and what do you have? You’ve got a sect, surrounded by 666, surrounded by evil.^[4]

Samples

VIVIsectVI, as is ordinary for the band's earlier work, contains a number of samples taken from horror films. The song "Who's Laughing Now?" contains samples from Sam Raimi's 1987 horror comedy Evil Dead II; the song itself is named after a line spoken by the films hero, Ash.^[10] The song "Testure" contains samples from the 1982 animated feature film adaptation of The Plague Dogs, a story about two dogs and their escape from a research laboratory in Great Britain.^[11] The song "Fritter (Stella's Home)" primarily contains samples from Roman Polanski's 1976 psychological thriller The Tenant (the song's name makes reference to a character in the film, Stella, played by French actress Isabelle Adjani). The song also uses the line "It's OK, he saw it on the television" from Stanly Kubrick's horror classic The Shining, plus the lines "I'm so happy" and "you're mine now forever" from the 1980 slasher film Maniac. The song "The Second Opinion" contains the line "that machine has got to be destroyed" from Stuart Gordon's 1986 adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft's From Beyond (the song also features the "Man of the shroud" sample first used in "Epilogue" from Cleanse Fold and Manipulate). The album also features various non-horror samples, such as Ronald Reagan speaking about AIDS in the song "State Aid" and Jim Morrison saying "everywhere" in the song "Yes He Ran".^[10]

Release

VIVIsectVI was released in September 1988 worldwide. The first several hundred copies released in Canada were in full color gatefold covers; later Canadian pressings as well as all pressings released in the United States were distributed in jewelcases. The sleeve of the Australian pressing states "Manufactured And Distributed by the EMI music group Australasia"; on the back of the case, however, it says that it was "printed in U.S.A.", implying that the sleeves were in fact made in the US.^[5] This was the first Skinny Puppy release to contain a picture of the band and is also the only release which lists Dave Ogilvie as a full member of the band.^[1] The album was reissued in 2004 and contained several extra tracks that had previously been featured alongside the albums singles. A somewhat altered version of "Punks in Park's Zoo" is featured on the reissue, ending with a "cartoonlike" effect that is not featured on the version found on the "Censor" single.^[5] The album's liner notes recommend that the listener "Play this music loud or not at all" and conclude with "As always to the green guy — To hell with any bullshit".^[1]

The album was supported by two singles, "Censor" and "Testure". "Censor" is named "Dogshit" on the album, but the band decided that the single would not sell well if they had kept the original name.^[4] "Testure" was accompanied by a music video which depicts a man (who presumably had been abusing his pet dog) being experimented on by a group of humanoid surgeons. According to Ogre and cEvin Key (Drums/Keyboards), the video was banned from airplay following a poll by Citytv (an associate of Canada's MuchMusic). According to the duo, the poll came out nearly split, but the video was ultimately banned by "the powers that be". Ogre speculated that the video's banning had more to do with "past merit", rather than the subject matter at hand.^[12]

Track listing

All tracks written by Ogre/Key/Goettel/Ogilvie.

Notes

"Dogshit" was released as a single under the title "Censor".

"Who's Laughing Now?" was included on the soundtrack of the 1990 film Bad Influence.^[13]

Personnel

• Nivek Ogre – vocals
• cEvin Key – synthesizers, guitars, bass guitars, drums
• Dwayne Goettel – synthesizers, sampling
• Dave "Rave" Ogilvie – production, engineering

References

1. 1 2 3 "VIVIsectVI credits". Allmusic. Retrieved August 26, 2012. 
2. ↑ Allmusic review
3. ↑ "Albums of the Year". Melody Maker: 56. December 24, 1988. Retrieved 29 September 2016. 
4. 1 2 3 4 Spainhower, Mark (1988). "Skinny Puppy Interview". Vinyl Propaganda. 1 (8). Retrieved 19 May 2016. 
5. 1 2 3 Kern, Jay (2010). Skinny Puppy: The Illustrated Discography (Second Edition). Mythos Press. p. 28. 
6. ↑ "A Conversation with Steven R Gilmore". Rockpaperink. Retrieved November 19, 2012. 
7. ↑ "Hot Dance Music" (PDF). Billboard. 101 (12): p.30. March 25, 1989. Retrieved 19 May 2016.  CS1 maint: Extra text (link)
8. ↑ "Melody Maker End of Year Critics list-1988". Rock List Music. Retrieved 19 May 2016. 
9. ↑ Bonner, Staci (December 1988). "Blood Rock: Skinny Puppy's Morbid Extremes". Spin. 4 (9): p.15. Retrieved 22 May 2016.  CS1 maint: Extra text (link)
10. 1 2 Cigéhn, Peter. "The Top Sampling Groups List: Skinny Puppy". Internet Archive: Wayback Machine. Archived from the original on October 30, 2004. Retrieved 22 May 2016.  CS1 maint: Unfit url (link)
11. ↑ "Horror Sampled". The Horror Section. 23 August 2015. Retrieved 23 August 2015. 
12. ↑ Gilmore, Steven (1989). "The Peril's of Puppy". Ipso Facto Magazine (7). 
13. ↑ "Bad Influence Soundtrack". Discogs. Retrieved July 28, 2010. 

External links

• VIVIsectVI at Discogs.com