CROSSOVER - Cryptic And Dire Sallow Faced Hoods Blast Off Into Oblivion

Shadows stretching from Sheffield toward New York, or else Suicide returning to the scene of the crime. Both images capture certain traits of this record, but both also risk being misleading, or at least vague. Crossover are an Italian-American duo recording for the German label Gigolo Records, run by Helmut Geier, better known as DJ Hell, one of the leading figures of the dominant electroclash movement and the man behind a genuine genre landmark, "N.Y. Muscle" (2003), as well as producer and/or talent scout for names like Miss Kittin', Fischerspooner, Vitalic and Mount Sims. The latter, as it happens, after releasing one of the sharpest records of the genre this year as an artist (the dark-tinged "Wild Light"), is also the producer of "Cryptic And Dire Sallow Faced Hoods Blast Off Into Oblivion".

Reading this back, I realize that, in trying to pack in as much information as possible, I'm only cranking up my own misleading-ness. I can already picture dancefloor-haters skimming hastily through the rest of the review, having no intention whatsoever of listening to such garbage, just as the aficionados of the "cube" and the strobe lights will be rushing to the nearest DJ-toy shop to order this much-coveted title. Well, both camps might end up somewhat disappointed, so bear with me a little longer, as I'll try to be more precise in describing the moods worn by this "Cryptic…", indeed.

One thing is certain: Vanessa Tosti and Mark Ingram, now on their second full-length attempt, put themselves forward as the most darkly sexy duo of the year; and they do so by skillfully working the tried-and-tested levers of ambiguity, combined with a proposition rich in electric charge. She's a stunning example of Mediterranean allure, decked out in fetish-tinged studs; he's a composed new Nathan Adler, seemingly lifted straight out of the Bowie-esque imagery of "Outside.1". And all around, not compositions conceived for the club, but jagged, warm songs, sweatier than their "robotic" veneer would suggest, precisely because of a barely concealed sensuality breathing through every beat.

Listening to the muffled kick drum of "Disgrace Chateau", paired with the repeated, subterranean waves of the analogue keyboards, it's hard not to chase down memories of early Tubeway Army, just as it's difficult to dodge the Human League of "The Black Hit of Space" (1980) in the following "Messages", or their unmistakable "post-split" turn expressed in "Chimera Chimera", which channels the lesser claustrophobias of "Dare" (1981). Rock songs dressed in electronics, danceable if you like, yet never engineered on demand, like the (at least) two standout tracks on the album: "Pointy Little Teeth", whose compressed four-on-the-floor pulse mates with a sequencer that gushes like a water pump, spraying jets of eros over vocals that build with the slow but unmistakable rhythm of a sexual act, and the deranged-genius martial stomp of "Half Garden Half Jail", which with just two goose-stepping chords celebrates the murkiest of pagan rites.

The lights are always blurred, the two voices heavily filtered and artificial, while the element of sex, when not directly evoked (as in the eccentric tribalism of "Psychic Baby", for instance) slips through the sliding doors of other temporal dimensions (as in the ambient downtempo of "The Visitor"), thus celebrating its digressions through the clichés of an ancient yet ever-present body language. Sinister millennial esotericism, well worth keeping an eye on when it comes time to draw up your end-of-year playlist.

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30/04/2026