Dark wave

1980s: Origins in Europe#

Since the 1980s, the term “dark wave” has been used in Europe by the music press to describe the gloomy and melancholy variant of new wave and post-punk music. At that time, the term “goth” was inseparably connected with gothic rock, whereas “dark wave” acquired a broader meaning, embracing bands and solo artists that were associated with gothic rock such as Bauhaus, Joy Division, the Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Depeche Mode, French cold wave groups such as Clair Obscur and Opera Multi Steel have also been associated with the dark wave scene; Simultaneously, different substyles associated with the new wave and dark wave movements started to merge and influence each other, e.g. synth-wave ) with gothic rock, or began to borrow elements of post-industrial music. Attrition, Die Form (France), Pink Industry (UK), Psyche (Canada), Kirlian Camera (Italy) and Clan of Xymox (Netherlands) performed this music in the 1980s. Other bands such as Malaria! and the Vyllies added elements of chanson and cabaret music. This sort of dark wave music became known as cabaret noir (or “dark cabaret”, a term popularized by U.S. dark wave label Projekt Records). German dark wave bands were partially associated with the Neue Deutsche Welle (i.e. German new wave), and included Xmal Deutschland, Mask For, Asmodi Bizarr, and Pink Turns Blue.

1990s: Second generation#

After the new wave and post-punk movements faded in the mid-1980s, dark wave was renewed as an underground movement by German bands such as Girls Under Glass, Deine Lakaien, Diary of Dreams, and Wolfsheim, as well as Project Pitchfork and its offshoot Aurora Sutra. These bands followed a path based on the new wave and post-punk music of the 1980s. Goethes Erben, Other bands, such as Silke Bischoff, In My Rosary, Engelsstaub, and Impressions of Winter combined synthesizers with elements of neofolk and neoclassical dark wave.

United States#

After 1993, in the United States the term dark wave (as the one-word variant “darkwave”) became associated with the Projekt Records label, Projekt featured bands such as Lycia, Black Tape for a Blue Girl, and Love Spirals Downwards, some of these characterized by atmospheric guitar and synth-sounds and female vocals. This style took cues from 1980s bands like Cocteau Twins Another American record label in this vein was Tess Records, which featured This Ascension, Faith and the Muse, Joshua Gunn, a professor of communication studies at Louisiana University, described the U.S. type of dark wave music as:

2000s–2020s: Revival#

During the 2000s, as part of the post-punk revival, a new generation of bands rekindled several sonic characteristics of early dark wave music for a new generation of fans which proliferated into the early 2010s. Some prominent acts include She Wants Revenge, Alongside Belarusian band Molchat Doma. Substance is an annual darkwave and industrial music festival occurring in Los Angeles which began in the 2010s. Meanwhile, Verboden is an annual Darkwave festival in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Wave-Gotik-Treffen festival in Leipzig, Germany, established in 1992, is considered one of the world’s largest festivals for “dark” music and culture, taking place at Pentecost annually throughout the city. It attracts around 20,000 visitors from all over the world.

Neoclassical dark wave#

Neoclassical dark wave is a subgenre of dark wave music Neoclassical dark wave makes extensive use of orchestral components; many bands utilize modern production equipment (orchestra-derived synthesizer samples), ) and In the Nursery (Stormhorse, 1987 ) released influential albums which essentially laid the foundations of the genre.

Bibliography#

• Farin, Klaus; Wallraff, Kirsten: Die Gothics. Bad Tölz: Verlag Thomas Tilsner, 1999, .
• Mercer, Mick. Hex Files: The Goth Bible. New York: The Overlook Press, 1997, .
• Steinberg, Shirley; Parmar, Priya; Richard, Birgit: Contemporary Youth Culture. An International Encyclopedia. Volume II., Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005, .
• van Elferen, Isabella; Weinstock, Jeffrey Andrew: Goth Music: From Sound to Subculture. Routledge Studies in Popular Music, 2015, .
• Hecken, Thomas; Kleiner, Marcus: Handbuch Popkultur, J. B. Metzler Verlag, 2017, .
• Sturman, Janet: The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Music and Culture. SAGE Publications, 2019, .