When Suicide played pissing clubs in the 1970s, they did so out of fear for their own lives. Their hostile, slow-moving synth-punk infuriated some viewers so much that singer Alan Vega and keyboardist Martin Rev made a habit of avoiding airborne objects. Bottles for a good night. Rocks, occasionally. And once: an axe. Barcelona experimental duo Dame Area, who count Suicide among their main influences, might have met the same fate had they not emerged decades later from Màgia Roja, an underground club, label and creative incubator that closed in 2019. Co-founded by the Dame Area Producer Viktor Lux Crux five years ago, Màgia Roja's 100-capacity venue was so welcoming—of punks, visual artists, hippies, costumes—that the performers weren't even elevated on stage. he was on the ground with everyone else.
Crux met Dame Area singer Silvia Konstance when they were working and living in Màgia Roja, and the two began releasing demos in 2017. Across a handful of albums and EPs, they've built on a dynamic set of styles: early industrial like Throbbing Gristle, Nurse With Wound and Einstürzende Neubauten? Franco Battiato's electro-lounge period. even an unlikely Italian opera piece that informed their 2018 release Center of Gravity. Dame Area's voracious approach to the genre seems directly linked to their time spent under the roof of Màgia Roja, sweating alongside various subcultures. In 2022, Konstance and Crux even became… pop. Toda la mentira sobre Dame Area (All lies about the Dame area) is a stylish chrome hybrid of new wave à la Gary Numan, Italo disco and synth arpeggios suited to Berghain. For their new LP companion, Toda la verdad sobre Dame Area (The whole truth about the Dame area), Crux and Konstance put a lever on that polished exterior and produce their toughest sound yet.
Toda la verdadwhich clocks in at 36 minutes, bottles the raw ferocity of Dame Area's live shows. Their arsenal of synths and drum pads mimic everything from battered trash can lids to a dentist's drill to a machine gun emptying its magazine. Konstance — who sings in her native Italian, as well as Spanish, Turkish and German — can sound more gruesome and childish in one breath and demonic in the next. On Toda la verdad he bends over in rage, yelling and snarling like a wounded animal on 'Striscia' and screaming like an explosion of static on 'Devoción'. “How can I do it without power?/I've decided: I'll learn to burn, I'll learn to bite,” Konstance belts out in Spanish on opener “Si no es hoy cuándo es.” Crux amps up her fury with saw synths and blast-beat percussion.
