Ativin

This Bloomington, Indiana-based group has built a respectable body of work informed by Louisville post-punk outfits such as Slint as well as the avant-garde compositional panache of Steve Reich and Brian Eno. The instrumental trio of guitarists Dan Burton and Chris Carothers and drummer Rory Leitch favored brutal soft-to-loud transitions on its earliest material, encapsulated on 1996’s Pills Vs. Planes and the “Modern Gang Reader”/"Larkin" single, the latter of which inaugurated an association with Bloomington label Secretly Canadian. The group (and particularly Burton’s nascent engineering and production skills) had evolved significantly by 1998’s German Water, which teeters along the dream/nightmare soundscapes of such instrumentalists as Windsor For The Derby and Analogue. Ativin paused after 1999’s Summing The Approach, allowing Burton to open his own Bloomington recording studio and rear his more song-oriented Early Day Miners project, which has since released two excellent albums. He and Carothers, minus Leitch, regrouped as Ativin for 2001’s Interiors and plan to continue collaborating.

Album reviews

Summing The Approach
Secretly Canadian (1999)
Some eight years since Slint's Spiderland forever altered the indie-rock landscape, it's arguable that any valid derivations can still be fashioned from its blueprints.

German Water
Secretly Canadian (1998)
On German Water, the much-anticipated first LP from Indiana instrumental trio Ativin, the band extrapolates the intelligent heaviness found on its Pills Versus Planes EP and complements it with a brilliant handle on composition and musicianship.

'Modern Gang Reader' b/w 'Larkin'
Secretly Canadian (1997)
Ativin's scary noise-rock is evolving. And during the group's single on Bloomington, Indiana, record label Secretly Canadian, it's happening as we listen.

Pills Vs. Planes
Polyvinyl (1996)
It's a problem that could be called a rock critic's dream or worst nightmare. The dilemma: what happens when one listens to a band and can't think of any words to describe its music?