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Post by Deleted on Apr 3, 2020 20:01:42 GMT
Chiasm
www.emileighrohn.com/
Dark electronic artist from Detroit, somewhat famous thanks to her track "Isolated" appearing in Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines CRPG. Emileigh, the name behind Chiasm, is both a musician and a public health scientist, and her songs often reflect dystopian things like unethical genetic engineering, cloning and abuse of power. Nice girl, I like her unique style of combining fast darkwave beat with soft female vocals, though she can be very aggressive, almost growling at times too, like in "Fake Smile" track. The lyrics in my opinion are sometimes not expressive enough or way too cryptic, but Chiasm tries to do her best, and makes the albums entirely on her own! I think she is sometimes too tentative with her music, there's noticeable wavering between scientific coldness and desperate, explosive human feelings. Regardless, Chiasm has got the style and never fails to deliver decent dark dance music over more than 20 years of her career! Recently (2020) she's been very active again, releasing a new music video and working on several albums/singles.
Favourites:
Fight Fake Smile (Collaborative Mix W J.C. Slaughter) Formula Transparent Liquefy Isolated Someone - video Surrender -AND- Surrender [Dark Techno Mix by TL5] Phobic - fan video Prefrontal EP Extinguish - video and the story behind it Major Tom (English Version) Petals - fan video The Sea Obligatory (also Obligatory 2.0 version, and DYM Remix) World Left Stay (Chiasm remix, very different from Claire Voyant mix of the same song, but also excellent) - listen Away (feat. John Fryer) - video
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Post by Deleted on Apr 3, 2020 20:18:42 GMT
Cranes
www.darkcircles.net/interviews/cranes.html
A slightly weird light shoegaze band, Alison Shaw has the voice of a childlike spirit which goes well with the music. The style is very diverse from album to album, videos are sometimes hard to find. They seem to be much lighter in tone than most similar bands in the alternative scene of the 90s, and thus received some general acceptance - but are probably still practically forgotten by now. Unrightly so, because their music is intelligent, beautiful and memorable once you've heard it.
Favourites:
Focus Breathe Shining Road - video (stupid vevo thing won't let me use invidious.tube for that one)
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Post by Deleted on Apr 3, 2020 20:36:42 GMT
Danielle Dax
www.danielledax.com/DANIELLE_DAX_HOME.html
British musician and artist with a dangerous level of Kubusness in her creations (check out the site... ). Very daring visual style and the hard-hitting, critical lyrics were her unique traits. Despite having genuine talent, in my opinion, and the good looks, Dax remained unknown - but thankfully you can still find her albums and music videos, of which there's quite a few, most of them pure psychedelia. What else to say about her... she starred in Company of Wolves, and you can also learn more about herself from the interview at "Star Test" show: invidious.tube/watch?v=5CuUra4Qo-c .
- I think for the survival of everything else on this world, you know, we should disappear - quick ... happy!
- If you met God, what would you ask her? - Why are the nicer people not as successful as the shitty people?
Favourites:
Pop-Eyes (album) Bad Miss M - video (a jab directed at Thatcher) Fizzing Human Bomb Cat-House - video When I Was Young Pariah - video White Knuckle Ride - video
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Post by Deleted on Apr 4, 2020 12:02:49 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 6, 2020 18:50:38 GMT
Impressions Of Winter
www.discogs.com/artist/135369-Impressions-Of-Winter
A Neoclassical band from Germany. They sound similar to early Deаd Can Dance and Machine in the Garden. I need to listen to them more, last time I got tired of listening to several albums in a row. The genre is beautiful, but requires special mood and setting.
Favourites:
Ignis Ardet In Pluvia
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2020 0:49:20 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2020 1:01:40 GMT
Love Spirals Downwards
www.discogs.com/artist/54481-Love-Spirals-Downwards
A Projekt Records ethereal/dreampop/downtempo band. Their music is fairly light in tone, even people who are completely outside the gothic scene might enjoy this. Some songs are new age-ish, in a good sense. Early albums have a very strong feel behind them, but I find them too euphoric. But I love the "Ever" album, it's excellent for relaxation and meditation, or just quiet oblivion and ignorant bliss. All their music is fairly psychedelic, and they were not afraid to reference psychoactive drugs in their songs (and the band's name). The group is long disbanded, since 1999 when one of the members decided to make a separate band, called lovespirals, which is pretty different in style, featuring jazz-like elements and a much faster tempo (LSD's last album, Flux, is foreshadowing this change).
Favourites:
And the Wood Come Into Leaf Love's Labour Lost (and its Heavenly Voices Mix) - live performance Depression Glass Ever (album)
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2020 1:19:39 GMT
Strange Boutique
web.archive.org/web/20190919203032/http://www.monicarichards.com/strangeboutique.htm www.morbidoutlook.com/music/tenquestions/2006_11_monica.html
Goth rock band with a touch of etherealness, stylistically sort of in between Sunshine Blind and Siddal (and in fact they frequently did concert tours with the latter). Somewhat abstract lyrics, often about things like art, as the name implies. The guitars are absolutely great, sometimes the lyrics are difficult to follow or sound naive, but in general they're still a very good band in my opinion, and definitely deserve more attention they got. No longer active, the vocalist Monica Richards went on to create a new band called Faith and The Muse (which I'm not very familiar with).
Favourites:
A Song From Under the Floorboards A Happy Death A Certain Euphoria
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2020 20:29:25 GMT
Switchblade Symphony
www.darkwaver.com/eklectique/switchblade.html sonic-boom.com/interview/switchblade.symphony.interview.html
A quite notorious darkwave duo, back in their time. Tina Root is gifted with a piercing banshee wail, which she made good use of on many occasions during the band's first albums and live shows. The name doesn't lie - most of their songs reek of evil, and though sometimes I think they really overdid it with the scary looks and creepy carols, their music is still very original, mainly because they tried to invent their own style within the goth paradigm, somewhat similar to what Stolen Babies are doing now. They took a chance and radically changed the feel of their songs at one point, though, and looks like it didn't work out. Earliest albums were clearly better and more fitting the name "Switchblade Symphony". No more stuff by them sadly, they disbanded long ago.
London Bridge did fall down, My fair lady nearly drowned. What is the reason to lock her up When already she had such rotten luck?
Do not confuse them with Strawberry Switchblade, another female witch-like duo!
Favourites:
Gutter Glitter (a more grisly version of traditional London Bridge song) Mine Eyes Rain (great chorals, highly recommended!) Clown - video Dissolve Novocaine Soldiers
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2020 20:53:13 GMT
The Machine in the Garden
www.morbidoutlook.com/music/tenquestions/2002_10_tmitg.html
Very interesting band, they weren't afraid to experiment with their music, only generally staying within guitar-driven ethereal and gothic rock. As is the case with most musicians of this genre, religious and mystical references are common in their songs, which can be annoying depending on your tastes and beliefs. Haven't listened to them enough yet, but I think my opinion of them is going to be favourable.
Favourites:
A Touch Of Heaven
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2020 21:06:22 GMT
Trance To The Sun
www.discogs.com/artist/62525-Trance-To-The-Sun web.archive.org/web/20110823160733/http://olive.homestead.com/
web.archive.org/web/20110625065905/http://www.scarletslipping.com/index.html
Their music can be really hard to define. Dark ethereal, dark ambient or simply their own vision of that elusive "darkwave" - I'll leave the choice to you. The yawning, psychedelic female vocals remind me of Orchis here, but it looks like the band was inspired by Cocteau Twins, as they did a cover of that band's song once. In any case, they are much darker than CT, there's more electronics and less rock. Thematically the songs are occult, sleazy and sometimes depressing. This band actually reminds me of Lycia, if you like one you may like the other as well. TTTS have changed the female vocalist three times throughout their history. The second girl, Dawn Wagner, later had a solo project called Scarlet Slipping. Trance To The Sun are still active.
Favourites:
The first two albums, Ghost Forest and Bloom Flowers, Bloom!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2020 21:15:28 GMT
Well, that pretty much sums it up. There are other obscure gothic bands and artists I could talk about here, but for now I shared my opinion only on those I consider the most notable and worth checking out. You may also try bands like This Ascension, The Changelings or the modern darkwave/coldwave artists like Hante, SYZYGYX and Winter Severity Index. I decided not to write about them here because either I have mixed/negative impressions of them or simply don't know enough about their music yet. More famous projects like Cocteau Twins and Clan of Xymox also aren't here because I wanted to focus specifically on artists who seemed to stay in the shadows and got overlooked. If you want, you can write your own reviews or opinions here!
EDIT: found a few more collectives worth mentioning...
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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2020 23:41:58 GMT
Epsilon Minus
www.discogs.com/artist/80292-Epsilon-Minus
Industrial/EBM band with a short discography, but many great songs. Very close to Chiasm in style and theme of lyrics. Bogart disbanded EM in 2005, intending to switch to IDM. A big mistake, in my opinion. The girl, Jennifer Parkin, is now known as Ayria, and her albums continue to be more or less of the same style (I like her song "Invisible"). Ayria is more gothic/industrial with somewhat simplistic texts, but I still find her interesting. Chiasm doesn't like her, though.
Favourites:
Freedom Antigravity Wasted Years Faceless Whispers (and GASR Remix) Power Down
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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2020 23:48:07 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2020 16:19:38 GMT
Zoar
zoar.com/
Neoclassical and dark ambient project from New York, active in the late 90s - early 2000s. Zoar is exploring the internal crisis and spiritual descent of the modern humanity. Check out their website, I really like the quotes there. One of the members wrote several books on human nature and technocracy. Their last album, Clouds Without Water, is highly experimental and includes collaborations with Brendan Perry of Dead Can Dance and Jennifer Charles of Elysian Fields.
Favourites:
Not really decided yet, all three albums are very good. Need to listen more.
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