Seattle proto-grunge rockers Skin Yard — a highly influential group whose members included Jack Endino, producer of Nirvana’s Bleach, and future Soundgarden and Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron — this month reissued most of its catalog digitally, with each record remastered and one, 1990’s Fist Sized Chunks, remixed.
The reissues, available for the first time through iTunes, Amazon and other digital retailers, include 1987’s Skin Yard, 1988’s Hallowed Ground, the aforementioned Fist Sized Chunks and 1991’s 1000 Smiling Knuckles, plus 2001 rarities collection Start at the Top and a new reverse-chronological live compilation called The Perfect Lawn (Live 1991-1985).
The only album not included in the new reissues is the band’s 1993 swan song Inside the Eye, recorded after bassist and co-founder Daniel House left the band.
When it came to Fist Sized Chunks, House and Endino decided remastering wasn’t enough. Instead, the album was fully remixed from the original master tapes. Now titled Fist Remixed, the album features “newly unearthed overdubs, guitar parts and a new clarity and girth to the sound” and, according to the band, “is considerably more psychedelic and powerful.”
House, on the band’s website, says, “This has been a long time coming. A decade late perhaps, but we can finally offer up versions the way we wanted them to sound back in the day.”
Formed in 1985, Skin Yard was one of the six bands featured on the legendary Deep Six compilation the following year, contributing two songs (“Throb,” “The Birds”) to that seminal record, which also featured fellow Seattle-area acts Soundgarden, The Melvins, The U-Men, Malfunkshun and Green River, whose member would go on to form Pearl Jam and Mudhoney.
Below, you can check out two tracks from the new reissues: “OP4,” an instrumental from Hallowed Ground, and “In the Morning,” which originally appeared as a bonus track on the Hallowed Ground cassette release but now can be found on the Start at the Top collection.
