Pitch Shifter - The 1990 Demo

I probably didn't need to buy the demos of Pitch Shifter's debut album, but here we are. On one hand, the band meant a huge amount to me for a good and important period of time, and despite not being a fan of their earlier industrial stuff when I first heard it I've found I quite enjoy it now I'm older. On the other hand - and I say this as something of a compliment I guess - I'd honestly struggle to tell you whether I was listening to the demos or the album itself, and I already have that album on vinyl and on cd; this LP feels pretty redundant. I was vaguely aware of the band putting the record out via Kickstarter but I didn't go out of my way to buy it, only picking it up a while later when it found it's way into the Record Culture sale section (where I think there is still at least one copy). I can't turn down a good offer.

Of the eight songs on Industrial, six of them have demos here (Gravid Rage and New Flesh are missing), and we instead have Behemoth, an unreleased song from the era, originally called Mouthscape. Musically, the quality of the demos is on a par with the album itself. I wouldn't necessarily call either "good", in fact part of the charm of Industrial was the bleak, imposing wall of sound and lack of frills. Mark's barked vocals might be different, or they might be exactly the same - there are only a few moments when you can really tell what he's saying anyway. I'm sure someone somewhere would have noticed if they'd just pressed six of the exact same versions of these songs in a different order, but I can't help but wonder if this is just some elaborate prank - that maybe they did just put out the exact same mixes but call them demos (possibly even by accident). Or maybe I should listen to the actual album again to be more sure. The vocals on Landfill do sound different (a bit more echo, perhaps?) but I've not listened to the album in a while, so maybe I'm just mis-remembering. I still love the simplicity of those lyrics. Behemoth is the only thing that really sounds like a demo - it fits perfectly onto the album musically, although the vocals are much cleaner than anything else from the era. It's a nice addition, but not worth the entry cost on it's own.

Thinking about it, it's a rather major criticism of a record - the idea that it really doesn't need to exist because it sounds identical to one that I paid the grand sum of £2.85 for on eBay (including postage!). A bigger criticism is the artwork, which looks like someone bashed together in about 3 minutes in a Word doc. The font is definitely the first one they found in the dropdown menu. It bothers me that there's a white square before the word "Pitch" and one after, but not one after "Shifter" - it makes sense when the two words are written one above the other - as on the Industrial artwork, but makes no sense in one line. Mostly it's one of the least interesting looking record sleeves I own, but that aspect is just infuriating. The italic version of the font on the centre label is even more horrific. I'm no design snob, but it looks terrible.

Some nice things to say about it - it's a really heavy, thick vinyl (but why you'd want the demos (allegedly) to be pressed on nicer vinyl than the album itself I don't know), and it's on clear vinyl which is more interesting than just black vinyl. Etched into the run-out grooves are the coordinates of a location in Bristol, which I think is where they hid a "Pitch Shifter skull", although I remember a tweet that no one had discovered it for a good while; I don't have much time to spare, let alone in Bristol, so even if I had noticed these earlier, I doubt I'd have made the journey. It didn't come with a download code, but I'm pretty sure I could just shuffle around the tracks from Industrial in iTunes and have six-sevenths of the experience digitally. 

Format: 12", numbered (462/500)
Tracks: 7
Cost: £18 new
Bought: Record Culture
When: 26/01/21
Colour: Clear
Etching: Side A: "51°26'33'' N - 2°32'10'' W" Side B: "Seth-Wynn-Seth Forever"
mp3s: no 

Pitchshifter - Microwaved

I've written so much about Pitchshifter on here before, I'm not sure there's much left to be said. I bought this 7" at a record fair in Southampton a very long time ago for £4, which might seem a bit much for two album-tracks (albeit their best album), but my weekend job at Sainsburys' left me with a surprisingly large amount of disposable income to blow on vinyl and I was probably impressed by the red vinyl.

And, if you could pick any two Pitchshifter songs to put on a 7" and play regularly, it would have to be Microwaved and Please Sir, although dot com was so strong you'd be better off just getting the whole album on vinyl (which I eventually did, making this record a little redundant). The b-side here is a live version of Please Sir recorded in France, with JS cracking out some impressive French. Still, a nice artefact from my early record-buying days.


Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £4 second hand
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton
When: 26/10/02
Colour: Transparent red
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Pitchshifter - www.pitchshifter.com

Pitchshifter were undoubtedly one of the most significant bands of my youth. When I was 15 a copy of Kerrang! magazine came out with a free cd stuck on the cover called "The Devil's Music, Vol. 1". My school was up the road from a newsagents and Hugh had bought a copy before school. We all spent the day reading his copy and each bought one ourselves on the way home. The cd was pretty incredible for our young ears (Google the tracklisting now, it's still impressive - Glassjaw, One Minute Silence, High on Fire). There were bands on there we knew, but mostly bands we'd never heard of, but either way I ended up getting into most of the bands on there. The first track was Everything's Fucked by Pitchshifter and it blew us all away. I still remember the next day walking up to school and my friend Paul raving about it. We got into the band in a big way and bought tickets for a warm-up show they were playing in The Wedgewood Rooms in Portsmouth ahead of a larger London show (possibly my third ever gig).

Over the years that followed I bought all their albums and saw them countless times. I once even travelled from Lancaster to Portsmouth to see them in the Pyramids just because we'd seen them play there on the same date two years and four years beforehand (but also because I didn't know anyone at university who wanted to go). They broke up and reformed more times than I can remember; I think we may have seen equal amounts of break-up shows, reformation shows and regular shows.

But through all of this, the dot com album (as we came to know it) was their peak, an incredible, classic album. It was almost always described as being ahead of it's time, which I guess it was. It was definitely a punk album in so many ways, but in a handful of important ways it was also a dance album. Nothing else we were listening to had the beats Pitchshifter had. But their background in industrial metal was also there, although dramatically less so on this album than any of the ones before. The combination of styles made the live shows fun to be at, and kept us coming back every time they played, and buying every album they put out. It would be easier to list the weak points than list the highlights on dot com, but even 14 years after it came out there aren't any of those; the tracklisting could practically read as a Best Of.

I found this LP on eBay in 2006. I've always preferred vinyl and my dream would be to have all my favourites on 12" rather than 5". With that in mind I bought it and I'm very glad to have it in my collection. There was an era when a lot of albums weren't released on vinyl and I'm glad this wasn't one of them.

I've always sat down and listened to the album whilst writing these posts (part of the reason I started this was to make sure I wasn't neglecting any of my records). I haven't listened to Pitchshifter in quite a while - there's a lot of music out there and only so much time. I kinda knew I'd still enjoy this one, but I've been sat here tapping away and reminiscing like crazy. When Please Sir came on I remembered jumping around in the pit to it at one of their break up shows; it was the last song they played and I knew I had to make the most of it. Between the ages of 15 and about 18 I couldn't get enough of bands like Pitchshifter and One Minute Silence and their incredible live shows are key factors in why I go to so many gigs now. I may have started listening to other things, but it's great that just playing this album can take me back to all that youthful excitement. I love that music can do that.


Format: 12"
Tracks: 13
Cost: £5.50 second hand
Bought: eBay
When: 03/08/06
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no