It’s a sad day for the industrial scene as word got out that Phil Western (Skinny Puppy, Download, Plateau) passed away this weekend. The news was announced via Western’s family who posted this Facebook update.

“It is with profound sadness and heavy hearts that we, Phil’s family, want to make this official announcement of his death this past week. The family are awaiting the Coroner’s investigation into an official time and cause of death but we believe it was an accidental overdose. We will update when we receive further information. Phil was loved by so many of us. He was funny, intelligent, deep, creative and so many other wonderful things. We will miss him more than we could ever accurately convey. Much love to all those who are grieving with us. Phil’s family xo”

Phil Western (47 years old) was a Vancouver-based musician who was a founding member of the bands Download, PlatEAU, Frozen Rabbit, and Off And Gone. Having started his career as a drummer and eventually as a programmer, he became a remix engineer starting in the mid-1990s. His friendship with Dwayne Goettel led to him doing a small amount of keyboard work on the Skinny Puppy album “The Process”, as well as creating the Subconscious record label with Goettel in 1993.

After Goettel’s death from a heroin overdose in 1995, he became partners with Cevin Key in several musical projects. As an engineer, or remix engineer, he had worked with Skinny Puppy, Mirror, Bryan Adams and Nine Inch Nails. He also assisted in remixes of songs written by Monster Magnet and Rob Halford and Metallica among others.

Western’s most recent work will be released on March 8th via Artoffact. It was a co-production of Cevin Key’s new Download album “Unknown Room” which you can already partially preview here through the track “Gaslighter”.

Here’s a reaction from Cevin Key.

Our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Phil Western.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Out soon is the debut album by the Vancouver-based Download and platEAU collaborator Phil Western. “The Escapist” was originally released in 1998 on CD, but it now gets a re-release on limited brown vinyl plus a fanpack limited to 11 (yes eleven!) copies holding test pressings – you can find this super limited fanpack here.

The music on this reissue was completely remastered for the occasion.

Western (a founding member of the bands Download PlatEAU, Frozen Rabbit, and Off And Gone) started his career as a drummer and eventually as a programmer and became a remix engineer starting in the mid-1990s. His friendship with Dwayne Goettel led to him doing a small amount of keyboard work on the Skinny Puppy album “The Process”, as well as creating the Subconscious record label with Goettel in 1993.

After Goettel’s death from a heroin overdose in 1995, he became partners with Cevin Key in several musical projects. As an engineer, or remix engineer, he has worked with Skinny Puppy, Mirror, Bryan Adams and Nine Inch Nails. He has also assisted in remixes of songs written by Monster Magnet and Rob Halford and Metallica among others.

Since 2001, Western has been the operator behind The Record Company, which has been the imprint for several releases under his own name, as well as a reissue of the Floatpoint CD “Beam Error”

Here’s a track from Western’s debut album.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Former Nine Inch Nails keyboardist James Woolley passed away this weekend at the age of 50. Woolley was part of the live incarnation of Nine Inch Nails for the 1991 Lollapalooza Tour and also joined in at the first part of the 1994 Self Destruct Tour. You might remember him from his appearance in the “Wish” and the “March of the Pigs” videos.

Previous to NIN, Woolley was a major collaborator along with former NIN drummer Chris Vrenna to the Chicago based band Die Warzau. In 1994, just before NIN hit the road, Woolley contributed heavily to Sister Machine Gun’s album “Torture Technique”.

After he left Nine Inch Nails he made contributions to Die Warzau albums again, particularly 2005’s “Convenience” album. He also briefly played in Rob Halford’s band Two, produced music for a wide array of groups, worked on sound design for The Simpsons (those fart sounds are authentic), and worked on his own tunes for his band VOID which was led by Woolley and features players Jon Roberts, Mark Pearlman, and DJ Aaron Chase.

James Woolley can be seen on the left in the above picture.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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