The realm of man doth twist and turn... like pretty kitties aflame, like a lolling serpent on methedrine... Its undulations cause crease and shadow, aperture and alcove... and that is where we find Cinema Strange. Dregs from the floor of a batcave, they parade their antiquated, eighties degeneracy in a manner that old Nick Fiend could appreciate. We scan the California nightclub listing in search of them, homing in on the tainted newsprint, the only listing that reeks of scented fog, face powder, gin, and merriment. It is the bouquet that eminated from Gavin Friday and King Abbo, and French fanatics were immersed in it as they beheld various installations of Clair Obscur. And now, for the first time in America and for the first time since the eighties, the perfume in question is slinking through the air like a dank, dripping, catacomb current, wafted heartily by the strange...
The band has been a west coast favorite for several years in the USA, headlining in concert venues and dance clubs, and in that time has produced a cassette tape and two vinyl seven-inches under Somnambulist Productions. The independant nature of their business changed recently, however, when they signed with the German label Trisol Records, home to the wonderful Sopor Aeturnis, and L'ame Immortelle, among others. The first CD release from that union is scheduled for June of 2000.
The world conquest continues over the Internet, where they have found fellow lunatics on every continent except the always-difficult-to-subjugate land of Antarctica. They have a thriving business on MP3.com, where their CDs have sold in a beautiful and encouraging manner, and their web site message board is brimming with the utterances and expectorated matter of the obsessed. Cult status obtained, I wonder what level of infamy they are destined for. There is somethhing to be said for a small musical brotherhood, dedicated to the display of naked dollies and artificial appendages, and whose anthems include tributes to every freak and anomaly in the macroverse. Let us chant together for their cause, and let their sticky fingers stir the dust in our seldom-visited brain-chambers where nightmares and wonder and beauty and elation dwell together in sacred orgy...
Until next time...
-Retch Dempsey, May, 2000