Dark cabaret

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Dark Cabaret
Stylistic origins:	Cabaret, Burlesque, Vaudeville, Punk, Folk, Post-Punk, Glam Rock, Deathrock, Darkwave
Cultural origins:	United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, France
Typical instruments:	Vocals, Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Bass, Drums, Accordion, Piano, Keyboards, Cello
Mainstream popularity:	Generally a cult following, though in the mid 2000s became more popular.
Derivative forms:	Deathrock Cabaret
Subgenres
None
Other topics
Dark Cabaret Artists

Dark cabaret is a music genre that draws influences from German cabaret, burlesque, vaudeville, folk, punk, deathrock, gothic rock and darkwave music styles, as well as from Film noir soundtracks. While dark cabaret-style music can be traced back to the 1970s, it is still played in the 2000s.

Dark cabaret music usually emphasizes piano and deep female or male vocals influenced by the style of late-1920s operettas by Kurt Weill and Marlene Dietrich's 1920s cabaret singing style, as well as modern performers such as Nick Cave and Brian Eno^[1] . Alternatively, the music may center around instruments such as the cello, violin, accordion, or trumpet. Dark cabaret can be described as a merging of the cabaret and goth aesthetics.

1 History of Dark Cabaret
2 Related genres
3 Record labels
4 References

[edit] History of Dark Cabaret

See also: List of Dark cabaret artists

[edit] 1970s

Nico's 1974 album The End is an example of early dark cabaret, especially in songs such as "You Forgot To Answer" and "Secret Side". Other contributors to the dark cabaret sound were Klaus Nomi, Marc Almond, and The Virgin Prunes.

[edit] 1980s

Nina Hagen's punk opera style, and Lydia Lunch's 1980 album, Queen of Siam contributed to the dark cabaret sound. British rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees also made a contribution to dark cabaret's style with the song Peek-a-Boo from the 1988 album Peepshow. Peek-a-Boo's video-clip is a vaudevillian, schizophrenic and scary puzzle.

[edit] 1990s

Seattle-based art rock band, Salon Betty, brought a sexy, sardonic twist to the genre in 1994, with their single "Last Cigarette" and their album, The Big Hair Sex Circus, released on iMusic. Salon Betty was one of the first bands to be broadcast live on the Internet in 1995 through iMusic.

Rozz Williams, the former lead singer of Christian Death, took the dark cabaret style in a darker direction in his recording of Dream Home Heartache in 1995 with Gitane Demone, on Triple X Records. This song (which alludes to Roxy Music), influenced the goth movement. The first recorded usage of the term "Dark Cabaret" was in a description of Rozz Williams (former lead singer of Christian Death) in his Dream Home Heartache album, in the late 1990s in a mail-order catalog from Projekt: Darkwave.

Sex Gang Children songs such as "Christian Circus Joe" and the jazzier "Psychic Sarah" from 1997 infused the cabaret style into a post-punk art goth sound. In 1997 Rozz Williams recorded album "From the Heart" with Eva O, where appeared the cabaretish-styled songs "Lying Deep" and "Bitter Man".

San Francisco-based singer Jill Tracy released her second CD, Diabolical Streak, in 1999; it garnered two California Music Award nominations as well as the SIBL international Grand Prize for songwriting. Her first album, a piano/vocal solo live demo entitled Quintessentially Unreal, was released in 1995. LA Weekly called Jill Tracy "a femme fatale for the thinking man." Diabolical Streak was hailed by Canada's Shift Magazine as one of the "Top 10 Neo-Cabaret albums of all time."

[edit] 2000s

San Francisco's Rosin Coven created theatrically-styled cabaret with macabre tunes, a goth atmosphere, and bizarre performances with Jill Tracy and other musicians on Edwardian Ball - a show in memory of Edward Gorey.

Nicki Jaine (album Of Pigeons and Other Curiosities and single "Revue Noir", her collaboration with chief of Projekt label Sam Rosenthal) and Amoree Lovell (especially in demo songs "Dark Town Sally" and "High Maintenance/Low Tolerance") are also examples of the genre. Danny Elfman's dark cabaret influence can be heard in his collaborations with Oingo Boingo and his scores and character voices in the films The Nightmare Before Christmas, Chicago, and Tim Burton's Corpse Bride.

London cabaret act the Tiger Lillies have implemented dark themes and imagery, but do not typically convey a "dark sound." Nonetheless, A Gorey End, their 2003 release featuring the Kronos Quartet and posthumous lyrical contributions from Edward Gorey, helped to create of the genre by earning a Grammy nomination.

A poster of The Dresden Dolls.

Projekt's 2005 compilation CD, A Dark Cabaret, brought together a number of the current bands in the genre, including a track from Rozz's album. In 2000 Lexicon Magazine, in a review of Voltaire's Almost Human CD, used the descriptive term "goth cabaret".

In 2006 italian neoclassic band Ataraxia records new album "Paris Spleen", strongly inspired by french chanson and cabaret influences with their traditional dark sound. Madame Bistouri and CircuZ KumP drama company collaborated to the recording and staging of this project. In 2006, Italians Spiritual Front crossed bounds of their "suicidal pop" on album "Armageddon Gigolo" to cabaret sound mixed with Dark/Apocalyptic folk.

Another Italian martial/dark folk band Ianva records in 2005 mini-cd "la ballata dell' ardito" with cabaretish songs and cover version of Jacques Brel's "Amsterdam". In 2006 Ianva releases the full length "Disobbedisco!", with many other cabaretish songs (see "Tango della Menade"). Italian dark folk band Calle Della Morte used cabaret and chanson elements on "Tardo Autunno" (2003) (especially on tracks "Tardo Autunno" and "Ballerino Di Tango Si Uccide") and on "Gente Di Malaffare" (2005) too.

The Dresden Dolls have garnered some mainstream attention, drawing more attention to the genre. In, September 2005, Projekt Records released a compilation called A Dark Cabaret featuring songs such as "Coin-Operated Boy" by The Dresden Dolls, "Evil Night Together" by Jill Tracy and "Flowers" by the late Rozz Williams. The Dresden Dolls also appeared in "The Onion Cellar", a dark Cabaret musical production. The show opened and closed in Boston. World/Inferno Friendship Society is also a cabaret band.

[edit] Related genres

The term "Dark cabaret" is applied to a wide range of bands who may also fall into genres such as Punk cabaret, Punk opera, Neo-burlesque, Gothic Ragtime, Vaudeville, Apocalyptic folk, Neo-folk, Psych folk and others. The genre crossovers and blending can make it difficult to define the genre of dark-cabaret-influenced bands.

As the modern Deathrock movement has moved further away from its roots into electronic territory, some bands from the Deathrock movement such as the Deadfly Ensemble (Lucas Lanthier of Cinema Strange’s solo-project) have used the cabaret style. In 1999 Cinema Strange appears on "Goth Oddity: A Tribute To David Bowie" with "Time" - track with the cabaret-style piano lines.

Katzenjammer Kabarett who once referred to themselves as "deathrock cabaret", (which Two Ton Boa also belong), are other examples. Recently Katzenjammer have began to refer to themselves as "post-punk cabaret", in recognition of their widely varying influences.

Deathrock band Deadchovsky on album "Decadence Revolution" (2004) used cabaret elements, especially on track "Le Sandwichier Glauque De Montmartre". Xyra & Verborgen created in 1998 new music genre classificated as "Cabaret Rock Nouveau - Goth Art Rock". Schizowave formed by Russian-born singer and a classically trained piano player Lena Potapova in early 2004 created own dark sound, inspired by cabaret, jazz and theatre.