Rolling 2012 Goth / Post-Goth / Darkwave / Dark Neopostpunk / Deathrock etc. etc. Thread!

"It was about this time last year that the Goth phase began its renaissance." - Noah Wunsch, NY Press

The Goth Phase! Now in its renaissance!

Time to rep for the best bleak of 2012.

Are you digging the new Trust album?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqgv65j3uBo

How about the new Monica Richards (of Faith and the Muse fame)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDte4u4WUFI

Or maybe Young Hunting? Deaf Club? The Eden House?

Also, what were you top picks of 2011? Here are mine: Albums & EPs.

Also, I'm really loving the new School of Seven Bells album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUrQnDVWXvo

Faith and the Muse song seems to be inspired by the ghost in the mainframe in Johnny Mnemonic.

caught Zola Jesus in SF a couple nights ago. really powerful show, seemed to slightly be channeling some Ancient Greece/oracular vibe which I interpretted to be coming up through her background in opera

soap & skin mini lp narrow is terrific. although, the cover of voyage voyage is objectionable to some.

I'm in a goth band called Black Lodge, we're finishing our first album now. Here's a song (I'm playing drums):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CR1vu6gy30

I'm in a goth band called Black Lodge...

Nice.

I would totally play that on my show. Let me know when it's coming out.

Ok! Thanks.

New O Children album, "Apnea," out May 28th.

http://www.clashmusic.com/news/o-children-return-with-new-album

Advance track "PT Cruiser."

http://soundcloud.com/deadlypeople/o-children-pt-cruiser

ha, i like the two bass/no guitar lineup.

just came in here to tell you about this band BEASTMILK from Finland

they have an EP about to drop on Svart (track 1 from it is here and is probably the least good thing on the EP imo) who did the Uncle Acid reissue and loads of other doom metal kinda stuff - I think it will probably play w/ that crowd quite a bit, and they have this kinda free festival Mandrax band kinda vibe, but are way more early 80s goth and postpunk overall

played the EP through like four times just now and am getting the same O SHI feeling as when I heard Iceage for the first time last year

whether that counts for anything I have no idea

New album from Led Er Est due on May 15th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp6yduf-_OA

http://soundcloud.com/sacredbones/led-er-est-kaiyo-maru

i posted this on the punk/underground thread earlier.. i guess i'll post it here also even though their last few releases sounded way more goth

http://katorgaworks.bigcartel.com/product/merchandise-children-of-desire-lp

I think this thread would be a nice place to talk about goth past as well as present and future...

I'm quite interested in the idea of a goth revival because it had previously seemed incredibly unlikely. But just like with Shoegazing, I'm not especially excited by the sound of most newer stuff, either finding it too much like regular indie or diluted by bad usage of modern electronic elements or just feeling like a pale copy of previous glories.

I'm mainly an ethereal goth fan (things from the Cure, Siouxsie & Banshees, Cocteaus, This Mortal Coil, Dead Can Dance end), I've only got one Bauhaus record (Flatfield, I somehow didnt respond to most of it) and I've not yet touched Sisters Of Mercy, Nephilim, Mission, All About Eve, Gene Loves Jezebel, Alien Sex Fiend, Sex Gang Children and many others of that type.

I got the first Eden House record and saw them and was amazed that there was quite a chunk of a crowd still around for this stuff, I was really scared no-one would turn up ((because I always feel like goths have died out because I never see them in the streets for the past decade and if I see someone with dark dress and makeup I tend to assume they are a metalhead. A lot of Black Metal is way more gothic than most "goth" music)) I really love the idea of a goth supergroup; I thought the album was okay, but I really loved "Gods Pride".

I recently finished listening to Esben And The Witch and I thought it was pretty decent and perhaps my opinion is influenced by what I hoped the band might be because they have a great name and the gorgeous album cover had me hoping for a Projekt type thing that might illuminate great ethereal goth bands from the 90s to a new generation that might outnumber the audience of that stuff when it came out(more on that in a minute), "Marine Fields Glow" and "Warpath" hit that particular spot for me very nicely, I found the former track very touching but too much of it sounded like contempory indie to me. I'd really like to see a large list of their influences to see if the 90s Projekt similarities are just a coincedence and that they maybe just got their influences from Cure and Banshees. I think eventually they will bring out better records and I think they have a lot of promise.

From the world of shoegazing/dreampop I slid increasingly into ethereal goth (or ethereal wave as is often known) and found that it is probably the area in music that I sit most comfortably in and could listen to more than any other genre. I've got so much to explore but Lycia, Trance To The Sun, Cranes, Rise And Fall Of A Decade, Miranda Sex Garden, This Ascension, Faith And Disease, Mors Syphilitica/Requiem In White, Black Tape For A Blue Girl, Bel Canto, Faith And The Muse, And Also The Trees and a few others have become very dear to me. This list is really helpful for that kind of stuff...

http://rateyourmusic.com/customchart?page=1&chart_type=top&type=album&year=alltime&genre_include=1&genres=Ethereal+Wave&include_child_genres=t&include=both&limit=none&countries=

...as I said in my last reply, I think this music is really ripe for rediscovery, if some new band namedropped these bands I'd be really happy. Black Tape and Lycia would have plenty of mockers (I'm actually so glad Black Tape were never around in the right time and place to be ridiculed by NME, people would have been merciless, one of the things I like about Black Tape is how they dont restrain themselves for the sake of appearing cool and cynical) but I think the potential audience is far bigger than the tiny audience they have made do with. Or am I overly optimistic?
Rise And Fall Of A Decade were a revelation for me to the extent that their obscurity is terrifying. I learned about them in a Projekt thread here and I cannot thank the guy who brought them up enough. They were only slightly gothic and got progressively less so, incredibly elegant, more political than most ethereal bands and they really could have had mainstream success.

Trance To The Sun also deserve major rediscovery, some of their newest records I could only find on the Projekt store. They associated with Lycia and they shared a dense atmosphere but they were also very original and inspired me immensely with their distinctive style and weird lyrics that really painted strong scenes. I think they were real innovators, I'm not a music expert but I cant think of anything else like them with that same visual power, there was a really satisfying hardness that didnt spoil the ethereal aspect. I was always sceptical of dance orientated goth but the album Delirious managed to keep the atmospheric otherworldly visions but also be incredibly danceable and exciting. One track reminds me of Radiohead's "Idioteque".
Ash Sain later went into Submarine Fleet and after two records I dont think they are coming back. Is he staying with Soriah?

I got the first Strange Boutique album (Monica Richards in a shoegazey outfit) and despite 3 tracks being exactly what I wanted was mostly very uninspired by the numbers stuff. I hope the later albums are better.

Robert,

I hope Ashkelon is staying with Soriah, because 2011's "Eztica" was one of my favorite albums that year, and 2009's "Atlan" is also really great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-tjFUWDzXo

That said, I'd love to see a Trance To The Sun revival.

On the whole, I love the "old stuff" too, but I try to not get captured by it, because I don't want to fall into the trap many of my contemporaries have of not buying or experimenting with new dark bands. The Goth scene, at least the one I used to know, has become increasingly "retro" in orientation, and that troubles me. Cross-pollinating with "indie" is a good thing, and while some of it may not be to your taste, I also think it's doing some exciting things.

Speaking of new stuff from older bands, Arcana has a new EP, "Emerald," out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnFBHBi40UY

I actually dont have anything against indie, surely The Cure are an indie band? It is more a slight scepticism of modern currently popular indie( some of which I like). I'm not sure about the carbaret stuff either but I havent tried it, so I dont know. Even thought I like Dead Can Dance a lot, the humid mystical eastern element is something in 90s goth I've never been huge on but dont consider it a fault either.
Even if I dont really take to whatever modern types of goth are out, I dont feel any loyalty to the genre that I should be getting into it. Black Metal hits my goth spot even harder a lot of the time. Devil Doll with their silent movie horror movie gothic imagery I found extremely satisfying for very gothic reasons and they were more prog/classical/metal. And to be honest, what I like about some of these bands is not much to do with gothic qualities (Virgin Prunes and Legendary Pink Dots especially), a lot of these bands are labeled goth just because earlier influences of theirs were labeled goth, the reason I like a lot of goth is because their dreampop/shoegazer/ethereal elements rather than a devotion to the scene.

Of bands mentioned in these threads, I love HTRK, got all three of their records and saw a show of theirs when none of their equipment was working very well. It never occured to me that they be called gothic until I checked here. I was thinking today that they are a bit like Wolfgang Press.
I have a Zola Jesus record but not listened to it yet.

Twelfth Of Never and Dark Muse are newish ethereal goth bands that I thought sounded great but dont have any of their records yet.

I think the territory Trance To The Sun dealt with is something that could be explored without sounding derivitive, because as I said: they were really original and I'd love for them to get attention and credit for that. Did you see their live reunion stuff on youtube from a few years back?

Arcana are one of those bands I never got around to because their landmark albums are always so expensive on amazon.
I got both the Submarine Fleet albums recently and cant wait to listen to them.

Trance To The Sun deserve more attention from this world.

They're a good band.

Still, a lot of that nineties work cited always felt a little too mannered, for lack of a better word. Not all of it, obviously -- I've been on Projekt's promo mailing list for nearly twenty years for a reason -- but often I preferred those bands who took a cue from the explorations in sound opened up by the eighties wave rather than those trying to achieve a specific iconic status LIKE those bands of the eighties wave, if that makes sense (it's admittedly a fine line). That often presented better or more unexpected results -- so I'm down with Lycia, Cranes, nineties Black Tape, etc., each of whom went noticeably skew-whiff and sonically distinct (Faith and Disease being a good example of bootstrapping via older folk styles), but find bands like Faith and the Muse, This Ascension and others to be so thoroughly mannered as to be locked into stasis. Results were achieved but terribly insular.

I asked a question on the Black Tape thread, but no-one replied and I hope someone knows: There is an astonishing vocal performance at the end of Ashes In The Brittle Air by someone called Robin Russell, who as far as I can find, has no other recorded music credits. Who on earth was that guy?

I'm really curious about the aborted albums Trance To The Sun tried and if there is anything more that was worth hearing. I'd love to hear some of their stuff with Gordon Sharp from Cindytalk, what a bizarre collaboration! I wonder if Dawn Wagner was ever found after her disappearance. Did Ingrid Blue ever do anything after Trance?
I'm still missing some of their compilation appearances... Wow! I just found out they put out a compilation called The Blue Obscurities last year. I gotta have it!

I actually only have the first Faith And The Muse album, so I dont know them that well. I have the last two This Ascension albums, I think Sain was on one of them, I really adore those two albums. But I think I know what you are getting at. "Mannered" is a tricky word, to speak about it in its obvious sense... when I was getting into this music I wrestled with feeling that perhaps it was false, mannered, pretentious, etc... but something those guys in Sparks once said really stuck with me when they were defending themselves against those sort of acussations. They said that a literal presentation of their day to day lives would not be a true expression of who they were and that some people need to pretend somewhat to really be true to themselves in art.
I initially thought Mike VanPortfleet was trying to sound cool, dark, edgy and sexy in a modern vampire way but the more I got to know his voice, the more I knew this was not true. And vocalists as mannered as Tibet from Oscar from Black Tape, Current 93, Mr Doctor from Devil Doll and Varney from Sopor Aeternus are going to be a tough sell to a lot of people.

Any Rise And Fall Of A Decade fans here? The first album is the only properly gothic one, but I'd say the first three albums were essential.

I think Katie Jane Garside could have been a goth icon had she put on a bit more black or made slightly darker( visually not thematically)music.

Sorry, I meant Zoe Wakefield when I said Dawn Wagner

I'd just like take a quick moment to say how much I like School of Seven Bells' cover of Siouxsie's "Kiss Them For Me."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAf6akprIBQ

http://stereogum.com/1014372/school-of-seven-bells-kiss-them-for-me-siouxsie-and-the-banshees-cover/mp3s/

Also, new Light Asylum comes out next week!

I posted this over on the DCD thread, but I thought it was worth mentioning here as well.

New Dead Can Dance album will be out August 9th.

http://www.directcurrentmusic.com/dc-music-news-feed/2012/5/7/dead-can-dance-are-alive-again-for-first-album-since-96.html

They've got a fair number of older tracks they only ever performed live they can pull from... I just hope they have some duets on the new one.

Have enjoyed the last couple of 2:54 singles, album comes out at the end of this month. They sound a bit like Warpaint or PJ Harvey or something...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGH7bKlABIc
2:54 - Scarlet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9blpg5NknU
2:54 - You're Early

soft moon with john foxx, seems relevant here

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/13622-evidence/

I love the Soft Moon/John Foxx collaboration, it made me wish it was a whole album.

Happy World Goth Day ILM!

http://www.worldgothday.com/

What the

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ-GiVfD3wE

i posted this on the punk/underground thread earlier.. i guess i'll post it here also even though their last few releases sounded way more goth

http://katorgaworks.bigcartel.com/product/merchandise-children-of-desire-lp

― billstevejim, Saturday, April 7, 2012 3:50 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i just ran into this band via tumblr etc. pretty good!

fucking unsearchable names these days tho

this is hot!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu3oEc6CSpc&feature=relmfu

holy hell, I love this

i know it's just that the guy has a deepish voice, but an echo and the bunnymen act! just what the world needed imo.

apparently they are from tampa. lol.

I finished listening to the Black Belles album recently. I liked it okay but it sounds like Jack White not only produced it but wrote half the album. I bought the album on the strength of the cover( I rarely buy any records without knowing something about them first), it looked a bit like Join Hands by Banshees. In purely musical terms it is only slightly gothic.
I often wonder why a lot of bands choose horror imagery for their dress up and record covers but dont evoke it with their music very much. I see that quite a bit from punky rockabilly bands.
It makes me wonder how much goth really is a musical genre, because most of it could be said to be just a regular genre (post punk, ambient... etc) but taken a darker way.

When I started listening to The Cure and Banshees and progressed onto other stuff, I always loved it but was disappointed in a way because I didnt think it sounded gothic, I always thought gothic music surely had church organs, harpsichords and ghostly choirs. Early Jacula/Antonius Rex (dark prog/early metal) filled this need to an extent and I think I'll be finding others close to this. I'm curious about Nox Arcana and Midnight Syndicate.

I see plenty of room for new types of goth music because I believe and hope that upcoming musicians should just find musical ways to describe their gothic fantasies.

Jason- Earlier you described how goth moved into dance/club orientated music. Could you explain how goth moved away from the UK? At least it seems to me it has. So much UK activity in the 80s but there cant be many UK goth bands now. Did british cynicism kill goth?
If I ever see a goth in the street, I tend to assume they are a metalhead. When I was in highschool, the gothic dress was pretty much associated with Industial and bizarrely Nu-Metal. I've talked about this to a bunch of people how where I live (scotland) there seems to be decreasing amounts of people in public visibly belonging to a subculture. In the late 90s I remember seeing punks, goths, bikers, hippies and leather/pvc people in public. But now everyone looks the fucking same. It's a bit scary and sad to wonder how this happened. I never dressed up because I'm too lazy and I think it is tougher for guys to goth up and look good.

I often wonder why a lot of bands choose horror imagery for their dress up and record covers but dont evoke it with their music very much

Lots of bands are guilty of this these days imo.

Just watched Soft Moon live. Insanely good.

Did british cynicism kill goth?

You'd probably have to ask Uncle Nemesis or Mick Mercer for a definite answer, since I'm not based in the UK, and would no doubt miss something vital. That said, my understanding is that after the dark rock "boom" in the late-80s and early-90s, club music of all sorts came to dominate, live gigs fell off, and the scene retreated to a handful of dance clubs. Things are better now, as I understand it, but there's a good bit of separation from the original scene and the newer dark bands. So cynicism? No. More changing trends and economic realities.

Bunch of goth-y new releases out today...

Unto Ashes - Burials Foretold
Arcana - As Bright As A Thousand Suns
Tropic of Cancer - Permissions of Love EP
Savages - Husbands / Flying to Berlin Single

Anyone here pick these up? Anything out this week I missed?

Really enjoy that Merchandise album while cleaning my hamster's cage last night, thanks for recommending! Although I think the part where it goes all crazy in the middle of "Become What You Are" kind of freaked the little dude out.

Anything out this week I missed?

o children new album "apnea".. came out digitally this week anyway

Wow, Tropic of Cancer continues to rock it with their new 12". I love their Clan of Xymox/Section 25 thing.

i dig it.

doomy htrk-ish solo stuff from member of everyone's favourite synth nihilists chrome dome

http://asps.bandcamp.com/

Thanks for the reminder on O Children, just picked that up. Veering into some overlapping metal territory, I'm also pretty excited about the new Ides of Gemini album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzIyPK6bqIk

will get the o children album when it hits a silver disc.

fuck a download.

quite a backstory re the singer since the previous album .. was wonderin as they just 'disappeared' for a long time

fuck a download

I got it in FLAC format from Boomkat, so audio-quality-wise it's just as good.

I've got a love/hate thing for Mick Mercer.

On one hand he can be unecessarily rude (he has admitted this) and I think he said people have even attacked him in person for this. He complains about the way people ignorantly treat goth but I think he is guilty of doing the exact things he complains about, but to progressive rock (one of my 3 top genres next to goth and dreampop, with the latter two overlapping a lot). I've said before how good Devil Doll and Jacula/Antonius Rex were. Trance To The Sun listed prog as an influence too.
But on the other hand he can be very funny, he is extremely dedicated to the bands. He once said that the difference between him and a lot of brit music journalists of his generation was that they written about themselves while he written about the bands. It shows when I looked back at archive reviews that this is true. I really enjoyed some of his books. Sadly some of the music he written rave reviews for is invisible on the internet.

just ducked in to see if anyone had talked about Merchandise ITT .... check

Children of Desire is a good record

honk if you <3 the eighties

etc

their older record available at the bigcartel link that billstevejim posted upthread is worth a listen too. Strange Songs in the Dark. more guitar noise / shoegazey vibes compared to the new one.

i like "strange songs in the dark" a lot better, but the new one is good.

i just ran into this band via tumblr etc. pretty good!
fucking unsearchable names these days tho
try putting "merchandise wordpress". i think all the digital albums are still free.

i've come around to their self-titled demo which is my favorite at the moment. darker/harder-edge songs and production.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmZBkHmNrMA

Found this on Spotify, it is the shit. Soundtrack to queer horror movie (which looks amazing) by Bruce LaBruce:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhgaj4LW4a4

The film is about a zombie named Otto who hitched a ride to Berlin and begins to explore the city. Otto is discovered by underground filmmaker Medea Yarn, who begins to make a documentary about him with the support of her girlfriend, Hella Bent, and her brother Adolf. Medea is trying to finish Up with Dead People, the epic political-porno-zombie movie that she has been working on and convinces its star, Fritz Fritze, to allow the vulnerable Otto to stay in his guest bedroom.

I just put this out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp4xTcJya8s

You can pre-order / listen to the whole thing here
http://instantpleasure.bandcamp.com

'some ember' ep on night-people would appeal to o.children fans.

peeps might also dig the white hex lp on nihilistic orbs

http://nihilisticorbslabel.bandcamp.com/album/white-hex-heat-lp

sadly the label founder passed away so there won't be anything else on this label, which is a damn shame as almost everything on it was great