(in no particular order)
Sweet Dreams (Eurhythmics)
A Forest (The Cure)
Happy House (Siouxsie & The Banshees)
Platterspiel (Corvus Corax)
Burning Inside (Ministry) gabcore version
Burning Inside (Ministry) mage version
Stigmata (Ministry)
N.W.O. (Ministry)
Just One Fix (Ministry)
Scarecrow (Ministry)
Icebreaker (Skinny Puppy)
Assimilate (Skinny Puppy)
Smothered Hope (Skinny Puppy)
Totes Fleisch (Terminal Choice)
Citadel (The Legendary Pink Dots)
A Space Between (The Legendary Pink Dots)
Casting the Runes (The Legendary Pink Dots)
Severance (Dead Can Dance)
Song of the Dispossessed (Dead Can Dance)
Been A Son (Nirvana)
New Year's Day (U2)
Stretched On Your Grave (traditional)
Teachers* (Leonard Cohen)
Ghostriders* (Suicide)
and also:
You Really Got Me (The Kinks)
Knockin On Heaven's Door (Bob Dylan)
Masters of War (Bob Dylan)
Twilight Zone (Golden Earring)
The Chain (Fleetwood Mac)
Follow me Home (Dire Straits)
We've played many more covers on various occasions, but mentioned above are what we have put to record at The Attic.
*Teachers and Ghostriders were done because The Sisters did them, our versions are perversions of The Sisters' versions.
The Chain was one of the first covers we've recorded - it must have been back in 1995. It sounds nothing like the original, but more like a howling surge of distortion on a slow, heartbeat-like thumping bassdrum, with the choruses exploding like an ecstatic gospel ... bombasm overdose instead of the minimalism of the (far better produced) original.
In Twilight Zone, Bruise the Dog established his role as a "special producer" by stepping on the floorboard right before 2nd verse, thus adding a filter to the vocals making them (very appropriately) sound like they were sung from a cranky old phone booth.
Follow Me Home was done mainly to test the sequencing capabilities of the then newly purchased Technics KN2000 keyboard. Don't laugh, we still think it's a very nice keyboard with great sounds and we're not about to replace it anytime soon. The piano sounds still match up with modern standards and we don't use fake acoustics that often anyhow.
Masters of War was done because it's one of the more interesting Dylan songs. Our version captures the same folky groove as the original.
Knocking on Heavens door sounds dreary, it hasn't got drums in it, just guitar, bass and vocals with a bathroom type delay. It's not bad at all.
You Really Got Me was done because Puppet wanted to play it with a rock band he was playing in at the time. The Puppet thinks Ray Davies is an excellent songwriter, and You Really Got Me is an excellent song. Especially with a contemporary techno style beat and overly distorted guitar play (and vocals).
Stretched On Your Grave was an experiment to turn this beautiful song into a punkified mess, and it worked.
New Year's Day (the original) is a beautiful song, but we just felt the need to slightly "gothisize" it, and we succeeded. We recorded it for the Millenial Requiem album, but like the original keeps sounding good with every new year.
Been A Son sounds much like the original, except it lasts twice as long (it starts over at the point where the original ends).
Song of the Dispossessed was mainly focused on the guitar part, with minimalized drums. The results are pretty eery, yet soothing at the same time.
Severance is another one of those extremely beautiful songs, so we had to give it a shot - using only one acoustic guitar and vocals. I think we did pretty well. We played this live to a bunch of people and they all seemed to be deeply impressed.
Casting the Runes sounds very backwards, because it was recorded that way. Actually it only consists of voice and guitar with a little reverb added to it. It's very experimental, and it doesn't provide quite the same easy listening experience as the original does.
A Space Between however was converted into a catchy dance flake. Almost over-the-top "happy action" with the lyrics sung like it's all just a joke. Accessible, sweet and, certainly, pink-edged.
Citadel is part of strange triple song called "Trap Me!" (with "A Forest" and "On the Wire") being very trippy altogether. Our cover dates back to a time when magic mushrooms dominated the weekly menu on a regular basis. I think that says enough.
Totes Fleisch only features "alles was du bist - Totes Fleisch" for vocals. The rest is dubious noise -
Smothered Hope should still lurk on somebody's computer. It was the only song on this list created with a sample based tracker program, but we have no record of it in our archives. No tape masters, no backups on disk, nothing. We hope to retrieve it someday, although it wasn't completely finished yet.
Assimilate was heavily arpeggiated by our analog modelling synth. The end-part is many times crueler than the song itself and lasts minutes long, featuring a heartbeat ending in ceasure - ... It's also very loud if you turn up the volume enough to hear some of the vocals.
Icebreaker is a beauty - very proud of the result.
Scarecrow was originally planned to be played in a rock band, so Puppet recorded this as a demo. For what it is, it's not bad at all. It's pretty damn good actually.
Just One Fix: never mind.
N.W.O. is a sleek perversion of the original, with a breakbeat like part and a synth mimicing F1-sounds on the background. This version was dubbed the "Jesus Built My Hotrod mix". We even managed to throw in some samples at the end.
Stigmata was a "dual song" with one of the two takes we did on "Ghostriders" - thus resulting in Ghostriders / Stigmata (duh). The whole sounds very crappy, very crowded to the point of overpopulation - it's an angry mess, and it bites back at you.
Burning Inside: the gabcore version really took this tune in a wild direction, while the mage version is more like the original (but louder). The gabcore version makes people dance and check their hearing afterwards, the mage version just makes people check their hearing and move toward safer places.
Platterspiel was done mainly to try out new equipment: the lovely Electribe EMX - a superb electro synth sequencer and the eBow, providing endless sustain when applied to electric guitar. The result is a 10 minute mix soaked in loudness, on a rampaging ultragroove.
Happy House is part of a "dual song": Retrieval / Happy House. The first being an angst filled confession of a murder (on a dancefloor), then shifting into a dodgy version of Siouxsie's sarcastic view of a perfect social life.
A Forest is A Forest, but with distorted vocals, a slightly different structure and, being created during the Maelstrom Revisited project, features a Boss DR55 for drums. Catchy, because the original is catchy.
Sweet Dreams was recorded way before Marylin Manson got the same idea, but our version doesn't sound like either the original or MM's... folly. Unfortunately we seemed to have used a malfunct tape (this was one of the last songs we did on the old 4-tracker) so at the end, the flutter goes wild, pitching up and down in waves of whole octaves, causing severe motion sickness even though it's going absolutely nowhere. When we find the right host, we're going to put this baby online.
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