Sounds and Shadows February 2022 Darkscene Singles Chart

It is once again time to release the Sounds and Shadows Darkscene singles chart. Ok admittedly I am behind as always and this is the chart from Feb. As always these are singles released in Feb voted on by our members of Bands, Djs, fans, and reviewers. Representing the fan picks for the month in all genres of the darkscene. (goth/Industrial/Synthwave/Darkwave/EBM/EDM/ect) This month featured a few sad stories, because two bands that were chosen are no more 🙁 . I love what this chart has come to represent. Songs chosen by the people who love and support this scene regardless of label, influence, or history.

  1. Dead Cool Game of Trust
  2. Massive EgoFake Star
  3. Sapphiria Vee Feat: Roger EbnerNot Meant For Me
  4. Dead LightsDoom Doom Trash
  5. The Palest Grey – Suicide
  6. Lorelei DreamingOf Stars (Daddybear Remix)
  7. Secret ShameHide
  8. Sidewalks and Skeletons Feat: Goo MondayShadows
  9. Moris Blak xx Moaan Exis Feat:GrabyourfaceState Rejects
  10. Junksista Fuck Your Pretty Face

DEAD COOLGame of Trust – Wilmington, North Carolina stellar splashing synthwave goodness full of mystery and mayhem. Ringing front striking vocals and cascade keys. The husband and wife John and Angela Yeagher create a sinister story that is always driving forward. Awesome cover art to complete the image by Morgan Elizabeth.

https://deadcool.bandcamp.com/track/game-of-trust

Massive EgoFake Star – This was a happy/sad story. The London based dark synth act released this single and EP which is a sizzling assault of tongue and cheek satire and blood pumping dance chaos. Sadly the band has decided to call it quits to focus on health and personal concerns. We are left with this buzzing shadow storm electric single.

https://massiveegoofficial.bandcamp.com/

Sapphira Vee Feat : Roger Ebner – I love this bold crackling new energy from Sapphira Vee. As I state often on this page the addition of saxophone adds depth and sex appeal to everything. Roger Ebner (Pigface) give a muted perfect accent to these whispy tendrils of emotion and poetically delivered vocals.

https://sapphiravee.bandcamp.com/track/the-gift-was-not-meant-for-me-ft-roger-ebner

DEAD LIGHTSDoom Doom Trash – UK Batwing EDM kicked out this absolutely banger from their upcoming March 2022 EP. It’s tight lightsaber fencing lunge and parry to make your dancefloor burn with desire. This album can’t come soon enough. Rain down ask and destruction on the writhing forms in leather and lace.

https://deadlightsband.bandcamp.com/

The Palest GreySuicide – Florida based deathrock newcomers comprised of members of Obscura Undead. A lurking and spine tingling promise which sadly will not go forward. The band completed this EP and then went their separate ways to pursue other projects. We are left with this driven and frantic single of old school bat cave croon and danger. We can only hope that the individual member continue on in future projects.

https://thepalestgrey.bandcamp.com/track/suicide

 Lorelei Dreaming – Of Stars – daddybear Remix – Chicago EDM Fantasy weaving Queen released this remix album with several wonderful re imaginings from top talent in the scene. This one a burning firework display by Matt Fanale (Daddybear). I love this bracing breathy barrage of bardic inspiration pushed from the battlefield onto the dancefloor by one of the masters of the genre.

https://loreleidreaming.bandcamp.com/track/of-stars-daddybear-remix

Secret ShameHide – Asheville, North Carolina driving dark alt band is just disturbingly good and continues to leave me floored with every single release. Rifle crack drums, polycolor slush pedal guitars, and ringing chat vocals with inspire and cast emotional magic. Hit after hit for this band.

https://secretshame.bandcamp.com/track/hide

Sidewalks and SkeletonsSHADOW [ᴡɪᴛʜ ɢᴏᴏ ᴍᴜɴᴅᴀʏ] – I recently had the pleasure of interviewing this UK band as well as upping my witchhaus education. This single is a pulsing shot of pure adrenochrome tempered with the gorgeous chime wave vocals of Australia’s Goo Monday. I started with this single and fell deep in love with this record.

https://sidewalksandskeletons.bandcamp.com/track/shadow

MORIS BLAK, Moaan Exis, grabyourfaceState Rejects – Ok, there is so much to unpack here from Boston EBM darling Moris Blak’s new single. For starters it absolutely slaps. It features the most selected singer in the history of this poll Marie Dragontown of Grabyourface. It also features fellow French explosive rage dance band Moaan Exis. Somehow these immense artistic talents come together in creative cause to spew napalm chaos glory into your eardrums. I am staggered, I am spent, holy shit.

https://morisblak.bandcamp.com/album/moris-blak-x-moaan-exis-state-rejects-moments-of-dissent

JUNKSISTAFuck Your Pretty Face – German electronic whisper punk from Diana Noir released on COP International is a raindrop blue hue builder full of menace and danger. Throwing a burning brand at the concept of the value of beauty standards. I love the boxer weave drum beat and snarling challenge.

https://junksista.bandcamp.com/album/fuck-your-pretty-face

Remember to cast your votes for March in the Sounds and Shadows group for the singles that are inspiring you. A musical revolution is happening.

6/18/21 Bandcamp is donating 100% of our share of sales to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund

I have been thrilled to watch as the Goth/Industrial community grows more diverse. Hats off again to Bandcamp for really putting their money where their mouth is to support both bands and the rights people of color. I will go through some of the things I am currently listening to so you can add to your list and support a great cause.

LEATHERSReckless – The long anticipated EP from Shannon of Actors. A unique departure from her other projects and really highlights her essence which is more collaborative in Actors. It’s sleek, it’s beautiful, it’s as light as an angel dancing on a pin. I love the silky billowing synths and how they flow off the shoulders of her voice. The sound is such an immersive dream which slides along the borders of reality. I spend moments dwelling on how something so beautiful manages to remain so relatable.

https://leathers.bandcamp.com/album/reckless

Favorite track: Take your pick, but I will go with Missing Scene. Something about this swooping shoegaze LUSH 4AD vibe. Her voice is reverberating like a tuning fork yet ringing so clearly. I hear this song and even on earbuds I feel like I’m in an old opera house with a towering sound system feeling wave after wave wash over.

October NoirCover Type O Negative: Love You To Death – Loving the sound of this band. Does it emulate the band they are covering in a lot of their sound. Yes. Type O is an amazing sound though. It’s ultra bass Steele vocals. It’s crunching power chords. It’s chest pounding bass guitar. This cover is rich with extra layers and complexity. It feels like a love letter to a band now beyond the veil. You can really feel the time and dedication placed on taking apart and reanimating every aspect.

https://octobernoir.bandcamp.com/track/love-you-to-death

Dea DecayMagic Lantern – This is a beautiful fun romp from Florida artist Dea Decay that came out in December 2020. A spicy club crashing electronic explosion. No vocals but instead a steady stream of adorable wicked anime samples. It’s non stop energetic explosion of adorable imagery and and surreal colors.

https://deadecay.bandcamp.com/album/magic-lantern

Favorite Track: Catronica – A little secret here, when the new netflix She-Ra came out I was blown away. It’s so wonderful and pure. This song really captures that energy and highlights my favorite character Catra. It’s sharp claws bounding around with reckless abandon.

SHIV-RKill God Ascend – Brand new album from the Australian electronic apocalypse know as SHIV-R. I love the expansive fantasy metal destruction fed into a machine brain and turned loose on an unsuspecting populous. Pete Crane is a force of nature in the industrial scene and has a glorious gift for poetic imagery in his lyrics. If you are a fan of the violent industrial power of Front 242 and shaking your body in dangerous convulsions, this is your jam. I’m also impressed by the range shown on tracks like Spark, a truly lovely brain infecting track of pop industrial glory. Or Black Turns Blue a downtempo marching chant of a ballad. This record is a journey. Crane’s voice is one of those charismatic characters that feels at home in every setting the music places it. This is the wonder of modern industrial.

https://blindmiceproductions.bandcamp.com/album/kill-god-ascend

Black AngelPrince of Darkness – I am LOVING this modern trend of returning to guitar driven true gothic rock. Matt Vowels has done it again. This is sizzling and sensual dark driving glory. I just don’t get to make this comparison enough but this album holds that emotive blistering power of Love and Rockets. Deep brooding rich vocals, whip snap percussion, but it always comes back to the V8 power of these guitars. Everything is foot to the floor speed and slides. It’s a non stop action flick of adrenochrome and dark intent.

Favorite Track: Serene – What a gorgeous highway 51 desert hard hitting ballad. The vocals croon and tantalize as the dust rolls by on an empty stretch. I love song for outlaws.

PALAIS IDEALThe Art of Crashing – I’ve been waiting for the follow up to the 2019 release Pressure Points with baited breath. I was disappointed only by the fact it was three tracks and not twenty. This release is a perfectly blended sound of quality crafting, unique flavor, and infectious hooks. It’s one of those releases I can’t imagine who I could play this for and have them not enjoy it. It really has a universal appeal. It feels kinetic, like Depeche Mode “Construction Time Again”. I always enjoy John’s voice, but this EP really highlights how many different things he can do while sounding distinctly himself. It’s the true mark of a singer who has found his themselves and are owning it. The other greatest power of PI is, like all great prog genre, the two components know each other and their instruments so intimately. It really feels like two blended minds working without barrier. It makes the guitar and bass lines dart, bend, and twine together in perfect syncopation. I will be playing this…. A LOT.

https://palaisideal.bandcamp.com/album/the-art-of-crashing

Favorite Track: You can’t go wrong but Results is damn near perfection. From the opening guitar riff, the workout routine bassline, and John’s drive and grit. This song feels like an instant classic from out of time I somehow didn’t hear. It also holds the higher concept lyrics and hope PI always wins me over with. 10/10

Does anyone have any money left after Bandcamp Day? Because there are more amazing releases that need your attention.

After the tidal wave of new releases from the last few weeks I get to settle down and deep dive some of the amazing things that I didn’t get to. Powerhouse albums from around the globe that are making my heart pitter patter for the exciting future of modern Darkscene. As always comment on the page who you think I need to review next and share these reviews so others can find them.

Sounds Like WinterFight The Stairs – I have been a fan of the Australia based traditional goth band for a while now. With their third album they have struck an amazing new chord that is the most impressive to date. One of the flavors I have always loved in SLW was the rough edges and old school feel. I never needed crystal clear production work to feel the passion driven low fi power of the songs. In an unexpected turn they have somehow unearthed the unorthodox blending genius of Martin Hannett to create the lost progression of Joy Division and A Certain Ratio. The drums are a crisp sizzle, the guitars a stabbing fencer in constant assault. Sian Williams walks up the down staircase with synergists motion and lead guitar bass. Finally Ant Banister has captured the soulful baritone resonance of Ian Curtis that so many in the current scene have tried to grasp. The entire effect is lightning in a bottle which is holding place between two times. I’m on my third playthrough and still find myself searching for details in a seamless delivery.

https://sounds-like-winter.bandcamp.com/album/fight-the-stairs

I would be remiss to not address the lyrics. This album has a crystal clear delivery with poetic flare for dark themes that keep bringing me back to Unknown Pleasures and Still. The wonderful lighting/Thunder offset of Andi Lennon‘s vocals add just the right amount of spice to this complex stew. My arms sway with reckless abandon and my mind swirls with the bleak and heady themes. People often talk about how much this scene leans on the past, but not enough on the ground left to go. This feels new.

Favorite Track: Fight The Stairs – The title track is the perfect blend of both tempo and Andi/Ant’s vocal style. A guitar riff is everywhere at once like a live wire catch the dragon by the tail. It’s a story you can follow and a sound to get lost in.

Overall: This is the new standard for a band hitting on all cylinders

DogtabletPearldrop Blue – A lot to unpack here. So many amazing elements in one place that connect all the tiny synapses in my mind and unleash a flood of dopamine right in the brainstem. Scene legends Martin King, Roberto Soave, and Jared Louche, have teamed up once again to bring out all the best in each other and we are reaping the sonic benefits. I’ve had a hole in my heart as Jared has been quiet lately. Hearing his mad prophet poet spinning spiderweb dreams again takes me on a fantastical journey. The album features a plethora of amazing guest vocals from S & S favorites Cat Hall, Coral Scene, Sapphiria Vee/MelodyWhore, and Groovie Mann. Another amazing addition was mastering by sonic wizard Pete Burn. How they take all these elements and make the chaotic fever dream sound so clean and cohesive is beyond me, but I suppose that is why they are legends. The entire album builds like a cinematic human drama touching gentle notes like taste buds on the tongue.

https://dogtablet.bandcamp.com/album/pearldrop-blue

Favorite Track: Impossible to choose from this ensemble cast of talent. Every Little Lie – Featuring frequent collaborators Sapphiria and Melodywhore is crystal cocktail party of balance and trip hop fantasy. Star – Is a deep and introspective prayer to the connection of spirit. Silver strands winding through the universe while light bounces off at a million sparkling moments. Heavy Gravity has a more traditional Dogtablet feel, with Louche in full moonbeam madness and William Borough’s cosmic streams of conciseness.

Overall: Another smash hit with the complexity of craft you would expect from veteran masters, and the dangerous psychedelia artistic courage of people beyond the game. You will be changed by this.

Aesthetic PerfectionGravity – Houston we have lift off. The newest single from Daniel Graves featuring Swedish death metal axe master Sebastian Svalland holds the speed and power to break the atmosphere. I almost had a dance related injury the first time I spun it. Graves touches on an emo punk lilt to the vocals that gives an original modern bite to the Pop-Industrial equation. Get strapped in, and peer out the window as the pinpricks of light race by at blazing speed. I know I was late to the game for Aesthetic Perfection, the more I hear, the more I love.

https://aestheticperfection.bandcamp.com/album/gravity-single

Sega LugosiUn​-​Undead EP – Wow, the ultimate goth diss album from the hidden part of The Gothsicles. If you ever wanted in on the inside joke of modern EDM, now is your chance. Epic in scope chocked full of nerd culture reference. Everything you love about Klack/Caustic/The Gothsicles put in a blender on frape and poured on a Genesis consul until it sparks and burns. Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick Taco Tuesday is a jam. It really isn’t the humor, because the songs are funny. It’s how good the songs are in spite of the humor. “Sunday ain’t my day to pray, It’s Tuesday that makes me sashay.”

https://segalugosi.bandcamp.com/album/un-undead-ep

Curse MackeySubmerge Remix – How do you find new space in my favorite track of 2019 breakout album Instant Exorcism? Have sound engineer extraordinaire and close friend Chase Dobson do a remix, and give him a new guitar line from Ronny Moorings of Clan of Xymox. Where the original track was a slow and crushing descent. Here you are in open water, looking at the expanse of nothing but dark blue for miles. Gorgeous lapping waves of delayed guitar the only sensation tying you to life and you sing down in ice waters. I love feeling something I am already in love with deeper. Discover it again.

https://cursemackeyngp.bandcamp.com/album/submerge

It’s Friday and I’m In Love With Bandcamp Day

In a shocking twist of fate I finished my May Bandcamp Day reviews a week early. Which means I have time to do a part II of amazing new releases before Friday 5/7/21. As always I have gotten into my tiny goth boat to sail the seas of amazing music from around the world that stirred my heart like a bracing wind on stormy seas. So look with me to the stars as we navigate these choppy waters. Leave some of your great finds in the comments below, and as always keep it dark yo.

Big Time KillRecovery – Let’s jump in with a bang to the new EP by Boston based BTK. This EP absolutely floored me. It’s a ear worm blasting blend of catchy intense lyrics flicking through a rollercoaster dynamic ride with glam, electroclash, synthwave, and grunge. The way Adam Schneider and Ben Caccia bounce through effortless transitions is engaging and artistic. To cover so much ground in 4 tracks is a masterwork. I know I am using big shoes here but this journey holds the toothy refinement of Pretty Hate Machine. An early contender for surprise hit of the year.

https://bigtimekill.bandcamp.com/album/recovery

Favorite track: Cliche’ – Whipping chains of ghost riding fire. Drops away with a crooning desire. The chorus is an expansive hit that taps deep into a feeling any artist in 2021 has looked down the barrel of. Bubbling guitar leads counteract with Adam’s piecing sky splitter voice. “What are you gonna do, when the world keeps coming for you”. Banging guitar solo 10/10 on the pump my fist in the air scale.

Sweat BoysAdrenaline (feat. Valerie Abbey) – Blistering blaze single from Benny Sweat who has teamed up with Valerie of Abbey Death to tackle goth classic Rosetta Stone’s synth anthem. It’s fresh in it’s violet electric pacing and the wispy beauty of Valerie’s delivery. I love Ben’s gift for taking something untouchable and making it his own. It has reinvented the song as well as his own style. Everything about this cover feels fresh. The flowing keyboards step forward to take the place of the guitar line and turn the dark sky neon. This single is an instant club hit.

https://sweatboys.bandcamp.com/album/adrenaline-feat-valerie-abbey

Era NocturnaHell – Another Boston artist Era has has returned from a 13 year hiatus to release a new single featuring three remixes. Her voice has the stalking power of a giant black wolf, blood dripping from it’s jaws. A sinister ferocity and stalking cadence. The whole sound feels cornered and dangerous while exposing a vulnerability. The lyrics are a poetic journey like Dante emerging from the inferno. It’s hard, it’s mean, and it happens in 4.5 minutes. I hope this spells the return of a powerful darkpop voice. Special shout out to the Lilith My Mother remix which softens the edges and adds blending of the grey hues to the music. This brings a clarity and resilience to Daeva’s voice. I can’t wait to see what style will be her next prey.

https://eranocturna.bandcamp.com/album/hell

Coor Brow-OblesMacGuffin Baby – Bopping new gothglam single from Gillingham UK. I always love the high range old school croon of Coor’s voice. The tongue and cheek of beauty against S & M concept. Put your hands on me and choke me softly. I think Coor has a true star quality and I want to see the production level find the same heights of cleverness as the songs. A fun ride between Bowie and Syd Barrett that leaves me hungry for more.

https://coorblimey.bandcamp.com/track/macguffin-baby

Death Loves VeronicaChemical – The first album from the glorious union of the Texas siren and Cold Transmission Music. I love the crashing tide synth drive and the contrast of warm whiskey sliding down the back of your throat. A ritual incantation and self realization. Every time Veronica announces a new release I am left wondering what new territory her voice will take me. Pre Order is currently available with the first two singles “Burn” and “Spindein“. The power of this album is how instead of you studying the painting while listening. The stalking control and awareness in the eyes of the music is staring back at you. You are the one on display and the tendrils of the music creep towards you and wrap you up.

Favorite Track: Spindein – Such a deliberate, calculated crawl of leather and feathers. When they say a song can get under your skin, this is what they mean. “Nothing dies, the way you do” I love the buzzing guitars at the halfway point. It really adds a second act to the story of the song. Light the candles, pour a glass of wine, get seduced by the power of music.

https://deathlovesveronica.bandcamp.com/album/chemical

WeirdWolvesOverdrive – First single from the Austin TX band which combines Raphael Colantonio and Ava Gore (Daughter of Depeche Modes Martin Gore). It’s a nice early 2010’s electrosmasher club killer. Nice duet blend vocals. I had to really force myself to hear it on it’s own merit and not the power of it’s royal blood. Top notch production and some lovely giant mechanical snake sidewind slither. It was a brief but tantalizing introduction. You have my attention, but the bar will be high. I want to see open veins and dynamic power from a full length release.

https://weirdwolvesmusic.bandcamp.com/track/overdrive

Dead Animal Assembly PlantBring Out The Dead – Another bone jarring hit from our friends at Armalyte Industries. This album is venturing a little closer to the metal aspects of industrial/metal than I tend to go. Sometimes in life you just need music to smash shit to, and that’s what the Portland band is bringing with rapid fire whole sale destruction. What leaves me impressed isn’t the moments it hits hard, it’s in the subtitle intelligence where pulls back and lulls you into a false sense of security just to swing the bat at you again with reckless abandon. Another great highlight is the cover of the folk song “Gods Gonna Cut you Down“. They say when Johnny Cash covers a song he makes it his own. Sometimes though you need to rip it out of his hands and shake the shit out of it with blistering guitars and fiercely whispered vocals by Time Bitch.

Favorite Track: Sacred Disgrace – It’s all the power and fury of the other tracks, with Lulu Black adding an eerie and off putting violin line which makes the vocals spew forth with added vigor. A crushing dirge of power and beauty.

https://deadanimalassemblyplant.bandcamp.com/album/bring-out-the-dead-2

blackcellBurn the Ashes – Ok this came to me as a hot tip from Michael Smith. Just to discover it is a collaboration of Eric Isbell and Matt Jones. Mastered by Chase Dobson. Dark, dripping, delicious death disco that I didn’t know how much I needed in my life. Take one part Ultravox, one part Cabaret Voltaire, a dash of modern production to sooth the lofi edges and you have the recipe for your next low key sexy dance party. A twisted carnival of Andy Warhol’s most fiendish nightmares made of shadows and spun in technicolor. I was not ready for this and fell deep. Prepare to hear a lot more about this band from me in the future. This gets the where have you been all my life award.

Favorite Track: Creep Like Fire – This is the song playing when John Travolta stumbles into the Black Lodge of David Lynch and wanders aimlessly while a thin man in a suit speaks in reverse.

https://blackcell.bandcamp.com/

What Is It about Mexican Darkness? Part I

Mexico city’s Oscura scene (MCOS) has become one of the strongest Mexican urban cultures due to the amount of musical, literary and artistic works produced every year. How does this came to be? As many cultural processes there is a consensus that establishes a date of birth, this one is settled in1994 with the first visit of London After Midnight to Mexico city. Back then it wasn’t called MCOS. As a matter of fact, it didn’t have a proper name. We endlessly and (maybe) uselessly discussed if the correct term we should use was “Dark” (yes, in English) or Gótica (yes, in Spanish). As years went by “Dark” became “Darks”, and “Gótica” turned into “Gothic” (yes, now in English) and finally into” Goth” (still in English), by then the discussion ended but suddenly Post Punk made an appearance. Perhaps we all were tired of trying to find a “pure”, “true”, “honest”, yada, yada, yada term and we all agreed on MCOS since it conveyed the many genres, terms, discourses and attitudes related with what we, in Mexico City, understood as our scene.
And before ’94?… Well, we haven’t agreed on that, but when I began chatting with Ken about MCOS he mentioned the term “proto-Goth”; I found it very imaginative and accurate so I decided to steal it from him (hehehe) and establish two proto Goth ages. The late one 1987-1993, and the early one 1979-1986. Of course, the “mascara traces” (paraphrasing Grail Marcus’ book) can be followed up to 1973, but of course they weren’t as “dark” as they became in ’93 nor in ’79.
Mexican rock history is a complex one, in the sense that there hasn’t been a direct line of development. Local bands haven’t been able to establish such a line therefore a proper domestic scene or genre is absent. As a matter of fact our rock has had many, many bumps, cracks and blurs among many other things. Most of Mexican rock and roll, twist, psychedelic rock, progressive rock, punk, new wave, techno-pop, grunge are derivative of what we knew, through mass media, of what was going on in England and the US whether we talk about mainstream or semi-mainstream musical expressions. We even had our Brit Pop scene!!! This is still happening.. Of course, It is common that most of the acts that jump on someone else’s train vanish once the trend passes, or others change style (according to the new musical fad); but sometimes, this acts generate a scene that remains and flourishes strongly. This was the case of MCOS.
It is fair to say that the first pulse of MCOS was known as “Dark”. It became a mainstream word and trend in Mexico City in the second half of the eighties, but it was just that: a trend, not a scene, not a movement, nothing like that. It didn’t had a discourse. People having fun (nothing wrong with that) following a fad. Of course, there were some people with the insight of what was happening in the US, England, and Germany, but those were the initiated ones. While they might have already known about Bauhaus, Joy Division, The Cure or Siouxie; and talked (years before the image broke into mainstream) about the Beggars Banquet or the 4AD labels; a more conservative audience, mainstream music consumers, might have had their first contact with the proto-goth look when they saw Alaska (the lead singer of the Spanish pop band Alaska y Dinarama) on Mexican TV. She appeared in Siempre en Domingo (a Tv show molded from The Ed Sullivan Show which became one of the most important platforms for mainstream music in Latinamerica) all dressed-up in “siniestro” style (“sinister”, that’s how they called Goth in Madrid in the first half of the eighties) generating a strong impact in the audience, some loved her and some loathed her. Her looks were very shocking for youth to imitate, moreover for regular teenager girls. Mexico was very conservative and since 1968 young cultivated culture (much more if it was rock related) represented something to be closely watched and reprehended by the state trough police or other authority agents, it was a common situation to see teenagers or young adults being frisked, beaten, picked up, detained only by wearing long hair or clothes out of the ordinary. Paradoxically, early 80’s Mexico began a process of modernization that contemplated its urban young population appearance, yet it should be a “friendly” and “healthy” appearance. An example of this friendly appearance was represented by the pop girl vocal group Flans which look were regarded as outlandish by media and massive audiences. Was it? Well, they were molded from Bananarama.


A second mainstream contact with proto Goth look might have occurred when Soda Stereo (considered by many people the most influential Argentinian band) reached Mexican hit parade (around 1986). By that time the band used to dress in black with colorful shirts, wore mascara and crepe hair; and such was its impact that many kids began to dress like them… upper-middle class kids, of course. It was with this look when the word “posmo” (short from postmodern) became the regular way to address people dressed like that.


Let’s give a little leap to the end of the decade: Disintegration came out and put The Cure everywhere, of course they were already known but when I said everywhere I’m not talking about the usual mainstream music channels, you could even hear some songs of the album as background on some soup operas or in a Mexican Navy tv advertisements, another thing to notice is that the word “posmo” was substituted by “dark” . How? Why? It is a mystery, but many people associated the look exclusively with The Cure, and above all, with Robert Smith. It didn’t matter that many other bands wore the same clothing style or the same palm tree haircut. Caifanes, one of the most important Mexican bands, which members wore a trad goth style have been called a Cure’s rip off by people with this narrow view. Caifanes has become a cornerstone for Mexican rock due to many initiatives the band has had in its career. Among many important things they generated was the fact that they made a crossover from mainstream rock and pop audience to the banda and grupero audience (banda and grupero are Regional Mexican music genres), the real Mexican mainstream. They did this by including a cumbia (a rhythm originated in Colombia that has a huge penetration in Mexico) in their repertoire. Little did they imagined that this song, ”La negra Tomasa”, was to became a milestone in Mexican music and audience, and they did it while they were still dressed in black. So, it is fair to say that they made the style reach to the most far regions of the country. Before that, many people who wore spiky hair were referred by mainstream observers as punks, because that was the only reference they had. After “La negra Tomasa” the term Dark displace Punk and even became part of our language. Mexicanisms Dictionary includes the word, not with its original morphology but with one which formerly used to be a pejorative term: Darketo. According to this Dictionary “Darketo(ta) refers to someone who dresses in black, is melancholic, with a depressive and solitaire attitude”. And that’s it, two lines to define a cultural scene. Well, they are not to blame, of course. We are talking about a massive point of view.

By the beginning of the following decade, Dark as a trend was fading away from mainstream which was ready to receive the next fad, the so called alternative music. Still, many people clinged to the remains of the trend; a few promoters and radio dj’s who were deeply in love with the bands associated with the genre and its discourse kept promoting and broadcasting classical as well as new bands productions. For us, Mexico City’s fandom, the classic bands were The Cure, Bauhaus, Siouxie and the Banshees, Sisters of Mercy, The Mission, Fields of the Nephilim, Christian Death and Dead Can Dance (among others); whereas the new bands were Love Is Colder Than Dead, In The Nursery, Attrition, Stoa, Human Drama, The Last Dance and London after Midnight (among others). What I’m trying to say is that the classic bands were listened by an audience which most of its members were not particularly related to the discourse of a proto-goth scene; most of these people also listened to Talking Heads, ABC, U2, Pink Floyd, Sting, etc. The audience that became interested in the new bands was very into them and anxious for what would come next; moreover because all those bands gave concerts in Mexico City within the first half of the decade. This audience was to establish the solid ground for what, four years latter, would became Mexico City Goth Scene. And what about Mexican obscura bands? As I mentioned at the beginning of this text, the development of the scene was not lineal and it can be traced to 1973 to some experimental rock bands like Decibel, El Queso Sagrado or Como México No Hay Dos. Many of their musical atmospheres, performance and part of their discourse had motives that years later would be recurring in the Dark Scene’; but most important, when this groups disbanded some of their members formed New Wave and Techno pop acts, such as: Size, Syntoma, Pijamas a go go, El Escuadrón del Ritmo, Silueta Pálida, Década 2 and Casino Shanghai. Bands that are now considered the seed of the MCOS. On an important note; they NEVER referred themselves as Postpunk or Synthpop. On the second half of the eighties came some other bands that flirted with the influence of the classic acts mentioned above, among them were La muerte de Euridice, Alquimia, Las Ánimas del Cuarto Oscuro and of course Caifanes. However, as I mentioned on the first lines, the hard core proto-goth bands were born by the end of the eighties and the beginning of the nineties. Santa Sabina, Ansia, La Concepción de la Luna and El Clan were the first line followed behind by the likes of El Cuerpo de Cristina, La Divina Comedia, Hélicon or Los Olvidados. Some of them, like Santa Sabina, La Concepción de la Luna, and above all El Clan would become landmarks of the Mexican Goth Scene once it became solidly established in ’94. Still, the acts that would represent a breakthrough for the development of the scene and its consolidation as MCOS would see the light (or should I say; the darkness) around the last five years of the past millennium.