Rising from the ashes of Vancouver's Skinny Puppy, perhaps the most influential industrial band of them all, the phoenix Download first appeared in 1995 with the abrasively experimental Furnace and its follow-up EP, Microscopic. Comprised at this time of the core of cEvin Key and the now-late Dwayne Goettel, the duo was augmented by Philth and Mark Spybey (formerly of Zoviet France and currently with Dead Voices on Air).
The following year saw the release of The Eyes of Stanley Pain and its companion EP, Sidewinder (although on these CDs, Philth had been replaced by Ken Marshall). Maintaining the harshness of its predecessors, these CDs combined elements of house funk, avant-garde experimentations, and industrial ambience.
During this same time, a third permutation of Download (Key and Goettel working with Phil Western) composed a soundtrack for Jim VanBebber's film, Charlie's Family. Although just as experimental as their previous works, this soundtrack was more ambient and atmospheric than the band's previous efforts, showing the diversity as well as the compositional strengths of Key and Goettel.