It was ‘Streetlights’ that caught my ear, a beautiful, melancholic,
OTT wall-of-sound track that reminds me so very much of something I can’t quite
remember. Its mood is like Soft Cell’s ‘Say Hello Wave Goodbye’ turned up
several notches and much less camp, but it’s not quite that. It might come back
to me. Anyway, the song stood out a mile from the unambitious material around
it. Not so Goth, perhaps, and of course all the more Goth for not being, if you
see what I mean.
‘Streetlights’ comes from the band’s first album – rather a
short one – titled Martyr. Before that came an EP, The Chopping Block, and a
smattering of singles. Before she set up Rosegarden, singer-songwriter Leah
Lane’s earlier project was titled Moon Waves and consciously called attention
to a wider range of influences; but since then she and her new collaborators
(well, one’s her brother so possibly not that new) have acquired a grandiose
and dramatic style leaving the more homespun image of Moon Waves far behind. Somehow
they’ve acquired the wherewithal to appear in a variety of striking costumes
for photoshoots – red suits for the chaps, for instance – and are represented
by Rocky Road Touring which also deals with Goth royalty Bauhaus, Clan of Xymox
and the Mission. This is not bad considering Ms Lane is 22.
The band’s earlier stuff is firmly within the trad-Goth
template, albeit competently and in fact interestingly done. But Martyr is
something far more ambitious, opening that template up with lush arrangements and
Lane’s wonderful voice, strong and distinctive enough to stand out. ‘The second
coming of traditional Goth’, the Chicago Tribune termed them at the end of last
year, but if so it’s a genre transformed into something decidedly different
from whatever it might have been in 1984: it’s a form of trad-Goth which couldn’t
have existed until now. Martyr apparently traces the singer’s recovery from a
broken relationship, the songs written in the order in which they appear, but
at my advanced age it’s only the memory of emotion that I hear beneath the
music, which possesses a beauty that speaks for itself quite apart from any
narrative pegged to real life. It’s ravishing.
On Rosegarden’s website Ms Lane mentions the band’s ‘determination
towards gentility, humility, graciousness and kindness’ and casting about for information
I was struck by their role in Dallas’s Goth scene sociologically as much as
musically. By September last year, Rosegarden had decided to leave the city in
favour of Los Angeles, but in the meantime had taken out a year’s lease on a
house in the Garland district which they proceeded to ‘paint black and red’, deck
out as Gothically as they could, and then use as a base for a series of twelve funeral-themed
parties – really operating as a monthly club – the first being called ‘Obituary’.
“I felt that Dallas has been missing a traditional Goth night for a long time,
and I wanted to start one,” Lane told the Dallas Observer, “When we got the house it was
kind of a no-brainer to me. … I want to further create a community that
encourages one another and understands one another and listens to one another
and supports one another on a more personal level.” The Observer’s reporter
found not only a variety of black-clad young people scattered around the house
and yard but a corset maker, a hairdresser, an artist and two photographers all
offering services and produce.
How far Rosegarden got with their parties I’m not sure; certainly those, and much else, has been stymied by the pandemic. Dallas’s Goths won’t be
meeting anywhere at the moment. But Ms Lane has, all being well, plenty of time
to take those dreams, and music, further.
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