Drab Majesty - Tragic wave from outer space

Associating California with dark music immediately conjures up the glorious deathrock movement, a scene born in the early 80s in which it was possible to trace plenty of punk and horror-punk DNA (think of cult names like Christian Death or 45 Grave).

Within a few years, the West Coast's gothic sound became consolidated through the work of acts like Mephisto Walz, Screams For Tina, London After Midnight and Cinema Strange (among many others), ahead of a thunderous generational changeover that took place over the last fifteen years or so, when several bands emerged from the Los Angeles area quite far removed from the original template of that sound (which up to that point had been clearly recognizable, not just in the States). Among these acts, we can mention Soft Moon, led by the late Luis Vasquez, and Drab Majesty, founded in 2011 by Andrew Clinco (whose grandmother was from Bari and grandfather from Naples), who at the time was already about to become the permanent drummer in Marriages (this trio, led by Emma Ruth Rundle, is remembered for the solid "Salome", released in 2015).

Around that time, Andrew Clinco felt the urge to write something strictly personal: out of these reflections came the first Drab Majesty songs, a handful of tracks so alienating that he came to believe they'd been written by someone else. Today, that someone else still has a name: Deb Demure, the nickname chosen by the Californian multi-instrumentalist to give voice to his ambiguous, androgynous, probably otherworldly alter ego. An alien creature able to embody an imaginary world steeped in references to Eighties aesthetics, coordinates fueled by a retro-futuristic background (as well as a cryptic, faintly esoteric one) and by the most disparate musical influences (from Slowdive to Red House Painters, by way of half the new wave scene).

Through this formula, Andrew Clinco breaks into a fluid zone, enriching it with traits and peculiarities tied to the more glamorous side of the dark scene: thus comes to life a sort of new-generation Ziggy Stardust, a starman able to shape moods and sounds that could be described as a kind of tragic wave from outer space.

The first recordings are self-produced and released on cassette (limited to just one hundred copies) in 2012: the four tracks on Unarian Dance (long since reissued on vinyl too) immediately bring Clinco's intentions into focus, especially regarding the murky, even lo-fi atmospheres (the mood is claustrophobic, aided by a production that's anything but polished). The appetizer proves delicious, starting with the dreamy arpeggios of "Pragmagick" and the magnificent "In A Hotel (Somewhere)", still among the best compositions the American multi-instrumentalist has ever written.

For the debut proper, however, we have to wait three years: Careless was released in 2015 on Dais Records (still the band's label of reference to this day), with a Clinco/Demure already perfectly settled into the role (he's on the album cover, in a snapshot that looks like a still pulled from an old VHS tape). Despite positive reactions from critics and a handful of strong compositions (above all, the morbid synth-pop of "Entrance And Exits" and three solid singles like "The Foyer", "The Heiress" and "Unknown To The I"), the album fails to break through, remaining a curiosity for a small circle of devotees, especially in the States.

The turning point, though, is close at hand. In 2016, Alex Nicolaou (who, for the occasion, chooses the alias Mona D) becomes a permanent member of Drab Majesty as keyboardist and second vocalist. Alex is the son of Ted Nicolaou, director of ramshackle yet entertaining B-movies (we remember the 1986 sci-fi flick "TerrorVision") who had also worked as a sound technician on the set of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" (1974). The musician inherits from his father an Eighties imaginary that proves more than compatible with the aesthetic path Clinco had already set out on: from here comes the two-piece lineup we all know, an extraterrestrial duo destined, within a few months, to make the album of their career (even so, Andrew Clinco remains firmly at the helm of his creation in terms of artistic and creative control).

After a fine collaboration with King Dude (the 7" "Who Taught You How To Love" came out around that same time too), it's in 2017 that the Californians make their masterpiece, The Demonstration, produced by Josh Eustis of Telefon Tel Aviv.

The sound now grows darker, more dramatic and romantic, moving between more dreamy, ethereal compositions and others that are far more visceral and anguished, scattered with nods to Clan Of Xymox, Psychedelic Furs and Chameleons (the ones behind the immortal "Second Skin", a song without which Drab Majesty's music simply wouldn't exist). While the delicate arpeggio of "39 By Design" flows into an unforgettable refrain, it's with the nocturnal "Cold Souls" and the dark progressions of "Not Just A Name" (six spine-chilling minutes of pure Chameleons-style songwriting) that the duo reach heights never touched before.

"The Demonstration" is truly a mature, hypnotic record: "Too Soon To Tell" is the perfect single (in the video, the Los Angeles night blends with the iconography of a vaporwave Japan), but there's more to it, because every track on the album has something important to say (as with the superb "Dot In The Sky" and "Kissing The Ground"), aided too by subtle yet perceptible dream-pop and shoegaze influences.

As for the concept, the record once again plunges headlong into sci-fi territory: after the UFO cults of the Unarian Academy (the inspiration behind the first EP), here Clinco and Nicolaou explore the psychology of mass suicide, drawing a straight line between their compositions and the ideology of Marshall Applewhite, leader of the Heaven's Gate cult. There's a sick, apocalyptic bond between Drab Majesty's music and the horrors of a messianic reality with its gaze fixed on the sky.

It's no coincidence that the number thirty-nine in the title of "39 By Design" refers to the cult members found dead by police on March 26, 1997, who took their own lives by ingesting poison (“When you walked alone to leave your life at home/ You really wanted to die/ And if you hoped to hold the key to eternity/ You really wanted to die/ Can’t count your blessings saying goodbye/ Did you really watch your desires resign? 39 by design/ Did they beam you up into the lights in the sky?”).

2017 proves to be a decisive year for the duo, to say the least, not only for the American tour alongside Cold Cave and the subsequent European dates, where Drab Majesty begin to build a following in Italy as well. Meanwhile, more unreleased material surfaces, including “Oak Wood” (a 7″ single dedicated to the tragic death of Cash Askew of Them Are Us Too) and then “Cannibal” at the dawn of 2018, a magnificent nine-minute semi-acoustic track with a space-gaze crescendo, a composition unfortunately only available digitally on the compilation “Holodeck Vision One”.

Andrew Clinco and Alex Nicolaou's rise doesn't stop there, especially after the release of a couple of recordings made inside Chicago's Museum of Surgical Science, where the duo (dressed in white tunics) performed “Dot In The Sky” and “Not Just A Name“ for the occasion, rightfully earning a place among the most original cult bands of the international dark scene. The American dates supporting Smashing Pumpkins only reinforce that impression.

If Drab Majesty brings out Andrew Clinco's more dreamlike, esoteric and introspective sides, in 2019 a side project called Vr Sex (later turned into a fully-fledged band) comes to life, where the musician focuses on the more acid, hallucinated reality of Los Angeles. On one hand, the lo-fi soul that defined the mother band's early days remains intact, though here Clinco opts for a filthier, more contaminated strain of synth-punk and deathrock. Three albums have been released so far: the raw but intriguing “Human Traffic Jam” (2019), followed by the solid “Rough Dimension” (2022) and “Hard Copy” (2024), evidence of a desire to explore the most lysergic edges of a city as controversial as Los Angeles (Vr Sex's music seems to come both from the still blood-stained streets of Cielo Drive and the filthiest sidewalks of Skid Row).

This parallel project becomes a sort of complementary soul for Clinco, since, still in 2019 (on July 12th, to be exact), Drab Majesty's third album, Modern Mirror, comes out, with Joshua Estis once again on production duties.

It's a solid work, though more accessible than its predecessor, as well as less dark and brooding. The various lead singles leave no doubt as to the quality of the record, starting with the excellent “Ellipsis” and “Oxytocin”, two compositions steeped in melancholic, dreamy atmospheres.

The rest of the album holds up just as well, between moments more tied to the past (“Noise Of The Void”), nods to old-school gothic rock (“Out Of Sequence”) and synth-oriented excursions of pure darkwave pedigree (“Long Division”).

Overall, the approach proves airier and more upbeat (“Dolls In The Dark”), helped along by a long stay Andrew Clinco spent in Athens, a place where the musician further absorbed the aesthetic coordinates of Classicism (later reworked through a look bordering on the baroque, evidence of a never-hidden love for Venetian alleyways).

The following tour once again takes in Europe (the band takes the stage at the prestigious Primavera Sound in Barcelona), preceded by a memorable, perhaps unrepeatable show in Rome (June 2019), where the duo previewed some of the new material (the encore comes in autumn with more shows, this time in northern Italy).

The pandemic is just around the corner and brings all activity to a temporary halt: during the spring of 2020, Drab Majesty release a forgettable cover of “No Rain” by Blind Melon, before slowly resuming live shows and songwriting. In 2021, Andrew Clinco retreats to the remote coastal town of Yachats, Oregon. There, after long morning walks in the rain, he spends the rest of the day experimenting with a twelve-string Ovation guitar: the result is something halfway between ambient and neo-psychedelia, a path later distilled into an EP titled An Object In Motion, released in 2023.

The shift in register is evident, not so much in the single “Vanity” (featuring Rachel Goswell of Slowdive) – where some ethereal wave element somehow survives – but rather in the remaining tracks, two of which are instrumental (the pastoral, primitive folk of “Cape Perpetua” and the kraut leanings of the endless “Yield To Force”). Even more disorienting, in some respects, is “The Skin And The Glove”, essentially a psych-rock track filtered through a kaleidoscope of influences (among which one can sense a certain fondness for Stone Roses and Primal Scream, among many others).

The following tour brings the duo back to our shores, ahead of a string of American dates alongside, of all people, Slowdive. All things considered, An Object In Motion doesn't leave a clearly defined mark, but it reflects an understandable desire not to repeat themselves endlessly, striving instead to chart new, ambitious paths. It is, then, a transitional work, as we wait to grasp the next phase of the Californian duo, now more than ever standing at a crucial crossroads.

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