Siouxsie And The Banshees - Queen of the night

Susan Janet Dallion, aka Siouxsie Sioux, is the definitive "mask" of dark-punk. With her signature witchy look – black wig, deathly pallor, heavy make-up, necrophile symbols and S&M outfits – she managed to embody the ultimate icon of an entire era: that of the black-clad worshippers of a gloomy, depressed rock. But to stop at that, when talking about her, would mean reducing ourselves to fashion chroniclers rather than rock critics. Because, while she undeniably helped bring dark-punk to the mainstream – and especially to a female audience – thus earning her rightful place among rock's "social" phenomena, Siouxsie also deserves another credit that few acknowledge: that of having, in practice, laid the musical foundations for the whole movement, acting as a bridge between what came before (punk) and what came after (dark). In between came her fervent activity as a Sex Pistols groupie, the perfect apprenticeship for her future stardom. One could argue forever about who "invented" dark music – the sepulchral litanies of Nico? The horror-shock of Screamin' Jay Hawkins first and Cramps later? The luciferian sabbah of Amon Duul? The black masses of Black Sabbath? – but one fact is certain: the first record that can be labeled "dark-punk" (even if still more "punk" than "dark") dates from 1978, is titled "The Scream", and is credited to "Siouxsie And The Banshees". It's in their wake that the dark movement was born, the one that would dominate the 80s, with standard-bearers like Joy Division, Cure, Bauhaus, Killing Joke, Sisters Of Mercy.

Siouxsie's vocal style and gloomy sounds would later echo through the repertoire of leading "ethereal" rock bands like Cocteau Twins (singer Elizabeth Fraser has even said that as a girl she had "a Siouxsie tattoo") and Dead Can Dance. And traces of the Banshees are still visible in today's pop acts, from Portishead to Garbage.

Mark the Banshees. Do it now.

(Written on the walls of London, 1978)

But let's take things in order. "Mark the Banshees – Do it now" is the slogan seen scrawled on the walls of London in the early months of 1978. Siouxsie Sioux and Steven Severin, together with Kenny Morris and P.T. Fenton, later replaced by John Mckay, had already been playing intensely throughout 1977, even performing in France and at the legendary Paradiso in Amsterdam. Yet despite this, and despite having a sizeable following of fans, they still couldn't land a record deal. It's clear that the Banshees couldn't stomach the many compromises that the major labels of the day demanded from the music scene. It's no coincidence that Pete Silverton titled an article of his, published in Sounds, "The most elitist band in the world." Then finally, on June 9, 1978, they signed to Polydor Records. But the Banshees' story actually begins with 20 minutes of harrowing improvisation, based on "The Lord's Prayer", on September 20, 1976 at the 100 Club in London during the Punk Festival organized by the notorious Malcolm McLaren, which also featured Sex Pistols and Clash (for the occasion Siouxsie and Steven recruited Marco Pirroni, future guitarist of Adam & The Ants, and Sid Vicious on drums!), and continued successfully with live shows and two sessions for John Peel's show, broadcast on BBC Radio 1 between '77 and '78. Siouxsie – who emerged from the Bromley Contingent, the small group of fans who followed the Pistols around – immediately dazzled audiences with her unmistakable voice: dark, booming, hypnotic, sensual. But her stage presence also caused a stir: gloomy, aggressive and unsettling.

Siouxsie is ready for the big leap. To make it, though, she needs a band. Enter the Banshees (literally: "female spirits foretelling death"), led by the great bassist Steven Severin and featuring guitarist John McKay and drummer Kenny Morris. This lineup gave birth to the first, dazzling single "Hong Kong Garden", a gloomy Japanese dance that gradually unfurls into a hypnotic danse macabre. It would be the first of a long series of inspired and memorable singles, later collected in the anthology Once Upon A Time. The track is pure punk-pop, built on just two chords (Ab/F#) and an Oriental-style refrain, and immediately delivers that "metallic but not metal" flavor (as one contemporary review put it) that defined the early Banshees.

The lyrics, written by Siouxsie, are a reflection on the abuse inflicted on the Chinese community at the restaurant she used to frequent with her friends. The hypnotic, stripped-down b-side, spontaneously improvised, instead opens the door to the decadent, literary and cinematic atmosphere that would come to define the band. The lyrics, written by Severin, were inspired by Roger Corman's film "The Haunted Palace" and Charles Baudelaire's "Opium, Hashish and Wine", and depict the ability to "see" sounds and "feel" colors, a phenomenon known as synesthesia. Siouxsie used a "reverse gate reverb" on her voice, producing an effect of backwards echoes (perfect for the song's dreamlike feel), the same effect that, as she has said, she'd heard on "Holy Holy", a David Bowie b-side. For the cover of "Hong Kong Garden" the band chose a photo of a woman with her face covered, with the explicit intention of thwarting anyone expecting a picture of Siouxsie.

Metal is tough, metal will sheen

Metal won’t rust when oiled and cleaned

("Metal Postcard")

Everything was now set for the debut album The Scream (1978). To avoid the obvious route of a punk-style sleeve, the Banshees chose a photo by Paul Wakefield, which, according to Siouxsie, fully captured the spirit of the band. Indeed, the title "The Scream" was inspired by the film "The Swimmer" starring Burt Lancaster, which tells the peculiar story of a man traveling across America through the swimming pools of the people he meets.

This marked the split from the "no future" of their punk cousins: the Banshees' music, in fact, favored archaic lyrics and dark atmospheres, leaning on gloomy sounds, echoes, reverbs and nerve-shredding distortions. A mood halfway between horror and occult mysticism, which found its natural vehicle in the macabre cabaret style of the London rocker. Siouxsie updated in a punk key – with a pomp bordering almost on kitsch – the stark, sepulchral atmospheres of Nico, chanteuse of the Velvet Underground on their debut album and a reference songwriter for generations of goth fans. Tracks like "Carcass", "Overground" and "Metal Postcard" are steeped in electronic haze and vaguely psychedelic aromas, the expression of a punk that has lost its "white riot" spirit and prefers to retreat into the darkest corners of the mind, feeding nightmares, paranoia and alienation. The lyrics, the electric noises and the crooked, almost "spiraling" progression of some tracks seem to reproduce mental experiences of psychic dissociation, especially in Severin's compositions ("Jigsaw Feeling", "Mirage"). An archaic conception of the Siouxsie sound also takes hold here (developed further on the following Ju-Ju), one that thrives on silences and tribal drums, frenzied guitars and the singer's wild vocals. "Pure" is effectively the album's intro, perfect as a statement of intent, but it's with the guitar-driven burst of energy of "Jigsaw Feeling" that the "puzzle-piece feelings" start to take shape, as the soliloquies, testimony to painful and uncomfortable states of mind, follow and chase one another from track to track. Frenzy and dissonance are the pillars of the song, with repeated bass and guitar, near-tribal drumming, and a prophetic voice. Then, slowly and from a distance, "Overground" builds itself up: odd time signatures, oblique chords as sharp as razors. The track is measured, pulsing, irresistible (and in its own way even romantic). The finale is a riot of intertwined voices bouncing from drum to drum. "Carcass" represents the band's primordial punk side; the lyrics tell the peculiar tale of a butcher falling in love with the carcass he's cutting! Side one closes with the devastating cover of the Beatles' "Helter Skelter". A single bass note. Its repetition, like a funeral bell. A distorted, moaning guitar. Then the slow, dragging, perverse "voice" intones, or rather de-tones, the famous lines "When I get to the bottom, I go back to the top of the slide", the drums accelerate, building and building further, as does the pitch of the voice, ever more hoarse, and the tension.

"Mirage" opens side B: acoustic guitar embellishes the electric guitar, while the two vocal tones mark out the rhythm. Its dual nature brilliantly captures the song's lament: "People see us and take at face value what we do", says Siouxsie. Two dissonant sides: the Banshees' perception of themselves, and the mirage-like perception the public has of the band. The martial rhythm of "Metal Postcard" pays homage to the anti-Nazi artist John Heartfield; the band's intention was to distance themselves from the Nazi imagery that people had attached to them during the period when Siouxsie, as a provocation, sported a swastika armband. "Nicotine Stain" explores smoking addiction “I can feel my lungs collapse/ sinking deep into my lap/ I’m so useless”; the mood is sexy-perverse: “Wallow in that ash bath/ soaking up the fumes/ and see the nicotine stain start to spread”. The "shower scene" from the film "Psycho" is evoked by the opening guitar of the harsh "Suburban Relapse". The sense of not belonging reaches its peak here, with devastating lyrics, propped up by an infected sax melody, a dissociated rhythm section and dissonant guitar, in an overall witches' sabbath of the highest tension.

But it's the closing "Switch" that fully demonstrates just how solid the band could be and what its future intentions were. Siouxsie leaves her definitive mark with a monumental hymn to drama. Another track that builds up to a driving tempo, without ever quite reaching the punk fury of others. The sax is sinister, the arpeggiated riff hypnotic, then reverbed and gloomy, the voice turns prophetic and hallucinated once more, the percussion dry and tribal. The Scream is an ambivalent record: raw and enthusiastic on one hand, dark and prophetic on the other. It "invented" what, at the time, wasn't yet called dark or gothic, only to later lay out the coordinates that would define it.

You'll never, never, ever get to heaven

You’ll never climb the ladder to heaven

So just shake it, shake it, shake it

Shake it baby – and twist and shout

(“The Lord’s Prayer”)

Siouxsie begins to become a cult figure in the British underground circuit and beyond. But 1979 is an unlucky year for her. Crowning a series of mishaps, in September, in the middle of an important English tour, guitarist John McKay and drummer Kenny Morris defect. Siouxsie then hires friends Robert Smith and Lol Tolhurst of the Cure to hastily finish out the tour. Despite this, the following album Join Hands largely confirms the band's talent, further accentuating the dark tones of its repertoire and its passion for a chilling vision of the afterlife. There are many literary references to authors of English pre-Romanticism, to the irrational poetics of the "sublime", which sees man confronting the infernal power of nature in an attempt to redeem himself. "Premature Burial", a nineteenth-century-style premonition of zombies wandering through moorland cemeteries and ghosts unearthing graves, draws on the typical taste for the occult that characterised the work of artists such as Blake and Radcliffe. Nor are there any shortage of nods to the horror fiction of Edgar Allan Poe, with medieval overtones ("Icon"), and a pervasive sense of melancholy in the vein of the Romantic poetics inspired by Ossian.

Musically, however, there are above all two masterpieces: "Playground Twist", positively terrifying with its alienating refrain of sax and funeral bell tolls, wrapped in a blanket of metallic distortion, and "The Lord's Prayer", twelve minutes of infernal electric sarabande, with Siouxsie, more than ever the "dark" priestess, raging throughout.

Kaleidoscope (1980) is preceded by another line-up change: Smith, with whom Siouxsie will maintain an on-and-off relationship, swinging between romantic passion and furious rows, is replaced on guitar by John McGeoch (ex-Magazine), who will split the role for a year with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols. On drums, meanwhile, the talented Peter Clark, aka Budgie, takes over. The record seems to temper the demonic fervour of previous works into a "dark-pop" streaked with psychedelia à la Doors and melancholy romanticism.

The oddball lullaby of "Lunar Camel" even stirs up echoes of Syd Barrett; the long metallic delirium of "Hybrid" renews the band's "psychotic" obsessions, while the two singles, the extravagant "Happy House" (on the theme of the home as maternal symbol and individual solitude) and the acoustic "Christine", complete with organ riff, take goth clubs by storm, helping to make the Siouxsie phenomenon even more accessible and popular. "Christine" is also released with an intriguing B-side, "Eve White Eve Black": both tracks are inspired by the biographical novel "Eve" by American writer Christine Sizemore, a schizophrenic figure who claimed to have 22 personalities (!). Around the same time, another masterpiece single by the band is released, "Israel", a majestic crescendo of a hymn sung by Siouxsie over a dark backdrop, animated by Severin's obsessive bass pulses and Budgie's tumultuous drumming.

In 1981 comes Ju-Ju, probably the best album in the entire output released under the Siouxsie And The Banshees name. To her typical gothic-romantic repertoire, the "queen of the night" here adds the witchy tribalism of deep Africa ("ju-ju" being a Nigerian musical tradition). The use of ethnic music, combined with electronics, converges into a sort of hallucinated trance, an esoteric ritual with macabre, funereal overtones. "Spellbound" opens the dance and it's pure delirium from the off: the fury of McGeoch's (acoustic) guitar and the obsessive tribalism of Budgie's percussion throw open the gates of hell, while Siouxsie sings like a woman possessed, in a climax of sonic disfigurement and piercing screams. Of punk, only the imprint remains - the chorus, the speed, the immediacy - but everything is shrouded in a black, cursed cloak. Just enough time to catch a breath with the hypnotic "Into The Light" before the band explodes again into another of its horror-filled rituals: "Arabian Knights". The track unleashes one of the most memorable melodies in dark-punk, halfway between archaic atmospheres and Middle Eastern flavours, accompanied by constant shifts in rhythm that spill over into a frenzied gallop. Siouxsie is the undisputed ruler of this sonic ride through the deserts of Arabia, with her wild, sensual vocals. After so much emotion, the "danse macabre" of "Halloween" almost seems to ease the pathos, paving the way for the pulsing electronics of "Monitor".

The gothic ghosts resurface, however, in "Night Shift", a ballad of satanic grandeur: Siouxsie's night unfolds in an ideal mossy graveyard on the moors of Albion, crowded with vampires, zombies and murderers. It is instead the band's punk legacy that resurfaces in the schizophrenic "Sin In My Heart", which raises the tempo thanks to Budgie's devilish drumming. McGeoch's "noise" guitar takes over on "Head Cut", in a horror scenario worthy of a Bosch painting, amid bleeding lips, death masks, severed heads and the flames of hell. It's the prelude to the grand guignol epilogue of "Voodoo Dolly", in which Siouxsie's fervour overflows into a terrifying necrophiliac orgy. The black magic ritual of the "voodoo doll" is celebrated amid Siouxsie's spectral screams, the atmospheric embroidery of McGeoch's guitar and the tribal rumba staged by Budgie.

The myth of the "queen of the night" is in full bloom, celebrated even by the "desecration" of London's austere Royal Albert Hall by unrestrained hordes of young punks and goths. An event documented in the splendid double live album Nocturne (1983) and in the film of the same name, which shows a wild Siouxsie dancing barefoot, throwing herself to the ground and dripping mascara from her striking painted face.

Can you see?

See into the back of a long, black car

Pulling away from the funeral of flowers

With my hand between your legs

Melting

("Melt")

The career of this restless Pierrot of London's suburbs, however, begins to falter. A Kiss In The Dreamhouse (1982), in fact, offers a sweetened version of the early dark-punk sound, well exemplified by the smooth single "Slowdive", in the vein of the mushiest New Order. While staying within that same sonic territory, the other single, "Melt", is instead a showcase of pure vocal brilliance from the singer, here playing the part of a captivating dark lady driven by none-too-veiled necrophiliac intentions: “Can you see?/ See into the back of a long, black car/ Pulling away from the funeral of flowers/ With my hand between your legs/ Melting…”. Among the other tracks, worth noting are the hypnotic "Obsession", lost amid sighs, walls of synth and string inserts; "Green Finger", an up-tempo number with a melodic Joy Division-style bassline; and "Painted Bird", which plays mainly on the dialogue between voice and drums. But perhaps the true high point of the record is the 4'29" of "Cocoon", a kind of cabaret of horror, with Siouxsie playing a "dark" Marlene Dietrich, backed by a pop-jazz arrangement.

In 1983 comes out Feast, the first work credited to the Creatures, Siouxsie and Budgie's side project, destined to develop more substantially in the years to come.

Robert Smith returns as a permanent member of the band, on guitars and keyboards, for the album Hyaena (1984). His involvement helps soften the Banshees' sound even further. The best example of this new direction is the pompous symphony for strings and keyboards of "Dazzle" (with a wonderful vocal performance by Siouxsie). Also worth noting are the piano-driven "Swimming Horses" and the intriguing cover of the Beatles' "Dear Prudence".

Tinderbox (1986) marks another step in Siouxsie's gradual realignment with more conventional pop songcraft. Yet inventiveness is not lacking, as shown by the single "Cities In Dust", a sinuous slice of dark-dance propelled by a synthesizer that even mimics the sound of bells. Siouxsie sings with a fatalistic, decadent air amid the ruins of a city turned to dust: the "Cities In Dust" in question is Pompeii, destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 79 AD. The song describes the volcano and its magma chamber, the fate of the eruption's victims, and the subsequent discovery and excavation of the city, without forgoing the inevitable dark touches, including an allusion to the shrine of the Lares Familiares.

Among the other tracks, the standouts are the post-punk sarabande of "This Unrest" and the driving "Candyman", chosen as another single.

Meanwhile, pressure from the record label on the band has become almost unbearable: barely eleven months after Tinderbox, they are "forced" to release Through The Looking Glass, a covers album in which Siouxsie pays tribute to some of her favourite artists (from the Doors' "You're Lost Little Girl" to Roxy Music's "Sea Breezes", from Bob Dylan's "This Wheels On Fire" to Television's "Little Johnny Jewel", by way of Kraftwerk's "Hall Of Mirrors"). Only one track, however, manages to become a hit: the cover of the legendary "The Passenger" by Iggy Pop, which Siouxsie makes even darker and more mesmerising. But the album's real coup is the cover of the (already splendid in its own right) "This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us" by Sparks, taken from "Kimono My House".

The knack shown for revisiting classics of the past resurfaces, at least in part, on the new album Peepshow (1988).

For the occasion, the line-up changes once again: alongside the rhythm section (Budgie and Severin) come cellist Martin McCarrick and guitarist Jon Klein (ex-Specimen). Among the most successful tracks are the menacing single "Peek-A-Boo", the romantic serenade "Last Beat Of My Heart" (elevated to something even more epic in its live incarnation), and the compelling pairing of "Scarecrow" and "Turn To Stone".

But the band is starting to go through a period of tension and uncertainty.

Siouxsie and Budgie, meanwhile, have for some time been devoting themselves to the new Creatures album, Boomerang, finally released in 1989, with a decadent sound inspired by post-war French existentialism ("Pluto Drive").

You return to Tienanmen

An eyewitness in a shroud

To see them fall, feel them yield

Relieving the terror of the crowd

(“The Ghost In You”)

By the time Superstition (1991) comes out, two things are already clear: the Banshees have completely run out of ideas, and Siouxsie is now mostly absorbed in the Creatures project. The result is an album that's certainly elegant and polished, but with few arrows left in its quiver. At least two tracks, though, are worth the price of admission: the usual attention-grabbing single ("Kiss Them For Me") and, above all, the poignant ballad about Tiananmen, "The Ghost In You", with its enveloping pace and Eastern-tinged flavour, in which Siouxsie unusually tackles themes of international politics.

The last studio album officially credited to Siouxsie And The Banshees is Rapture (1995). The long title track (eleven minutes), even orchestrated with a string quartet, proves as sophisticated as it is overambitious. On the whole, the album settles into a workmanlike mainstream pop with few real jolts, the exception being the roar of the thunderous "Not Forgotten", which for a moment makes the listener sit bolt upright, conjuring the ghosts of those magical Eighties nights.

In the meantime, the second singles collection Twice Upon A Time has also been released, along with the hypnotic "Face To Face", featured on the soundtrack of "Batman Returns". But the one true gem from Siouxsie amid the irreversible decline of the Nineties is the splendid ballad "Interlude" (1994), performed as a duet with Morrissey, former frontman of the Smiths. The arrival of the year 2000, however, marks an abrupt change, both in the private life and in the artistic career of the London singer.

The former queen of the night has moved to a peaceful French village near Toulouse, where she lives, in a 14th-century residence, together with Peter Clarke, aka Budgie, the former Banshees drummer she married in 1991.

I was tired of the record labels' cynicism, all they cared about was exploiting my past successes to make money, without giving a damn about the music I wanted to make. So I decided to found my own independent label, Sioux Records, and to commit fully to the Creatures project.

(Siouxsie)

It is still with Budgie that the London singer keeps pursuing the Creatures project, whose third album, Anima Animus (1999), has meanwhile been released. It's a work that favours percussion, with electronic pulses, flashes of dance (the single "2nd floor") and an intriguing acoustic guitar-and-voice piece ("I was me"). To promote the album, the Creatures embarked on a long world tour, which also took in Italy. "I was tired of the record labels' cynicism," Siouxsie recalled on that occasion, "they only cared about exploiting my past successes to make money, recycling the same old things and not giving a damn about the music I wanted to make. So I decided to found my own independent label, Sioux Records, and to commit fully to the Creatures project." Tired of her own persona and stifled by the music industry machine, Siouxsie thus decided to take a radical turn in her career. She left the chaotic routine of London, which "after so many years was starting to feel too small", for rural life in the valleys of the Pyrenees. "Almost no one around here knows who I am," she says. "At most, someone calls me 'that slightly strange singer from England...'" And it's hard to picture the queen of goth busy feeding the animals and tending the vegetable garden at her country home. And yet Anima Animus too, inspired by a concept of Carl Jung, was written at home. "It was fantastic," Budgie recalls. "While I played drums in the dining room, Siouxsie would listen and sing from the other side of the house. A lot of the songs came about that way."

The English singer, who also writes her own lyrics, has always preferred instinct to planning. “A lot of my stories,” she explains, “come out in a rush, sometimes from dreams I'm still remembering in that very moment. Something similar happens with the music. The subjects of the songs have changed somewhat, but I still like to blur the lines between dark and light, between man and woman.” Siouxsie, who has long played with themes like necrophilia and sexual ambiguity, admits her debt to the glam-rock revolution of Marc Bolan and David Bowie, which set early-Seventies England ablaze. “After them, everything was different; male singers wanted to be effeminate, female singers wanted to be masculine. It was an era of great sexual freedom. Then punk sharpened the revolt, and girls started to become tougher and more aggressive, even scary.” And Siouxsie's proverbial prickliness certainly hasn't faded. A hapless bunch of fans at her last Rome concert found that out the hard way, having tried to bother her and been brutally silenced. So it's rather striking to hear the former “riot girl” of London's suburbs confess her one enduring soft spot: “I adore cats, and I can't understand anyone who doesn't love them.”

In 2003 Siouxsie returned with the Creatures to record Hai!, a more distinctly experimental work made together with Leonard Eto, the Japanese percussionist from Kodo. The album is split into two halves: the first more “tribal,” the second more “romantic,” both in terms of sound and lyrics. The standout is the opening “Say Yes!,” a percussive stampede driven by Eto's daiko (the great Japanese drum), on which Siouxsie's voice only appears at the very end to intone the words “No more maybe, no more could be. Say Yes!”

The new frontier for the former queen of Albion's dark nights now seems to be that of a refined (if not always fully inspired) avant-garde musician, determined to release only the records she's truly interested in.

With Mantaray (2007), Mrs. Dallion delivers the first solo work of her long career.

What the record lacks is solid songwriting: a compositional shortfall that's offset by the care taken with the arrangements, at times opulent but never overblown.

The opener “Into A Swan” is an incendiary track: ravaged distortion and manic percussion sketch out an epic, shadowy piece. “About To Happen,” on the other hand, gets lost in a carpet of keyboards so garish and baroque it recalls the worst of Muse. The album recovers nicely with three atmospheric tracks: the nocturnal fanfare of “Here Comes That Day,” the sensual noir crooning of “If Doesn't Kill You,” and the morbid “Loveless.” Traces of Siouxsie-esque madness resurface in the delirious gallop of “One Mile Below,” while “Drone Zone” unveils a surprising, “sick” rumba for double bass, piano and horns.

The final three tracks swing between the acceptable results of the decadent tango “Sea Of Tranquillity” and the regrettable ones of the overly saccharine “They Follow You” and “Heaven And Alchemy.”

Finally, the glossy production perhaps strips some immediacy from many of the tracks, but in exchange it wraps them in a particular allure, a murkiness that's less unsettling and more elegant.

Contributions by Massimiliano Lana (“The Scream”) and Salvatore Setola (“Mantaray”)

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