Taking a look at Ativin’s sordid past, one will see that there is more to their music then the late ’90s post rock explosion from whence they came.
Formed in the winter of 1994 when guitarist Chris Carothers first met drummer Rory Leitch. Although originally conceived as a two piece, guitarist Dan Burton joined in the spring of 1995. The threesome began writing songs and touring in the Midwestern United States throughout the last half of the 90’s and early 2000’s.
In April of 1996 the band recorded the five song Pills Versus Planes (Polyvinyl) CD EP with Steve Albini and Carl Saff. Secretly Canadian quickly followed up the EP in February of 1997 releasing the “Modern Gang Reader” 7″. The single showed the band departing from the aggression and distortion of Pills Vs. Planes and focusing more on rhythm and structure. In October of 1997 the band entered the studio with Andy Bryant and recorded the seven song LP German Water. Using added elements of organ, tapes and space Ativin has created an organic sounding album of shifting rhythms and tension. In 2001 Burton and Carothers recorded the band’s second full-length, Interiors, at Burton’s Grotto Home Studio in the heat of the Indiana summer. Kevin Duneman (the Race, chiseldrillhammer) was enlisted as drum czar. The duo disbanded shortly after 2004’s “Night Mute,” and album with echoes of Durutti Column, Unsane, Tones On Tail, Keiji Haino, and Organum – not to mention the band’s sober take of the early Love & Rockets tune “The Game.”
