Rockbites: Pigface release double-CD retrospective

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March 2001 • Rockbites Alternative Daily

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Pigface release double-CD retrospective
6 March 2001

Pigface, Martin Atkins’ ongoing experimental rock project, could be thought of as a mile wide UFO that goes about its business, slipping under the mainstream Radar and escaping almost all media attention—while being a favorite topic of music zines, who in my analogy are playing the MUFON role. You do just fine not knowing about Pigface... until you discover it... at which point it puts a different tilt on things.
    Atkins, former drummer with Public Image Ltd. (he’s also played in Ministry, Murder Inc., Nine Inch Nails, Killing Joke, and The Damage Manual, and heads Invisible Records), founded Pigface ten years ago with a vision of opening minds, eyes, and ears. He has enlisted a veritable army of like-minded musicians and performance artists—over a hundred—who have ensured that Pigface gigs and albums are always fresh, always enlightening, and always good, fucked up fun.
    Today Invisible Records releases the two-CD set The Best Of Pigface: Preaching To The Perverted. Atkins writes in the liner notes “...I can’t think of any band so diverse in content and membership, so desperately in need of a road map for itself and a new and growing audience... God help anyone, enthused from seeing a Pigface show, trying to buy one disc that captures the vibe.”
    Well, on the new collection Atkins has done his best to capture that elusive Pigface vibe and the result is stunning. The 35 tracks, running 132 minutes, are at turns tribal, cathartic, alien, fearsome, outrageously funny, astonishing, mesmerizing, and beautiful. The set proves that Pigface has brought the punk ethic forward and helped it blossom without confining it.
    The Best Of... is much more than a retrospective, as it contains nearly a full album’s worth of previously unreleased material, including a track performed with Black Francis (aka Frank Black) and Joey Santiago of the late, great Pixies. There’s also a previously unreleased track featuring Dean Ween (of Ween, duh) on guitar.
    Boasting contributions from artists such as Jello Biafra (ex-Dead Kennedys), M. Gira (ex-Swans), Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Meg Lee Chin, Caspar Brotzmann, Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Charles Levi (My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult), most of Ministry, Steve Albini (ex-Big Black, Rapeman), Kevin Ogilvie (ex-Skinny Puppy), Genesis P. Orridge (Psychic TV), and scores of others, sometimes with 25 on stage at once, it’s amazing that Pigface exists. It’s even more amazing that it works so very, very well. This double album is a timely tribute to the production and coordination work of the very modest Atkins, who says that Pigface “...belongs in whole, not in part, to so many other people—band and audience....”
    Last word on this 2-CD set: Get it. Four bites out of five.

Rockbites ratings  5: life changing, 4: stunning, 3: captivating, 2: amusing, 1: annoying.

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