(Over a series of twenty short posts –
one per week for the remaining weeks of this decade – I am aiming to highlight in
vaguely chronological order some of the most important and influential releases
in the goth/post-punk/darkwave genre of the 2010’s).
In the same way as pinpointing the
song which launched the first wave of what became referred to as goth can be
polemical (although most lists tend to start with “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”), deciding
exactly where the third and latest post-punk wave began is not an exact science.
As the millennium’s first decade came to an end and the 2010’s began, the likes
of Moonspell, Type O Negative and Killing Joke were keeping the gothic flame
alive from the earlier generations, but a new sound from the very edge of
Europe signalled a fresh and distinct new start for the genre.
At the very start of the 2010'sTurkish
band She Past Away released their debut EP Kasvetli Kutlama for download, a few
months after showcasing a video for the title track on YouTube (which has now
clocked up an impressive six million views). Despite flying in the face of
conventional wisdom by singing in their native language rather than English
(despite the grammatically incorrect band name), the band became a slow-burning
success thanks to their unique sound, with a primitive upbeat drum machine
background reminiscent of Joy Division, mournful synths a la Depeche Mode, heavily
reverbed guitar riffs intertwining Cure-style with steady eight-to-the-bar bass
riffs and an echoing baritone vocal midway between Andrew Eldritch and Alan
Vega. With an unusually high BPM for a goth song (She Past Away’s songs almost
all weigh in at over 140 BPM), and adding an Eastern influence on melody and
chord progression, the song Kasvetli Kutlama heralded a clear break from the past
whilst nevertheless retaining key elements of the goth of the 1980’s. The
iconic monochrome video for the song has played a key part in this success: against
a black background with only an old reel-to-reel tape deck behind them,
the two youthful band members, one stripped to the waist, pick out the song’s
distinctive melody on guitar and bass, avoiding direct eye contact with the
camera. The song sounds as fresh in 2019
as it did a decade ago and is the perfect starting point for our look at the
most crucial releases of the 2010’s.
Like so many of the third wave of
artists, She Past Away singer and guitarist Volker Caner’s first band (Tears of
Beggar, formed in his native Bursa in the mid 1990’s) played doom metal, and
this apprenticeship also gave him a sense of melancholy melody and structure which gave
the three tracks on the debut EP a unique feel, although the other two tracks
(Ruh and BozbulanIk were more synth-based and closer to EBM than goth in
reality). The three tracks were re-worked in the studio by Caner and bassist Idris
Akbulut, and with a further seven songs released as the sumptuously produced
(by Doruk Ozturkcan) debut album Belirdi Gece on Fabrika records in 2012.
Slowly but surely the band’s fame
began to spread, their songs becoming staples of goth club nights and online DJ
podcasts worldwide and by the time the second album, Narin YalnIzlIk was
released in 2015 to widespread praise, the band had become recognised as one of the leading bands of
the genre, a position concretised by the lead single (and the accompanying
video) from the album, Asimilasyon, arguably the quintessential darkwave song
of the decade. The video reveals a confident Caner now "owning" the camera and delivering his most Vega-esque performance, a stuttering,echoing vocal complete with yelps and whoops. With Akbulut now leaving the band to be replaced by Ozturkcan,
the band began to tour extensively across Europe over the following three years, playing at leading darkwave
festivals as well as smaller club venues, as sales, streams and view counts continued to increase exponentially.
After allowing anticipation to build for a further four years, She Past Away ended the decade with a further strong album, Disko Anksiyete released in the spring of 2019, which as the title suggests, is their most dancefloor-oriented album to date whilst retaining the band’s distinctive sound. The hard-working duo are touring the album tirelessly across the globe, most recently undertaking a major US sell-out tour to promote the release further. With synths occupying a higher place in the mix and a slightly softer focus to the vocals, the band and this album in particular has huge crossover potential to the mainstream.
Anyone seeking an introduction to the darkwave sound of the 2010’s should seek out this band’s oeuvre on Bandcamp, as She Past Away have been at the forefront of the genre throughout the decade, delivering three high quality albums that deserve an even bigger audience than that which has already developed primarily by word-of-mouth.
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If you like She Past Away, why not try :
- A Transition
- Dark Lake Whispers
- He Never Come Back
- Drab Majesty
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