Artist bio

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.

Albums by this artist

Summing The Approach (1999)

German Water (1998)

'Modern Gang Reader' b/w 'Larkin' (1997)

Pills Vs. Planes (1996)

Ativin

Pills Vs. Planes

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» JONATHAN COHEN | SENIOR EDITOR

Ativin Pills Vs. Planes Polyvinyl, 1996 RiYL: Shellac, Rodan, Dianogah, Slint

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?

This mixed blessing faces listeners of Ativin, a Bloomington, Ind., three-piece of guitarists Dan Burton and Chris Carothers and drummer Rory Leitch. To even verbalize just what the band's music is like tests the very vocabulary of this critic. Taking its inspiration from the dawn of post-rock (Slint, Rodan), Ativin has created five songs on Pills Vs. Planes that utilize a tension-release concept to convey themes of despair, confusion and anger.

That's not to say Ativin's music is completely dark and/or depressing. In almost every piece on Pills, one can find some glimmer of a melody or catchy interlude. It's music for contemplation or introspection.

Pills features four songs recorded by indie guru Steve Albini and one song put to tape by engineer Carl Saff. The album opens with the growling, double-guitar snarl of "I Know One-Hundred Things," a multi-thematic composition that'll make your head spin with groove-rooted riffs and mysterious, loud dynamic changes.

"King's Ship" begins with a macho prog-metal thump before introducing a sly, psychedelic riff that gives way to a furious, distortion-drenched midsection. "Mass" starts with a plaintive, almost soothing exterior that is quickly blasted away by roaring noise. This song is probably playing repeatedly on the subway ride from heaven to hell. "Metallic Boy" wastes no time slapping you around the room, clocking in at just over one minute of relentless rage. But the album's real kicker is "Meditational Flaws," where one hears crickets chirp their acceptance for the beautiful, methodical seven-minute-plus epic that follows. Listen to this song with headphones for maximum effect.

Happy playing in basements or alone in the dark, Ativin is a brazen reminder of what happens when artists sweep the standard ideals of music under the rug.

JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"