Kirlian Camera (band)
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Kirlian Camera is an Italian group mainly playing Electro Wave,
dark wave Dark wave (also typeset as darkwave) is a music genre that emerged from the new wave and post-punk movement of the late 1970s. Dark wave compositions are largely based on minor key tonality and introspective lyrics and have been perceived as be ...
, future pop and synthpop music.


History

The project was founded in
Parma Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmigiano-Reggiano, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 ...
in 1979 by Angelo Bergamini and was a pioneering act of the Italian synthpop scene. By 1980, Bergamini had recruited singer Simona Buja, keyboardist Fabrizio Chiari and bassist Mauro Montacchini to form Kirlian Camera. Their demo cassette Dawn attracted the attention of Italian Records, a popular independent label. Christmas 1981 saw the release of their debut vinyl which despite being low-budget immediately sold-out prompting a re-issued, with it finally selling more than 6000 copies. Not long after the band had constant lineup changes, Simona left but rejoins straight away then the following year, Montacchini leaves being replaced by Giorgio Vecchi. Eventually they were the first Italian group to be signed to Virgin Records. Between 1982 and 1984, Bergamini also took part in the Italian
Italo disco Italo disco (variously capitalized, and sometimes hyphenated as Italo-disco) is a music genre which originated in Italy in the late 1970s and was mainly produced in the early 1980s. Italo disco evolved from the then-current underground dance, p ...
group Hipnosis, which won a platinum award for sales in Germany, and had a top-10 hit in several European countries and South America with their single "Pulstar". Angelo unexpectedly decides to leave the pop-music the concentrate on Kirlian Camera. During the second half of the Eighties, the sound of Kirlian Camera became gradually darker, moving away from the synth pop sound that marked some of their early releases. In 1988, Buja leaves Kirlian Camera and the band have temporary singers Bianca Hoffmann-Santos and Suzanne Reddington-Gardner who are replaced for a while by Emilia Lo Jacono. Despite this the band release a 2-CD collection called "The Ice Curtain" with new singer, Barbara Boffelli. In 1993, they signed to German label Discordia, which licensed the self-produced album "Todesengel, The Fall of Life". 1995 came to see them collaborate with label mates
Dive Diving most often refers to: * Diving (sport), the sport of jumping into deep water * Underwater diving, human activity underwater for recreational or occupational purposes Diving or Dive may also refer to: Sports * Dive (American football), a ...
on the Obsession EP and :Wumpscut: . During 2000 the lineup is stabilized when talented singer/composer/writer Elena Alice Fossi joins Kirlian Camera. She is also the leader of side-projects Alice Neve Fox, Spectra*paris and Siderartica, and co-leader in the Stalingrad project (nowadays renamed as Stalingrad Valkyrie) with Bergamini himself. During 2013, Kirlian Camera release "Black Summer Choirs". On late 2017, the band of Elena Alice Fossi and Angelo Bergamini releases the hit-single "Sky Collapse" (featuring Eskil Simonsson of Covenant) via Dependent Records, that immediately gains some remarkable success in Central Europe, reaching position nr. 1 in the German Alternative Charts. After a few months, 2018, the new album "Hologram Moon" (released on standard and special edition including the bonus album "Ghost Novas") quickly becomes the real best-seller of the band ever as far as a full-length studio work is concerned, even entering the official German music charts and keeping position nr.1 on the German Alternative charts for several weeks. Elena Alice Fossi definitely becomes one of the most appreciated singers ever on the global electronic music scene.


Controversy

On 26 April 1999, Kirlian Camera were drawn into the then-current sensationalism over Goth culture when they were off-handedly mentioned by social scientist Alfred Schobert in ''
Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'', in an interview printed as a sidebar to a 4-page newspaper feature on the Columbine High School shootings. Schobert contended that the group (along with
Death in June Death in June are a neofolk group led by English musician Douglas P. (Douglas Pearce). The band was originally formed in the United Kingdom in 1981 as a trio, but after the other members left in 1984 and 1985 to work on other projects, the gro ...
and
Boyd Rice Boyd Blake Rice (born December 16, 1956) is an American experimental sound/noise musician using the name of NON since the mid-1970s, archivist, actor, photographer, author, member of the ''Partridge Family Temple'' religious group, co-founder of ...
) was an example of a "neo-fascist element" in contemporary
goth A Goth is a member of the Goths, a group of East Germanic tribes. Two major political entities of the Goths were: *Visigoths, prominent in Spanish history *Ostrogoths, prominent in Italian history Goth or Goths may also refer to: * Goth (surname) ...
and EBM music, and accused them of performing a
Roman salute The Roman salute, alternatively called the Fascist salute, is a gesture in which the right arm is fully extended, facing forward, with palm down and fingers touching. In some versions, the arm is raised upward at an angle; in others, it is held ...
onstage. In their next cd, the group issued a communique, stating that they were offended by the witch hunt against them, but that they wanted to keep their political opinion to themselves, refusing to place the band within one specific political orientation. They denied that they were "right wing extremists", pointing out that past member Nancy Appiah was Ghanaian, and that they sing lyrics by the Jewish-German poet
August Stramm August Stramm (29 July 1874 – 1 September 1915) was a German war poet and playwright who is considered the first of the expressionists. Stramm's radically experimental verse and his major influence on all subsequent German poetry has caused h ...
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However, they were not allowed to respond in der Spiegel, and as a result show cancellations and protests by
Anti-Fascist Action Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) was a militant anti-fascist organisation, founded in the UK in 1985 by a wide range of anti-racist and anti-fascist organisations. It was active in fighting far-right organisations, particularly the National Front an ...
continued to dog them up through 2002.


Discography


Albums

* ''It Doesn't Matter Now'' (1983) * ''Eclipse (Das Schwarze Denkmal)'' (1988) * ''Todesengel. The Fall of Life'' (1991) * ''Schmerz'' (1994, full-length re-issue of same title EP originally released 1992) * ''Solaris - The Last Corridor'' (1995) * ''Pictures from Eternity (Bilder Aus Der Ewigkeit)'' (1996) * ''The Ice Curtain'' (1997, 2CD collection) * ''Unidentified Light'' (1999) * ''Still Air (Aria Immobile)'' (2000) * ''Kalte Container'' (1999 - incl. unreleased remixes. Limited edition version incl. biography book) * ''Uno'' (2002, re-issue incl. ''Dawn'' demotape and 'Kirlian Camera' mini-album) * ''Live in London'' (2003 - bootleg acknowledged by the band) * ''Invisible Front. 2005'' (2004) * ''Coroner's Sun'' (2006) * ''Shadow Mission HELD V'' (2009, collection incl. unreleased songs and new versions) * ''Odyssey Europa'' (2009, 4CD/2CD collection) * ''Not of This World'' (2010, 3CD collection) * ''Nightglory'' (2011) * ''Black Summer Choirs'' (2013) * ''Uno Vinyl'' (2014, remastered & re-issue by Dark Entries Records incl. bonus flexi-disc Minitech originally released in 1981) * ''Hologram Moon'' (2018, available on several editions, also with the bonus album "Ghost Novas") * ''Cold Pills (Scarlet Gate of Toxic Daybreak)'' (2021)


Singles, EPs and mini-albums

* Dawn... (1980, demotape) * Kirlian Camera (1981, minialbum) * Passing Masks (1982, released under name 'Simona Buja from Kirlian Camera) * Communicate (1983) * Edges (1984) * Blue Room (1985) * Ocean (1986) * Human/Ocean (1986 - promo split single with
The Human League The Human League are an English synth-pop band formed in Sheffield in 1977. Initially an experimental electronic outfit, the group signed to Virgin Records in 1979 and later attained widespread commercial success with their third album ''Dare' ...
) * Ocean (remixed version by Atelier Folie) (1987) * Helden Platz (1987) * Austria (1988) * Schmerz (1992, EP) * Split (1993 single split with Andromeda Complex) * Erinnerung (1993) * Eklipse Zwei (1994, EP) * Le Printemps Des Larmes (1994, vinyl EP included in the box-set edition of 'Schmerz') * Obsession (1995 EP split with Dive) * Your Face In The Sun (1996) * The Desert Inside (1997, miniabum) * Drifting (1998) * The Burning Sea (1999) * Absentee (2001, minialbum) * untitled (2003, mini-CDr incl. unreleased tracks of KC, Siderartica and Camera Artica) * Berliner Messe (2005, vinyl ltd. edition)) * Ghloir Ar An Oiche (2011) * Immortal (2012, EP) * Edges (21st Century Versions) (2014, vinyl) * Sky Collapse (2017, vinyl and CD, EP) * Hellfire (2019, 4-track promo EP, special edition of 100 hand-numbered CD's) * Hellfire (2019, vinyl and CD, 8-track mini-album)


Trivia

Their frontwoman Elena Alice Fossi is LGBT. She once said: "I also like that a girl was in love with a girl. It happens, whether some people like it or not! Then, it's part of my own story..."


References

* http://www.peek-a-boo-magazine.be/en/interviews/elena-alice-fossi-kirlian-camera-spectra-paris-2017/


External links


http://www.kirliancamera.com/
- acknowledged fan-site * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kirlian Camera Italian synthpop groups Italian dark wave musical groups Musical groups established in 1979