PIG – SINSATION (REMASTERED)
A SPILL EXCLUSIVE ALBUM PREMIERE
Today we are thrilled to share the new and improved version of a classic industrial album worthy of note – namely Sinsation (Remastered) from PIG aka Raymond Watts. We offer you a sneak peek ahead of Friday’s album re-release via Metropolis Records (digital, CD) and Armalyte Industries (vinyl). Out of print for several decades now. this album now makes a fine re-entry to the world, completely re-remastered at Abbey Road.
This album follows up PIG’s most recent album Red Room and also precedes to other key events for this artist in 2024 – a new EP of original material and his extensive ‘Heroin For The Damned’ tour with Curse Mackey and Unitcode:Machine. This 40-date North American junket follows PIG’s headlining set at Cold Waves XII in Chicago.
Sinsation was originally released in the mid-1990s – both in Japan and on Nothing Records, which was established by Nine Inch Nails kingpin Trent Reznor. An influential and commercially successful label with a cult underground following, PIG joined such artists as Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Squarepusher, Autechre, Meat Beat Manifesto, Pop Will Eat Itself, Einstürzende Neubauten, and Plaid.
A harrowing masterpiece of industrial music, Sinsation was born from a crucible of desperation and nihilism, this album captures the raw intensity and emotional turmoil of Raymond Watts at his most vulnerable, reflecting a solitary journey into the depths of his own psyche, fueled by a relentless pursuit of sonic extremity. A sonic assault, filled with abrasive guitars, pounding rhythms, and PIG’s tortured vocals. This a record that demands both physical and emotional engagement, leaving a lasting impact on the listener.
Here, Watts adeptly blends the profound and the profane, featuring such PIG classics as “Painiac”, “Hamstrung On The Highway” and “Hot Hole”. As it was since the beginning, Watts & Co teases, taunts, tempts and tantalizes with PIG’s singular blend of hook laden, genre-bending, electronic-tinged alternative rock, loaded with malevolent reverence, glitz, glamour, sleaze, sin and swing.
“Every record I make is PIG through a different noose … and when I made Sinsation the noose hung high. Sinsation was born in 1995 at Ranch Apocalypse in London. The culmination of creation and cremation … an apotheosis of desperation, nihilism and desire … the only place I could go was to the poison well and drink deeply,” says Raymond Watts.
“I was locked inside the studio and myself. The barricades were up in my fortress of solitude with only Steve White and a large box of drugs for company. Sinsation was the sound of the last card turning and burning. The only way out was through. I had to give birth to the noise inside my head and record it. A fiendishly simple and yet simply fiendish task. A place in which I was so uncomfortable that success would be to fail, as to fail had been my only success.”
Recorded and mixed by PIG and Helen Woodward (Pale Saints, Dodgy, Kitchens of Distinction, Alien Sex Fiend, Ultra Vivid Scene), this album features contributions by several notable artists, including Karl Hyde of Underworld fame and guitarist Steve White (KMFDM), who has also collaborated and recorded with Ocean Colour Scene and Mekon, as well as Carol Anne Reynolds (Sow) and Japanese artists Imai Hisashiand Hoppy Kamiyama.
“Sinsation wasn’t anything about the ascent of man. It was the descent of ham. As surely as everything passes, so did the spotlight on sin, as the long thin shadow that scratched the words from deep within and conducted the chaos would soon cast its darkness on a new vision. PIG would crawl to a different master in me and hang from a new noose,” says Watts.
“I was surprised and saddened to re-visit Sinsation, surprised by the energy and invention and saddened to hear the pain … But I was strangely glad to have visited hell, and blessed that I didn’t stay.”
Raymond Watts has had quite a colourful and stellar career since cutting his teeth in the mid-1980s industrial rock scene as a member of KMFDM. Apart from releasing 14 albums as PIG, he has toured with Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM and Einstürzende Neubauten, written music for fashion and film (Chloe, Marios Schwab, Halston, The Row), and even did sound design for the exhibition ‘Punk: Chaos to Couture’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Watts also collaborated with the late fashion icon Alexander McQueen, who commissioned him (with John Gosling) to embellish the serene instrumental track “Inside” (from PIG’s 1999 album Genuine American Monster) for the soundtrack to ‘Plato’s Atlantis’. The show was reprised after McQueen’s untimely death in as the finale of “Savage Beauty”, a posthumous retrospective that broke all records at both The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Sinsation (Remastered) will be available from the usual platforms and Bandcamp, and also as an exclusive limited edition vinyl consisting of two black, heavyweight vinyl – barely enough to contain the sin, sleaze and salvation that his album oozes. The gatefold sleeve comes with two inserts – a 12″ by 12″ lyric sheet and a huge foldout poster with Steve Lovell-Davis’ inspired artwork. On the fourth side of the vinyl is Armalyte’s very first etched piece – a true beauty of a beast.
CREDITS
All songs written by Raymond Watts,
except “Shell” written by Raymond Watts & Karl Hyde
Recorded & mixed by Helen Woodword & Raymond Watts at Ranch Apocalypse (London),
except “Analgesia”, mixed by Raymond Watts & Jimmy Cauty
Produced & arranged by Raymond Watts
Mastering by Tom Hall at Abbey Road
Raymond Watts – vocals, synth, guitar, drums, programming
Steve White – guitar
Imai Hisashi – guitar on “Analgesia”
Karl Hyde – guitar on “Shell”
Jimmy Cauty – keyboards
Hoppy Kamiyama – loops on “Painiac”
Carol Anne Reynolds – backing vocals on “The Sick”
Additional words by Anna Wildsmith
Cover photo by Steve Lovell-Davis
Publicity by Shauna McLarnon at Shameless Promotion PR
Released by Metropolis Records
Enjoy some pleasure with your “Painiac”:
PIG
Sinsation (Remastered)
(Metropolis Records/Armalyte Industries)
Release Date: August 23, 2024
Tour Dates (with Curse Mackey and Unitcode:Machine)
9/28/24: Chicago, IL, @ Metro
9/ 29/24: Minneapolis, MN @ Cabooze
9/30/24: Des Moines, IA @ Lefty’s Live Music
10/2/24: Milwaukee, WI @ X-Ray Arcade
10/3/24: Davenport, IA @ Raccoon Motel
10/4/24: Lawrence, KS @ The Bottleneck
10/5/24: Denver, CO Kulture Music Hall
10/6/24: SLC, UT @ Quarters
10/7/24: Boise, ID @ Visual Arts Collective
10/9/24: Eugene, OR @ John Henry’s
10/10/24: Seattle, WA @ El Corazon
10/13/24: Portland, OR @ Dante’s
10/15/24: Sacramento, CA @ Starlit Room
10/16/24: SF, CA @ DNA
10/17/24: San Diego, CA @ Whistle Stop
10/18/24: Las Vegas, NV @ Sinwave
10/19/24: Los Angeles, CA @ Catch One
10/20/24: Scottsdale, AZ @ Pub Rock
10/21/24: Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad
10/23/24: OK City @ Beer City
10/24/24: Dallas, TX @ Three Links
10/26/24: Austin, TX @ Elysium
10/27/24: New Orleans, LA @ Santos
10/29/24: Pensacola, FL @ Handlebar
10/30/24: Orlando, Fl @ Handlebar
11/1/24: West Palm Beach, FL @ Respectable Street
11/2/24: Jacksonville, FL @ Underbelly
11/3/24: Greenville, SC @ Radio Room
11/5/24: Atlanta, GA @ Star Bar
11/6/24: Richmond, VA @ Fallout
11/7/24: Baltimore, MD @ Metro Baltimore
11/8/24: New York, NY @ STIMULATE
11/10/24: Millersville, PA @ Phantom Power
11/12/24: Cambridge, MA @ Middle East
11/13/24: Quebec City, QC @ L’anti Bar
11/14/24: Montreal, QC @ Cabaret Fous
11/15/24: Toronto, ON @ Lee’s Palace
11/16/24: Detroit, MI @ Smalls
11/17/24: Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Tavern
Artist Links
Photo Credits: Stephen Lovell-Davis
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