"The show will be loud and pretty to look at of course,
as Rebecca [Coseboom] will be at the front of the
stage," says music legend JOHN FRYER about the inaugural
tour with his new project DARKDRIVECLINIC. What would be
considered big, arrogant words to some are actually truth when applied to
Fryer. As producer, mixer and/or engineer to some of the most influential
records of the past three decades by artists such as Cocteau Twins,
Nine Inch Nails, and Depeche Mode, his mark on recorded
music has been stamped in indelible ink. But now, with this tour (his first
ever), his musical mark will get aural with the ethereal and otherworldly
vocals of Coseboom.
Supporting the recently released Metropolis album NOISE
IN MY HEAD which SoundSphere Magazine hails
as "a must-listen (four stars)" and Rock Edition calls
"a grand synthesis of all that has come before in [Fryer's] career,
demonstrating his ability to craft dark, hooky post-industrial rock songs using
a musical palette that ranges from discordant to dreamy", DarkDriveClinic
will be playing a handful of West Coast dates that kicks off on Sunday, June
10th in Santa Cruz, CA, heads north to Seattle, and returns to SoCal for a show
at Hollywood's Bar Sinister on June 16th (tour dates below).
The culmination of over two decades of creative incubation,
written in between projects, the album finally saw the light of day. "The
music for DDC has taken so long as it has always been secondary to making other
peoples records," he explains. "It's something I always wanted to do
but there was never enough time. I was in no rush to finish it until I felt
like the songs were where I wanted them to be." With the instrumental part
of the album nearly complete, Fryer needed a voice... but not just any voice. He
needed THE voice. "It had to be a voice that can be all things to all
people all at once." Interestingly, finding that voice wasn't a lifelong
search.
Cue in Rebecca Coseboom. Like what happens
in the movies, coincidence and circumstance (or perhaps more accurately
"fate" by way of Social Media) brought them together. "My wife
Hannah had just gotten back in contact with her friend Kat who she hadn’t seen
for about 13 years on Facebook and she was now living in San Francisco and told
her of this band [Stripmall Architecture] that I should work with. Roughly
around the same time, I had put up a post on FB looking for a singer, Rebecca's
husband Ryan saw the post, and suggested Rebecca should contact me about
singing. The rest is history as they say." Like hand in glove, she
became the voice for which he was looking. "Rebecca’s voice fit perfectly
to the sound of the music," he says. "She can go from being a soft,
fragile siren to a serial killer waiting to pounce in one song. It’s just what the
music wanted and needed."
"When I first contacted John, the songs had not been
posted anywhere, so I contacted him only knowing of his vast body of
work," adds Coseboom. "When he sent me the album, I immediately
connected to it because I grew up listening to the music that John had
produced. I put my headphones on and there was this perfect distillation of all
those sounds and all those moods into one crystalline record."
Atmospheric and textural, which has been one of Fryer's main
calling cards when he worked at famed Blackwing Studios in
South London,Noise In My Head is a dense and complex work of art,
combining sometimes dischordant instrumentals and corraling them into
fascinating and oftimes contradictory exercises in excess and restraint. From
the opening instrumental "Crawl" which recalls some
of Dead Can Dance's best aural tapestries, the album launches into a wholly new
environment that weaves dark and ominious threads throughout the rhythmic
soundscapes he creates. From the percussive "Mercury Head" to
the aggressive "Still Contagious" to the almost
angelic"Bite My Tongue", Noise In My Head is
a vast and expansive album that encompasses Fryer's awe-inspiring oeuvre while
proving that he has plenty of new tricks under his sleeve.
The vinyl version of Noise In My Head will
be released on June 5, 2012 via Green Fuse Records. "It’s
always great to see the artwork in its proper format and not shrunk down to the
CD format," Fryer says excitedly. "There is always something more
friendly with vinyl. It feels like it’s going to be with you a long time... for
life. Bands are like clubs you belong to and the vinyl is something you can
have, hold and feel like you belong."
Due to the mounting costs of touring and undertaking an
ambitious project of bringing this album to the live setting, the band has
taken toKickstarter to help fund the tour. Fryer explains,
"The Kickstarter campaign is to get some financial help
from our fans to get us out on the road as it costs a pretty penny to get out
there. In the old days, labels would put up tour support to help get bands on
the road. Unfortunately these days, labels don't always have the budget to do
that." Coseboom continues, "My other band, Stripmall Architecture,
has had great success withKickstarter and has been treated better
by our fans than we were by any label. Kickstarter is a way
for your fans to give you direct support and I love it." With a very
reasonable goal of $2,500, the campaign can be found here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1170570747/send-darkdriveclinic-on-tour.
Noise In My Head was recently released
digitally and on CD by Metropolis Records. DarkDriveClinic is Rebecca
Coseboom (vocals) and John Fryer (music).
Fryer has produced, engineered, mixed such groundbreaking and influential bands
and records as Depeche Mode, Cocteau Twins, Nine In Nails (Pretty
Hate Machine), Love and Rockets, HIM (Razorblade
Romance) among dozens of others. As one half of the legendary 4AD collaborative
effort This Mortal Coil, his song "Song to the
Siren" (as sung by Cocteau Twin's Liz Fraser) was
described by David Lynch as being high on his "list of
all time most beautiful songs."
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