During the 1990s, Disjecta
Membra built an enduring
reputation as New Zealand’s flagship of gothic rock. Following an
extended hiatus, in 2013 the band marked their 20th
Anniversary with a triumphant return to the stage, and are
currently preparing for the release of a veritable flood of new and
unreleased material.
Mark I: 1993-1997
Hailing from the rural backwaters of Hamilton, New Zealand, since the
earliest demo sessions in 1993, Disjecta
Membra has remained the songwriting and
recording entity of founder and mainstay, Michel. A
three-piece live band was formed in 1995, revolving around the
nucleus of Michel, bassist Ben Cauchi
and a drum machine dubbed Deus ex Machina,
and quickly built a local following. Paul Kennedy and Scott
Barnett both came and went on joint keyboard and guitar duties,
before Tamlyn Martinovich
settled into the role in mid ‘96.
Meanwhile, the band’s ‘Theta Sessions’ demo had
been recorded between December 1995 and February 1996 with producer
Dave Lowndes of local audio production company Theta
Productions. Self-released and distributed in very small numbers
on cassette and CD-R, the ‘Theta Sessions’ came to the
attention of Heartland Records in Melbourne, Australia, who
promptly offered the band an album contract. By the end of ‘96, the
début single ‘Cauldron of Cerridwen’
was proving a hit with specialist clubs in Australia, the UK and
Europe, and is now regarded by many as a classic of gothic rock’s
‘Third Wave’.
The full-length album ‘Achromaticia’
was recorded during December, again with Lowndes at the controls, and
released on Heartland in July 1997. Distributed internationally by
Nightbreed UK and
Resurrection Records, among others, the album also featured
‘Skin Trade’, which proved an even bigger hit with
the UK club circuit, including London’s notorious Slimelight.
Having relocated to the nation’s capital of Wellington, Ben Cauchi
and Tamlyn Martinovich
eventually left the group during 1997. Tamlyn would later reappear as
a member of Auckland bands Avotor and The Shithawks,
while Ben has gone on to considerable acclaim for his surreal,
otherworldly photography, and now resides in Berlin. Jacob
Sullivan (then frontman for Wellington
gothic rock trio Reserved For Emily, now bassist with Berlin
punk-rock’n’roll band The V’s) filled Cauchi’s
shoes long enough for Disjecta Membra to tour New Zealand as a
duo and record the compilation track ‘Antoinette Marionette’
before the end of the year.
Mark II: 1998-2000
1998 saw the band expanded to a five-piece, as recording for the
follow-up album ‘Sibylline Leaves’ commenced. The
group’s touring soundman, Mark ‘Hideebeast’
Hamill of Head Like A Hole
(HLAH), became Disjecta Membra’s
first live drummer, also doubling as producer for the new recording
sessions. Classically trained pianist Petra Škorić
replaced her Croatian kinsman Martinovich behind
the keyboard stand, while bassist Jason (Jaz)
Murphy and guitarist Barnaby Dromgool
were both co-opted from Jordan Reyne’s
group Dr. Kevorkian & The Suicide Machine. Live highlights
included playing support for Death In June’s only New
Zealand show, while the appearance of tracks from ‘Achromaticia’
on compilations from both Heartland and Nightbreed
continued to reach new fans.
Recording, however, was plagued with internal personnel issues; after
just three gigs Dromgool was replaced on
guitar with Vivian Stewart, who was even more swiftly traded
in for Alex Mein Smith.
The apparent ‘revolving door policy’ on membership prompted
Australia’s Aether
Sanctum to ask, “Is Michel New Zealand’s answer to Andrew
Eldritch?” while renowned UK
journalist and gothic rock historian Mick Mercer even reported
that one band member had been sacked “because he smelt funny”. By
2000 A.D., the volatile interpersonal dynamics were well and truly overshadowing the band’s music, the near-mythical ‘Sibylline
Leaves’ had been abandoned, and Disjecta
Membra effectively went into stasis.
Exile and return: 2000AD-2013
Over the next few years, Michel focused on coordinating a small label
and artist collective, Mediatrix,
co-founded in 1999 with musician, designer, author and multimedia
artist Jason Just of post-punk/coldwave-influenced band Burnt
Weeping Eyes, dark-ambient/industrial project Lightslastfading,
and occult neofolk outfit Shemsu
Hor. Time and resources were
further diverted into live event production, including running the
annual Darkness Gathering, an international dark music
and performance festival held in Wellington from 2000-2005, and the
largest event of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.
Notwithstanding, from time-to-time Disjecta Membra was invoked as the
moniker beneath which Michel and friends would perform live, or
contribute one-off tracks to compilation projects. Between 2000 and
2003, Russell Dench (piano, keyboard, programming), Louise
(Lou) Juventin (bass, acoustic
guitar, vocals) and Matthew Tāmati Scott (guitar, treatments)
all became regular live fixtures, while a raft of new songs including
‘…and Close Your Eyes’ and ‘Call of
Cernunnos’ began to
explore neofolk and ethereal influences.
Recorded output during this time was minimal, with an early demo of
‘…and Close Your Eyes’ released on a free Mediatrix
label sampler CDR in 2001, and the somewhat anomalous ‘Antoinette
Marionette’ appearing on the ‘Eternal Chapters’
2CD compilation released by the long-running Sacrament Radio
show on Sydney’s 2RRR FM. Produced by Mark Hamill
back in 1997, this version of ‘Antoinette…’ had been
recorded exclusively for the compilation while Disjecta
Membra still consisted of Michel, Jacob
Sullivan and the drum-machine, with guest string players. Featuring
many of the leading gothic rock/third wave and ethereal bands of the
era, including Corpus Delicti,
Clan of Xymox, Subterfuge,
Eden, This Ascension, Jerusalem Syndrome,
Inkubus Sukkubus
and Shinjuku Thief among others, ‘Eternal Chapters’
remains a fantastic snapshot of both the Australasian and
international scene c. 1997, marred only by the fact that the
collection didn't see the light of day until 2003.
From 2004-2005, Michel served as bassist for glam/punk/goth/rock
band Rose Petals And Confetti, while also collaborating with
Auckland-based artists Paul Blanchard (of Hog Haul
Valentine, Canis and Hieronymus Bosch) and Justine
Sharp (Pulchritude, DiS, Flinch) on a series
of experimental and largely improvised recordings under the banner of
Black Virgin Milk. More an excuse for a whiskey-soaked
sing-song with friends than anything else, work with Blanchard and
Sharp nevertheless inspired the direction of several new Disjecta
Membra songs, first performed with a
short-lived Hamilton-based lineup featuring local stalwarts Stan
Jagger (guitar), Paul Oakley
(bass) and Paul Tregilgas
(drums). This version of Disjecta Membra
existed for a handful of shows in 2005, before Michel returned to
work with Wellington-based musicians including Matthew, Russell and
Jaz, among others.
The period between 2007 and 2009 saw Disjecta
Membra begin to consolidate what has become
the current line-up of the group: Michel (vocals, guitar, misc.),
Matthew Scott (guitars, keyboards), Kane Davey
(lead guitars), Isobel (Izzy) White (bass guitar) and Dan
Smart (drums, samples). In the twenty-year history of the band,
this has become the most stable and enduring of all incarnations to
date, but ironically, came together from a decision to abandon any
notion of a unified ‘band’, and instead draw on a vast, sprawling
collective of floating members. As such, Russell Dench,
Vivian Stewart, Jaz Murphy and Jason Just all continued to make
appearances during this time, while several others drifted in and out
of the frame. Typically fluctuating between a 5 to 7-piece live
group, one Wellington show in 2007 on a double bill with Distorture
(Jason Just and Kane Davey) featured no less than ten performing
members.
Despite such an extensive cast of players, it was a comparatively
streamlined Disjecta Membra, comprised of Michel, Matthew and the
erstwhile Deus ex Machina, which made the
band’s recorded contribution to the ‘She’s Lost’
digital compilation album. Billed as “an underground New Zealand
music recovery expedition”, ‘She’s Lost’ was in effect a tribute album, released as a free download for New
Zealand Music Month in May 2007. Coordinated by The Mercy Cage’s
Josh Wood and Michel for Mediatrix, the
album brought together ‘dark’ underground New Zealand artists to
record cover versions of their favourite New Zealand songs. Disjecta
Membra’s offering – their first new
recording in many years – was an epic re-imagining of Th’
Dudes new wave classic ‘Walking In Light’, from
1979.
Although the band gigged around New Zealand from 2007-2009, in
another life as a tribal historian, Michel’s cultural, personal and
professional commitments to his great-grandmother’s iwi (Māori
tribe), Ngāti Tai (alias Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki), meant
that all and any personal endeavours
outside of those responsibilities were on hold from 2010-2013. Michel
also became father to a son, Eden, in July 2013.
Current activities: 2013-2014:
2013 saw the ‘expanded digital edition’ of the much sought-after
‘Achromaticia’ album made
available online, which was met with glowing reviews and universally
positive response. Out of print for more than a decade, copies of the
original Heartland Records CD release have been known to sell on eBay
for in excess of $US100. As of May 2014, talks are currently underway
with potential labels for the re-issue of a special CD edition of the
album.
Disjecta
Membra ended the year on a celebratory note by supporting legendary
Bauhaus
front man Peter Murphy
on the New Zealand leg of his Mr.
Moonlight World Tour,
culminating in a jubilant final show at notorious Wellington venue
Bodega.
Heralding their return to the stage amidst a flurry of media
attention, and to mark the 20th Anniversary of Disjecta
Membra’s formation, in December 2013 a special ‘single edit’
preview version of ‘Death by Discothèque’ was
released as a free internet single, backed with an exclusive remix
from world renowned electro-industrial
synth-pop giants, Leæther
Strip. Engineered by one-time guitarist Vivian Stewart,
and Troy Kelly of Wellington’s STL Audio, the single
was mixed and produced by Raymond
Ross, the prime mover
behind South African gothic rock band Ankst
and Auckland-based electronic side-project Sine
Division. The exclusive
Ankst
remix of ‘Death by Discothèque’ also features on
the forthcoming (July 2014) ‘This Is Gothic Rock’
compilation from Finland’s Gothic Music Records, while a
Sine Division spin on the track is also slated for a compilation
release.
Since December
2013, the band has
been reunited with Dave
Lowndes, original
producer of the ‘Theta
Sessions’ and
‘Achromaticia’,
with whom they are currently working on new material. The
full-length ‘extended version’ of the ‘Death by
Discothèque’ single, this
time mixed and produced by Lowndes, along with new remixes from New
Zealand’s The Mercy
Cage, Attrition
UK,
and Non Op Trans
(the side-project of North American Goth DJ, Kitty
Lectro)
will appear as a 12” vinyl EP to coincide with the release of ‘This
Is Gothic Rock’.
In March 2014 the band re-entered
the recording studio to resume work on a larger body of new material,
and the following month, Michel confirmed a deal with Gothic Music
Records that will see the launch of the retrospective compilation,
‘Through the Years:
scattered fragments 1995-2014’
(GMR 012) in October/November 2014.
Taking its title from a line in the
song ‘Danse
Macabre’, ‘Through
the Years’ is a
51-track collection spanning three volumes, combining both CD and
download formats. ‘Volume I’ represents a ‘Best of’ CD,
compiling highlights from Disjecta
Membra’s
studio recordings from 1995-present. The CD includes tracks from the
‘Theta Sessions’,
‘Achromaticia’,
out-takes from the unreleased ‘Sibylline
Leaves’ album,
promotional singles and compilation tracks, and brand new studio
recordings from 2014. ‘Through
the Years’ Volumes II
and III will appear as bonus digital albums, bringing together an
array of previously unreleased demos, live performances, cover
versions and other rarities from the same period.