REVIEWS

Attrition
All Mine Enemys Whispers

Projekt Records / Two Gods

Posted: Friday, October 05, 2007
By: Matthew Johnson
Features Editor

Attrition's newest release is an ambient interpretation of the story of Mary Ann Cotton, a notorious mass murderer who poisoned over a dozen of her own children and former husbands and was executed in 1873. That's creepy enough, but adding to the visceral chill of the album is that it features actual recordings of Cotton's sewing box, originally given to a seamstress named Louisa McCutcheon, who was coincidentally the daughter of Tom McCutcheon, the police sergeant that arrested Cotton for her murders. Louisa was also an ancestor of Attrition's own Martin Bowes, so there's a deeper involvement than you'd usually expect from this type of recording that no doubt contributes to its eeriness. Continuing the family connection, Bowes' children contribute to opening track "What Shall I Sing?" with a Victorian children's rhyme that wavers over nervous minor-key pianos (played by guest musician Ned Kirby of Stromkern). "The Burial Club" is even more unsettling, with shuffling sounds and anxiously scraped strings interrupting the relative peace of bass-heavy organ drones, while "The Trial" contributes a sense of urgent panic with its manipulated layers of frightened whispering and groaning strings (performed here by former Rasputina cellist Erica Mulkey). "The Gates of Eternity" starts off as an ambient soundscape marked by echoing footsteps and the jittery violin of special guest Emilie Autumn, but ends with one of the album's most haunting moments: a sorrowful rendition of the hymn "Rock of Ages," also performed by Autumn, that's so beautiful it conjures up a momentary sense of pity for the condemned killer. "Heaven is My Home" ends things on a suitably somber note with distant choirs. Recorded on Oct. 31, 2006, this is no ordinary Halloween album; Mary Ann Cotton's story, augmented by the real-life connections between the album's composer and the killer herself, will do a much better job keeping you up at night than any slasher film killer or long-haired Japanese ghost child. If you're brave, you can listen to All Mine Enemys Whispers in the dark, but you might want to pull the covers over your head just to be on the safe side.