Taken from the EP of the same name, “Forbidden” is a glorious blend of post-punk pasts and gothic futures, darkwave delicacies and electronic urges, a song that seems to be a tightly woven, condensed history of modern music’s most misunderstood genres.
For every forward-thinking electronic wash or throbbing wave of digital darkwave sonics, you can hear those bleak, bass-heavy textures that the likes of Joy Division made their own. And for every alt-dance-infused groove, there is a spaciousness that ebbs and flows through the song, creating a wonderful dynamic.
Philip Faith is joined on vocals by Stridulum’s Marita Volodina, and again the attraction of opposites is at work, beguiling blends of the resonant and the raw, the ethereal and the earthy, a fine line walked between unknown pleasures and dark desires.
Of course, such a song is only part of the story, and the video is really the icing on this oh-so-delicious cake—a performance video as a piece of art, the perfect blend of light and shade, polish and purpose, enticement and energy.
And reminding us that the gothic scene always had one foot in the alternative dance world, while this take on the song owes much to the likes of Siouxsie and the Banshees and the world of alt-rock, if you prefer a more dancefloor-oriented sound, the “Shadow Mix” version immediately transports us to the coolest and most exclusive underground nightclub in town.
This is the sound of the gothic world moving with the times, the sound of post-post punk, the past planting a sonic seed in the future. And the future is looking bright, but in the darkest of ways!
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