“I don’t want it to be fake,” exhales the Detroit dance wizard. “It could’ve backfi red, maybe I didn’t have a show to give people.” But his shift from solitary electronic wolf to lead singer of his own weird pop band has been an addictive success. Spurning sold out 12” vinyls and three-thousand-capacity clubs wasn’t hard; Dear is obsessed with the aesthetic. ‘Black City’, a concept album to a dystopian Gothamesque city, crawls with life via a melancholic jaunt into off -kilter synths and killer drum programming: “When you’re dark and when you’re unhappy it’s a lot easier for other people who are unhappy to band together. Melancholy is a more shareable experience.” We agree, and your bus to ‘Black City’ is leaving now.
Best Bit: ‘You Put A Smell On Me’ sounds like Prince in an ecstatic orgy with sadistic robotic mermaids.
Read our interview with Matthew Dear HERE.
Read Clash’s review of ‘Black City’ HERE.
Get a free Matthew Dear download HERE.