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Darkwave

Los Angeles, Wesley Eisold, 2007

Cold Cave

Cold Cave began in Los Angeles in 2007 as the solo electronic project of Wesley Eisold, who had sung in the hardcore bands American Nightmare and Some Girls and runs the publishing imprint Heartworm Press. Eisold has said there are no members of Cold Cave, only him and whoever he works with. His records mix darkwave, noise and synth-pop. Matador picked up his first album in 2009, and Chris Coady produced Cherish the Light Years for the label in 2011. He played the Guggenheim and the Getty Center in 2012, toured with Gary Numan and Nitzer Ebb's Douglas McCarthy, and opened for Nine Inch Nails in Europe. In 2023 he supported Depeche Mode in Europe, and Passion Depression came out in 2024.

Croydon poet over synthesisers

Anne Clark

Anne Clark recited her poems over cold electronic backing, and Germany took to her more than Britain did. Her albums for Virgin's 10 Records label in the 1980s charted there, and she wrote and recorded Hopeless Cases in 1987 with Charlie Morgan and David Harrow. A planned push in America was dropped after disagreements with Richard Branson. She lived in Norway for a few years from 1987 and made a 1991 album with the musicians Tov Ramstad and Ida Baalsrud she met there, and in 1998 she set poems by Rainer Maria Rilke with Martyn Bates, later regaining the rights and reissuing the record herself. She kept releasing albums into the 2020s, made Borderland with Ulla van Daelen in 2022, and headlined Belgium's W Festival in 2017.

Nijmegen, 4AD, John Peel

Xymox

Clan of Xymox started in Nijmegen in 1983 with Ronny Moorings and Anka Wolbert, who moved to Amsterdam, where Pieter Nooten and Frank Weyzig joined. John Peel, who recorded two sessions with them in 1985, is credited as the first person to call their music darkwave. They made two albums for 4AD, and Nooten also recorded with Michael Brook for the label. Shortening the name to Xymox, they moved to PolyGram, and Twist of Shadows in 1989, with strings on two tracks arranged by Tony Visconti and played by the Arditti Quartet, sold more than 300,000 copies and got them onto MTV. Wolbert and Nooten left in 1991, and two acid house-influenced albums sold poorly in America. Moorings revived the Clan of Xymox name and has kept it going ever since, recording mostly for Metropolis and Trisol.

Melbourne to London, 1981

Dead Can Dance

Brendan Perry started Dead Can Dance in Melbourne in August 1981, and Lisa Gerrard, then his partner, soon joined. After a farewell show in May 1982 they moved to London and signed to 4AD. Their sound drew on medieval, Middle Eastern and Celtic music as much as on post-punk, and they are credited with helping invent neoclassical darkwave. They split as a couple in 1989 but kept working together. Into the Labyrinth, recorded in 1993 at Quivvy Church, Perry's converted church studio in County Cavan, Ireland, sold more than half a million copies and made them 4AD's best-selling act. They broke up in 1998 and reunited in 2005 and 2011. Gerrard won a Golden Globe for the Gladiator score with Hans Zimmer, and in 2023 she said the band was finished.

The Collection