Goth is a music-based subculture that began in the United Kingdom during the early 1980s. It was developed by fans of Gothic rock, an offshoot of the post-punk music genre. The name Goth was derived directly from the genre. Notable post-punk artists who presaged the Gothic rock genre and helped develop and shape the subculture include: Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, the Cure, and Joy Division.
The Wave-Gotik-Treffen is an annual world festival for "dark" music and "dark culture" in Leipzig, Germany. 150+ bands and artists from various backgrounds play at several venues throughout the city over four days on Whitsuntide. The festival also features multiple all-night dance club parties, several fairs with medieval, gothic, and related merchandise, a variety of cultural exhibitions and performances, large themed picnics, and a number of unofficial fringe events.
Projekt is a Portland, Oregon-based independent record label that specializes in darkwave, ambient, and shoegaze, started by Sam Rosenthal in 1983. Projekt is also known for releases in the gothic rock, ethereal, dream-pop, and dark cabaret genres.
The M'era Luna is an alternative music festival that encompasses a number of different styles such as metal, future pop, aggrotech, synthpop, gothic rock, dark wave, and ebm. It is held annually on the second weekend of every August, in Hildesheim, Germany at Flugplatz Hildesheim-Drispenstedt, a former British Army airbase.
Das Ich is a German dark wave/gothic-industrial band formed in 1989. The group, fronted by Stefan Ackermann and Bruno Kramm, were one of the prominent founders of and contributors to "Neue Deutsche Todeskunst" a musical movement in the early 1990s. The band is known for having a classically-inspired gothic-industrial style, for their on-stage theatrics, and their almost exclusive use of German-language lyrics. The German term Das Ich makes reference to the Freudian concept James Strachey translated as "ego".
A rivethead or rivet head is a person associated with the industrial dance music scene. In stark contrast to the original industrial culture, whose performers and heterogeneous audience were sometimes referred to as "industrialists", the rivethead scene is a coherent youth culture closely linked to a discernible fashion style. The scene emerged in the late 1980s on the basis of electro-industrial, EBM, and industrial rock music. The associated dress style draws on military fashion and punk aesthetics with hints of fetish wear, mainly inspired by the scene's musical protagonists.
Infest is an annual three-day music festival held at the University of Bradford Union in the United Kingdom, featuring alternative electronic music acts, from genres including industrial, EBM, futurepop, synth-pop and power noise. The event usually takes place on the August bank holiday weekend.
Decoded Feedback is a Canadian musical project which incorporates styles of electro-industrial and aggrotech. The duo releases music on the North American distributor Metropolis Records, and the European record label Infacted Recordings.
Placebo Effect was a German dark electro band formed in 1989.
C.O.M.A. was a yearly weekend underground music festival held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, from 2004 to 2007 featuring industrial, power electronics, noise and other alternative electronic musicians and DJs. There were both independent and signed bands who were booked to play, as well as many vendors for music and related paraphernalia. Featured record labels and noteworthy companies include: Ant-Zen, Geska Records, .Angle.Rec., Cyclic Law, Force of Nature Records and Bugs Crawling out of People. In 2008, C.O.M.A. was essentially replaced by the Kinetik Festival, which ran until 2013. In 2014, Kinetik was replaced by Aftermath, held in Toronto and featuring many of the same bands that were originally intended to play at the seventh edition of Kinetik.
Ego Likeness is an American darkwave/industrial rock band from Baltimore, Maryland. They were formed in 1999 by artist Steven Archer and writer Donna Lynch.
The Eccentrik Festival was an annual 3-day Goth and industrial music festival held in the Raleigh, North Carolina area and had in some years been spread out between several different venues. The festival started in October 2004. Musical styles typically featured at Eccentrik included deathrock, psychobilly, gothic rock, industrial, post-punk, dark cabaret, steampunk, synthpop and other related genres. The festival was also notable for its party-like atmosphere, the pre-festival meet n' greet, art show, and a dancefloor featuring goth, deathrock, industrial, steampunk and post-punk djs from around the US.
The Toronto goth scene, the cultural locus of the goth subculture in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and the associated music and fashion scene, has distinct origins from goth scenes of other goth subcultural centres, such as the UK or Germany. Originally known as the "Batcavers", the term "goth" appeared only after 1988, when it was applied to the pre-existent subculture. Distinctive features included internationally recognized gothic and vampiric fashion store 'Siren', a goth-industrial bar named 'Sanctuary: The Vampire Sex Bar', and Forever Knight, a television series about an 800-year-old vampire living in Toronto. In Toronto, the goths did not seek to reject mainstream status, and achieved partial acceptance throughout the mid to late 1990s.
Bats Day in the Fun Park, also known as Bats Day, Goth Day, Goth Day at Disneyland, The Spooky Trip to Disneyland Resort, CA., Bats Day in the Park and Bats Day Out, started in August 1999 as a joint effort between the promoters of the goth/industrial and deathrock clubs Absynthe and Release the Bats. It has become an annual three-day event taking place in Anaheim, CA, United States near Disneyland. In previous years, the events commenced on the weekend before Labor Day. Since about 2008, Bats Day event weekends have usually happened on the first or third weekend in May.
The Singapore Dark Alternative Movement (S.D.A.M.) is an informal, social collective catering to the needs of the Singaporean gothic and alternative lifestyle community. It also functions as a support/help group for members within the latter regarding issues such as suicide, gender and sexuality. Although cited by their official webpage as having the date of their creation as 1998, the name of the collective only surfaced in 2005 with the return of former leader Saito Nagasaki from Perth, Australia.
Cristian w/o H, known by his one-man music project DIGITALIS PURPUREA and also known as Cris Gutter, is an Italian multi-instrumentalist sound artist. He works as a professional sound technician for dubbing and broadcasting, for which he has curated much production in the advertising and corporate areas. Furthermore, he has curated the sound design of exhibitions and plays. His musical creations are a mixture of Industrial, Electronica, Glam, Giallo, Conceptual Noise and Horror Themes. He is signed to Danse Macabre Records and Aural Music Group. After a successful audio experimentation with Digitech products, he currently is an official endorser artist. He worldwide released four full-length albums including "30-hole and Fred Perry" which reached the TOP-10 spot on the DAC - Deutsche Alternative Charts. He also played in major international festivals and clubs such as WAVE GOTIK TREFFEN, SLIMELIGHT UK and DARK MUNICH FESTIVAL. Musically involved in notable productions and unconventional collaborations, he worked with top-artists, producers and engineers such as Ted Jensen, Danny Saber, Matthew Setzer, Bruno Kramm, Madaski, Fabri Fibra and many others. His photo shoots titled “Planet of the Velvet Samurai” and "Om Pop Model From Ygam" have been published in the key American fashion journal "Dark Beauty Magazine". In 2016 he worldwide released the EP "Pastel Dissonances" in digital format. Its first single "The Mesmeric Lights Of Vegas" is also a videoclip and credits Cristian as its creative director, producer and protagonist. The song has been included in Zvuková Vlna XII, a compilation dedicated to Italian contemporary artists, produced by Istituto Italiano di Cultura Bratislava. In 2018 he released the maxi-single "Maneater" produced by Keith Hillebrandt and Fabrizio Giannese (Aborym). It has been included in "Quid" soundtrack, a film by Valerio Di Lorenzo. During the same year, he has been part of "You Die" film production as musician. The film has been selected for "Screamfest Horror Film Festival" in Los Angeles.
Dianna St. Hilaire, better known as Opāru, is an American actor, singer and composer from Los Angeles, California. She was born in Modesto, California and grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her genre is Dark Electro Pop, Pop, and Ethereal.
Raised by Bats is the tenth studio album by Cuban American dark cabaret singer Voltaire, released in 2014. The album's production was crowdfunded by Voltaire's fans all over the world via a successful Indiegogo campaign; it would reach US$53,793, surpassing its originally intended goal of US$10,000. The album is a major departure of Voltaire's musical style; instead of his usual dark cabaret style, Raised by Bats is more deathrock- and gothic rock-oriented. According to Voltaire in his official website:
In truth, it's a tour of all of the kinds of music I loved growing up. There are songs on this album that are goth rock, deathrock, new wave, New Romantic, dark wave and dark folk. It's the album I've always wanted to make. Some of the songs were written as far back as 1984, when I was 17 years old!
Bella Lune is a darkwave/dreampop band that was formed in 2007 in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. The band incorporates elements of darkwave, post-punk, synthpop, shoegaze, and ethereal music to create a dreamlike trance throughout their sound. Bella Lune cites many 80s post-punk and new wave bands as influences, including The Cure, Joy Division, Depeche Mode, Cocteau Twins, New Order, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, and Love and Rockets.
Gothic Cruise is a small, annual electronic gothic music festival operating since 1989. It has been continuously from a variety of ports within the United States of America with live entertainment since 2007.
