Crossover - Rituals of Ambiguity

The unrestrained pursuit of pleasure, from Mitteleuropa's most extreme clubs to actual dark-rooms dripping with fluids lubricated by litres of sweat and heat, is one of the trends perfectly catered to by Gigolo Records, the label founded by Dj Hell and tied to the glossiest, most indulgent side of the electro scene.

The electro-clash imagery, through the work of artists such as Adriano Canzian, Miss Kittin, Tiga, Fishersponer and Vitalic, is well fed: the frictions spread, provocations and voyeurism are amplified.

The electro crowd is, by its very nature, aesthete: heavy thinking is relegated to moments of necessity, eroticism calls the shots, studs and red lipstick mark the territory, and talk of any kind of scheme becomes superfluous.

The vessel for these thoroughly earthly instincts seems to revel in its own excess, and so nothing scandalizes anymore - on the contrary, this status becomes its very reason for being, and can even attract those who usually dwell in far deeper unease and far less flamboyant states of mind.

The appeal can also be explained by the genetic makeup of some of these productions, linked in some way to the rock scene and, specifically, to 80's music, in its sometimes more synthetic, sometimes more dark expressions.

Seen from this angle, the interest that a group like Crossover, a sui generis creature of Gigolo, arouses not only among insiders doesn't seem entirely incomprehensible.

The duo, made up of Mark Ingram and Italian-American Vanessa Tosti, former shop assistants at the New York vintage clothing store "Smylonlyon", plan their game at the drawing board, insisting first and foremost on the image of the ambiguous, transgressive couple, complete with a thoroughly respectable fetish wardrobe.

Mark is the mind and the long male shadow, Vanessa the body and the entirely physical viscosity of the feminine.

What sets them apart from many of their Gigolo labelmates from the start is a certain intellectualism, albeit tied to extreme and borderline figures from art history of every age, as Mark states in several interviews, citing, among others, Alejandro Jodorowsky, whose surrealism hovers over many of the scenarios recounted across the two albums, and Hieronymus Bosch, from whom they seem to borrow many of the dark, neo-mythological yet alluring figures found in the Crossover imagery.

The architecture gains further interest because, once you lift off the first declared layer of dancefloor attitude, you discover a series of references that are anything but easy: from Suicide and their chilling, chill-inducing nightmare, to the cerebral seduction inspired by David Bowie's space creatures, right down to a dive into the darkest recesses of 80s synth-pop.

Their real identities are immediately abandoned, making way for characters created from scratch to seduce the market: like officiants of phantom esoteric rituals, Mark becomes Spaced Out Kid Humanoid aka Desmond and Vanessa Darling-Starchild aka Verona.

In this new guise, in 2002 the two recorded Fantasmo for Gigolo, a rather pretentious record in the sheer number of ideas it throws around, but interesting for the scenario it depicts.

Their darker identity still remains latent, masked by the overlay of a disorienting rap approach that muddles any read on the group's true shape.

Their public trial run begins with a nervous, soured electro-rap sludge, declaimed in Mark's altered voice and softened by Vanessa's provocation ("Lucida Obscura"), which continues, coyly, into "Phostographt", whose chorus stretches the register into sinuous curves à la Goldfrapp.

Drug-addled nightmares fill the synth-dance of "The Great Katanza", followed by threats reverberating with gunshots ("Green Teeth") and cryptograms that align them with Fisherspooner ("Kobé").

To close, a woozy chant soaks a soundscape of Suicide-like claustrophobia ("F.Lying T.Errible. W.Alrus"), and a hallucinated invocation takes its leave, loaded with promise for the future ("Phantom Hero").

The turning point toward a sharper focus on the direction to pursue comes in 2003 with the EP Journey To Grob, featuring a version of "Phostographt" revised and corrected by remix genius Tiga, followed by a title track accelerated by syncopations in claustrophobic flight. The closer is a long spoken piece in which the voices of Desmond and Verona intertwine, by turns like baleful wrath, a distant echo, distortions and hallucinations, lolita-like affectations, with violin flourishes underscoring the already tense, mystical atmosphere ("Over Exposure").

After a two-year break filled with touring and self-promotion, against the backdrop of an imagery growing progressively more cultured, handing out pamphlets from the unusual "Pirate Communiques" series during their shows and penning the "Fantasmo" booklet, having by now shed some of their initial naivety, Mark and Vanessa show they care not only about form, within the bounds of the electro code, but also about substance. The result, in 2005, is Cryptic And Dire Sallow Faced Hoods Blast Off Into Oblivion, an album that, starting out from certain revived and revitalized strands of the past, arrives at a mood for which the usual dance trappings start to feel too tight, drawn instead toward something more refined and decadent, something that turns the clock back at least 25 years.

The incipit is an almost perfect triangle of viscosity acted out in morbid harmony ("Disgrace Chateau"), martial, haughty gothic-fairytale airs over a keyboard waking from its own catatonia and unfurling into fantasy spirals ("Messages"), sinuous pillow-talk tales in synth-pop guise ("Chimera Chimera").

Pushing further, the combination of rap reminiscence and dark quotation produces “Radio Spazio X”, a strange, feverishly recited ride marked by dynamics à-la Cure, immediately giving way to the artificial plasticity of the big synths of a bygone Human League era (“My Wave”).

In the middle, with spirits now unsettled and overexcited, comes a celebration of sensuality, accompanied by the heated foreplay of sadomasochistic intercourse, in which, almost bearing witness to her own compliance, Vanessa steps in at the end, meowing more than ever (“Pointy Little Teeth”).

The second half of the album, passing through the reincarnation of Siouxsie's “Christine” into Vanessa's more ravenous approach on “Psychic Babies”, and stretching out over the purple velvet of the electronic ballad (“I Know Your Face”), closes with the automatisms of a synth-dance ready to lend itself to new remixes (“Bats Fly Free Thru My Head”).

The furrow, under the guise of masters of ceremonies and with opportunistic dancefloor pandering, once the scope has been widened to an audience not exclusively electro, is set, and the form is free to shift into whichever identities suit it best in the moment, in the finest tradition of the masters of ambiguity.

Vanessa Tosti and Mark L. Ingram arrive in 2012 with plenty of dilemmas and few certainties. Proposing electro-pop solutions vaguely borrowed from club-music, with dark overtones, can be a risky and unfocused choice. Gloom sums up various electronic trends, fusing them all into a single, indivisible soul, lending just the right amount of novelty without overdoing it, and giving its best when it's time to aim straight for the heart. Over multiform electro backing, the melodic embroidery is the perfect complement for Ingram, who colors the songs with a steady, noir shadowiness to striking, disorienting effect.

The American duo chants macabre poems, stages spastic dances and fits perfectly into atmospheres that are far from beachy, being instead smoky, distorted and skillfully diseased. The music flows without pause, giving the impression of a globally conceived work, with no singles built for a quick launch, designed instead to deliver a sense of total sensory immersion. Never fully tipping over into the passionate side, but perpetually tormented, Gloom reveals an introspective soul, borrowing the pulse of dance-music and transmuting it each time into a tool adapted to the needs of the song. Not a heaviness adopted for convenience or crafted for effect, the depth of the sounds and the roughness of the melodies deliver a genuine sense of morbid, unhealthy seduction.

There are no pauses, and it's a pleasure to succumb to the exhausting whirl of circular synths, drum-machine and voices. The vicious incipit of “Wraith In The Woodz” is just the start of a journey that continues with consistent tones, where the rhythm never overflows, but implodes on itself to far more devastating effect (“Luv Sich Vampires”, the masterful stop&go of “How Couvl I”, the dark-dance hints in the gorgeous “Mother Ov God”). The electro-pop interludes don't dent an armor made of black and horrors (the sex-appeal of the female voice on “The Bvrning” and “Yr A Ghost”, plus the closing, partly sunlit “Fog Machine”), flanked by two pitch-black abysses: “Svmmer In Oslo” (the album's most opulent and darkest track) and “Don't Tvrn Yr Back On Magic” (unstoppable and massive).

Released onto the market in the pre-holiday period with little luck, Gloom has all the potential to shake things up and shake incontrovertible certainties.

Contributions by Alessandro Biancalana (“Gloom”)

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