The dedicated label Danse Macabre by Cottenau Castle, Germany, has pushed another album of the - in the dark scene in Russia very trendy - Electro Goth band OTTO DIX on the German market. This is courageous, because it still seems to be for the German listeners rather difficult, to let music of other than in English or German written lyrics to the preset ears. But just "in the East" there is musically exciting experience to discover.
Otto Dix is in Germany not a blank page, because Danse Macabre have already tried two years ago with a former album "Starost" to arouse interest. From then on, the band from St. Petersburg received with Live concerts at the Wave Gothic Treffen, at the Castle Party and occasional appearances a lot of excitement. Just in a couple of weeks will start a tour with some gigs in Germany to introduce this album.
Was "Starost" a typical Slavic rollercoaster of emotions with romantic, elegiac ballads, which met with stormy, hard dance tracks, then "Wonderful Days" is substantially more homogeneous. What with the first songs leads in pretty hard, cold and with electronic dissonance, developes in the course increasingly harmonious. Singer Michael Draw revels as ever with his unusual voice in clear melodies that emerge contrast to the electronic beats. However, he also has tried an evolution of his vocal part and to expand the bright overtones of his countertenor to partially lower pitches or electronic alienation.
You have to like the voice to like the music and free the bias of its own programming about a "male" or "female" tune and about the person behind. With his voice and his personality Draw lives between the sexes, but such "ambiguous" classification however seems to many people problematic. Particularly in his homeland, he meets a lot of misunderstanding regarding his position in gender assignment. A world without sex in the sense of gender, he says, would be a better world without the problems that arise from the male-female classification. By this he means not a world without sex in the sense of eroticism, and everybody can convince him/herself of the video-clip to "The Beast". Here we delve into the fetish world of latex and obsession - with this video he also stretches out the bloody tongue to Mother Russia´s conventions.
"Wonderful Days" at first seems familiar and more western than the earlier productions. And songs like the mentioned "The Beast" sound at first almost a little too smooth and polished. But after listening the record several times one discovers more and more details and dimensions in the songs, and the CD is becoming more and more attractive. Still forms an almost classical theatricality the frame. The electronic dominance is further reinforced by the violin, which sounds as a distorted electric guitar and rarely can be identified as an acoustical instrument. Harmonies meet with their opposite. Search for beauty and romance go hand in hand with areas of morbidity and gloom.
Tracklist (englische Übersetzungen laut Label):
01 Those who will be after
02 The wonderful Days
03 The Machine
04 The Speed
05 The Iron Rod
06 A man, who doesn’t write prose
07 Glass Flowers
08 Little Prince
09 Icarus
10 The Beast
11 Undressed
12 Indigo
13 AOUM
Andreas Torneberg
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