IAMX's Kingdom of Welcome Addiction Release Date and Tour

I usually don't do announcements for upcoming albums this far in advance, but I make exceptions for the ones I'm really excited about. In this case, it's IAMX's forthcoming third album, Kingdom of Welcome Addiction. It will be released worldwide on May 19, but if you pre-order directly from IAMX's shop, it will be shipped to you on May 6. Judging from the first free download track, Think of England, and from what I've gleaned through live YouTube videos, the tracks off the new album are just as fantastic as those off the first two albums - once I get my copy of the album, there will be a review.

I'll also include the tour dates that have been announced so far (of course none remotely close to me, but c'est la vie):

01/03 GAGARIN 205 / Athens, Greece
10/03 CONRAD SOHM / Dornbirn, Austria
11/03 WEEKENDER CLUB / Innsbruck, Austria
12/03 POSTHOF / Linz, Austria
13/03 GASOMETER / Vienna, Austria
14/03 KIFF / Aarau, Switzerland
16/03 MAGNOLIA CLUB / Milan, Italy
17/03 CIRCOLO DEGLI ARTISTI / Rome, Italy
18/03 BARRUMBA / Torino, Italy
19/03 LE GRILLEN / Colmar, France
21/03 AB BRUSSELS / Brussels, Belgium SOLD OUT
27/03 BELZIK FESTIVAL / Battice, Belgium
10/04 YENI MELEK / Istanbul, Turkey
14/04 ACADEMY 3 / Manchester, UK
15/04 STEREO / Glasgow, UK
16/04 CORPORATION / Sheffield, UK
18/04 TALKING HEADS / Southampton, UK
19/04 KOKO (14+) / London, UK
21/04 ROCKHAL / Luxembourg
22/04 LE LOCOMOTIVE / Paris, France
25/04 FESTSAAL KREUZBERG / Berlin, Germany
19/05 LOPPEN / Copenhagen, Denmark
20/05 JOHN DEE / Oslo, Norway
21/05 DEBASER / Stockholm, Sweden
22/05 NOSTURI / Helsinki, Finland
02/06 T.T THE BEAR'S / Boston, USA
04/06 BOWERY BALLROOM / New York City, USA
06/06 SUBTERRANEAN / Chicago, USA
09/06 SLIM'S / San Francisco, USA
12/06 EL REY THEATRE / Los Angeles, USA
21/06 BLACKFIELD FESTIVAL / Gelsenkirchen, Germany
17/07 JAROCIN FESTIVAL / Jarocin, Poland
26/07 BLACKCAVE FESTIVAL / Waregem, Belgium

Welcome addiction, indeed.

Your Joy is My Low - IAMX

Spit It Out (Live in Warsaw) - IAMX

It's the Comedy and Death of the Senses: IAMX Live in Warsaw

I just received my IAMX Live in Warsaw album this morning in the post. Officially released on November 14, this recording of IAMX for the Polish radio station Trojka is an incredible reminder of how truly incendiary they are live. It features nearly an identical set to the ones I witnessed last year with an absence of Nightlife, but the presence of the stunning Mercy (which was played for the encore of some shows on that 2007 tour, but not for the ones I attended) and Missile. Mastered by Chris Corner himself, this live recording is a brilliant taste of what makes IAMX an unparalleled behemoth on stage.

The show begins with the genius title track of The Alternative - its extended intro hammers away and whips the audience into an anticipatory froth. The cataclysm continues with Bring Me Back a Dog and The Negative Sex, both of which are bigger and more vicious than most live rock songs I've ever experienced. The show then slows down slightly to the swaying hypnosis of President, the ethereal pulse of Mercy, and the undulating depravity of Lulled By Numbers. Next come Kiss and Swallow and Spit It Out, two of IAMX's previously released singles and hugely powerful anthems. Before Spit It Out, Corner plays his seductive game with the crowd as he continues to say, "This is our last song," and the audience keeps screaming "No." Then just as the music strikes up, like a benevolent master, he says, "Well, we'll see." Spit It Out in all its bombastic glory, beautifully rearranged slightly for the live show, is the last song for the show proper. However, after chants of "IAMX," Corner and the band return for the encore.

As in the shows I saw, the unholy, esoteric cabaret of Song of Imaginary Beings kicks it off. Its accordion and plinking keys introduction drips with the beguiling bewitchment to come. Then, the opening bars of Missile elicit a roar of recognition from the crowd and the delicate, vulnerable song moves along to the climax when Corner gives the vocals over to the audience. Almost immediately after Missile concludes, the dark beats come back to another one of my favourite songs from Kiss + Swallow, Your Joy is My Low. It is one last battlecry for the beautiful people in IAMX's kingdom of the wretched.

Outside of Poland, you can only order the album through the Nineteen95 shop. I'm still waiting, as other fans probably are, for a live DVD to be officially created and released to document the intoxicating image that goes with the music. I'm still rattled by the energy that the IAMX band and Chris Corner's intense persona have managed to project through my speakers. I'll happily write an elegy to my senses tomorrow.

The Alternative - IAMX (Live in Warsaw)

Mercy - IAMX (Live in Warsaw)

More Blistering Identitätkampf: IAMX's New Single

I've been waiting for this for over a year. IAMX has just released a new single today, Think of England, and it's available for free download. It is the first new material since 2006's sophomore album The Alternative. With the introduction of the single, there has come a new colour scheme and style for the MySpace page - gone are the yellow and black, replaced with red and muted grey. The single itself is a shift in mood - gone is the dark cabaret, instead there is a rather insistent, urgent sense of wild escape.

If anything, it is a natural progression. The debut album Kiss + Swallow was generally a slower, seedy affair, oozing sexual deviance and desire. Then The Alternative came with its cabaret image and feel, but with an extra punch of raspy, vicious need that pervaded most tracks, including the incredible title track. Now, the energy has continued to escalate with syncopated rhythm and high-pitched, brain-searing synths, pushing both speed and sonic limits. Additionally, Corner's vocals continue to careen between delicate vulnerability and desperate power, but paired with the intensity of the music, they have become even more frenzied than in previous material. As for the content of Thinking of England, Chris Corner has always been rather vocal about why he left England, and more specifically London, for Berlin. I feel like this song is part of that declaration and that necessary separation from older identities and lifestyles. IAMX continues to be an identity project.

According to IAMX's blog (with its idiosyncratic use of the caps lock), Chris Corner has been in the process of choosing which direction this project should go in and has solicited feedback from his fans (of which there is a rather intense cultish following). As vocal as he has been about moving to Germany, he has been equally outspoken about staying independent and DIY. He has mused over the dilemma of the independent artist:

HOW DO YOU SELL YOURSELF TO SUPPORT YOURSELF WITHOUT WHORING YOURSELF? IT HAUNTS ME. IF ART WAS INDULGED AND FUNDED MORE THEN MONEY WOULD'NT HAVE TO TAINT IT (IN SOME NAIVE UTOPIA) I SEE ONLY A HORRIBLE STEW OF BUSINESS, FAME AND CELEBRITY IN THE COMMERCIAL INDUSTRY. I CANT THINK OF A MORE REVOLTING MIX. WE MUST STICK TO THE PATH. AND YOU MUST STAY WITH US. SOMETIMES IAMX FEELS LIKE A SMALL RELIGION.

And ideas of a new Web site:

I WANT TO CREATE SOMETHING EXCLUSIVE. A LITTLE WORLD FOR THE FANS TO EXPLORE AND BECOME A PART OF. I WANT TO RAISE THE VALUE OF THE ART. TO SURVIVE AS A FLEXIBLE GIVING, INDEPENDENT PROJECT WE MUST OFFER SOMETHING UNIQUE BUT WE ALSO NEED THE INPUT AND SACRIFICE OF THE FANS. BASICALLY FUCK THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND CREATE OUR OWN. WE ALL NEED TO GET ON THIS. FAN AND ARTIST IF WE WANT THE GYPSY TROUP TO CONTINUE. I WANT FEEDBACK. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU WANT FROM ME. I ALSO WANT TO TELL YOU WHAT I NEED FROM YOU. IN THESE COLD , RISKY TIMES THIS COULD BE THE LONG AWAITED BEGINNING OF A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP.

Judging by the responses (myself included), there will always be conflicts of opinion, and by opening himself up to the floodgates of input, Corner will have many things to think about and consider. My only hope is that he remains as honest as he can within a framework that represents all he wishes to be. The fact he wants to create such a symbiosis between fan and artist is inspiring - he is definitely a pioneer in this brave new world of major label collapse.

If you're lucky enough to live or be in Europe within the next four months, you'll be able to see IAMX on tour, where more new material will be unveiled. Also, if you are the consummate IAMX fan, get yourself here to pre-order the Live in Warsaw album, which will only be released in Poland on November 14. I eagerly await a third album. Until then I will keep listening to this new anthem to Identitätkampf. All of us IAMX fans will be basking in the pyre of the past and dancing on the grave of the music industry. You are not alone at the frontline.

Think of England - IAMX

i-Polaroids - IAMX

My Flesh is Weak and Without Reason: IAMX's Release in North America

I'm sure a lot of über music fans have had this bittersweet feeling before. It's really a ridiculous, unfair feeling to have, but no matter what I do, I still get it. It's that feeling of possessiveness over a particular band or artist that makes you simultaneously want to keep that artist a secret for your own selfish purposes and want to share the brilliance of that artist with the rest of the world that was too thick to notice him/her in the firstplace. You also get a feeling of superiority for being an early adopter - you're the one who "got it" first and made all the necessary effort to support that artist. And then all of sudden, that artist is made more accessible to others, who think their new discovery is indeed new. This is how I'm feeling about IAMX right now.

I've loved and supported IAMX, which is former Sneaker Pimps mastermind, Chris Corner's solo project, for at least three years now. I think I was first alerted to the fact I might be interested in IAMX via a small blurb in the NME (oddly enough, it was through an article written by Noel Fielding, but this was before I knew anything about The Mighty Boosh - it actually took me over a year after reading this article to watch The Mighty Boosh and subsequently remember their connection to Chris Corner when I saw his face appear on various magazine covers used in the television show), and when I went to check out the IAMX Web site and MySpace, I was completely hooked. The decadent darkwave with ethereal vocals trapped me, and combined with Chris Corner's androgynous, theatrical look, pushed me to search out import copies of both of his albums, Kiss & Swallow and The Alternative. I think I ended up obtaining the former via someone in Russia (hopefully, the supplier wasn't particularly shady) and the latter via a European Web site. Because IAMX is self-produced and self-distributed and based in Berlin, the albums were only ostensibly available in mainland Europe - they hadn't even released in the UK yet, which confounded my usual online retail sources. At any rate, I did get the albums and haven't stopped listening to them since. I then proceeded to see IAMX live in both Toronto and Detroit last fall (see my earlier post for a review of those incredible experiences) - I was thankfully living in Waterloo, Ontario at the time rather than Winnipeg, but I can't say I wouldn't have tried the same thing even if I would have had to fly out there for that purpose. However, now IAMX has signed a deal with Metropolis, finally making the albums available to North America - The Alternative was released on May 7 while Kiss & Swallow will follow on June 24.

I should be very happy about this turn of events, especially considering it's sticking it to people who believe a band couldn't be successful and tour without massive major label promotion. And I am happy. But at the same time, I get this rather nauseated feeling about all the American college radio stations touting the "new" IAMX that I've loved for a relatively long time now. Of course, people who have always loved Chris Corner from his Sneaker Pimps days probably hate my guts, too - to be fair, I do also quite love Sneaker Pimps, but that love followed from my love of and emotional investment in IAMX.

IAMX will now be doing a small American tour later this year (as far as I know, no Canadian dates - not even Toronto), and I can only hope that the venues don't get too massive. Venue size on tours becomes an equally great concern for me when a band/artist I like gains more popularity. I need and crave intimacy in a gig, meaning being too far from a stage is pretty much useless for me. The small IAMX shows I did get to see rank in my top five live gigs because the energy and atmosphere was just so perfect, and being wedged against the stage contributed massively to that feeling. I'm one of those people who doesn't like casual fans - give me the unhinged obsessives every time, they are what change an ordinary gig into an event.

But in the end, I do want IAMX to be successful, probably also for selfish reasons: namely, the fact that success will likely lead to future releases and a long career of music for me to enjoy. So, everyone who reads this: please do purchase IAMX albums and go to the live shows. Kiss & Swallow is a slower affair than The Alternative, but you truly do feel like you're having an affair with the album in all its filthy glory. The Alternative tends to rock more violently, but put together with Kiss & Swallow, creates the perfect variety of intensity for a music relationship. Chris Corner has the uncanny ability to meld cryptic lyrics into dark soundscapes of passion and perversity, and his voice creeps over your skin like a velvet glove, sometimes slapping you in your willing face. IAMX makes you want to push your limits, push the boundaries of who you are and what you're capable of. IAMX is the transcription of the fantasy of what you would like to be but cannot be in the daylight. You, like Chris Corner, become x.

And if you're not convinced yet, listen to the sample songs I've included for download. Mercy, off the Kiss & Swallow album, is absolutely breathlessly brilliant - probably my favourite track off the record. And the title track off The Alternative is a genius electro-stomp of a song with Corner's voice soaring and breaking with desire. I have also included the re-tooled version of Nightlife, which is on the new US release. Corner is a consummate artist with an evident perfectionist streak, always making sure that from the visuals to production IAMX is a complete self-contained vision of heartbreaking beauty. He takes chances and they always pay off.

Looking directly into Chris Corner's dark eyes while singing his lyrics back to him is an experience like no other. And I have to learn to let others experience it, too.

"the flesh is weak and without reason...they say the wretched get their kingdom" - Bring Me Back a Dog

IAMX MySpace: www.myspace.com/iamx

IAMX Web site: www.iamx.co.uk/

Metropolis Web site: www.metropolis-records.com/


Mercy - IAMX

The Alternative - IAMX

Nightlife (US Version) - IAMX

The Alternative to Real World Is Just Time For Me and a Fantasy

Here's one more old gig review. This is the last one. From now on there will be fresh ones as I go to more gigs (doing a Masters Degree takes up valuable portions of my time). I promise.

I'm also including the bonus track on the UK release of The Alternative album - the splendid string version of Spit It Out. I wouldn't have thought it would work, but it becomes both ethereal and haunting.

The Alternative to Real World Is Just Time For Me and a Fantasy

An hour before doors opened at The Mod Club for the IAMX show back on October 20, I was just a tired, relatively introverted Masters student sitting on a hard bench, listening to my ipod. And Chris Corner was just a shy, diminutive man in sunglasses and a white jacket scurrying away from soundcheck with a quick nod to acknowledge my wave and "hello." But when the show started a few hours later, something changed...

For those who don't know, Chris Corner, formerly of the triphop band Sneaker Pimps, is now at the helm of a brilliant darkwave electro project called IAMX based in Berlin. With its glam flourishes and ambiguous, often deviant sexuality, it's fitting that his project is based in a city that was known for its outrageous cabarets and the excesses of the Weimar Republic era. It's also fitting because Berlin itself used to have a split personality between East and West.

Once Chris Corner hit the stage, it felt like a gothic circus had taken over the venue. I was swept up in the pounding beats and riffs of the opening "The Alternative" and mesmerized by Chris Corner's alter ego, who moved about the stage like a possessed marionette, his kohl-rimmed, sequin-teared eyes often hidden by a glittery gold hat. He encouraged a feverish reaction by cocking his ear toward the crowd and beckoning to them, wanting to hear more screams. I admit that I screamed and sang like Chris Corner was pulling on my vocal cords, a master puppeteer of the entire audience. His extremely slender body, encased in a skin-tight, black bodysuit with yellow sequinned straps slung over it, alternated between fluidity and robotic movements. The chorus resulted in an explosion of jumping and arm pumping as the pure tones of Corner's voice soared over the heavy, driving beats. The boundary between performer and audience dissolved in a sweaty madness and everyone began reaching out to him, the keyboardist, and the guitarist. In the frenzy, for some reason, Chris Corner chose to take my hand in his and hold it for a moment, but I almost forgot about my hand as the music and his hypnotic dark eyes dragged me into an underworld completely of IAMX's creation.



As the show progressed, the band kept almost exclusively to upbeat tracks mainly from the latest album The Alternative ("Kiss and Swallow" and "Skin Vision" from Kiss and Swallow also made appearances). The entire band sustained an inhuman energy that rippled throughout the crowd. I lost myself so entirely, I can't remember smashing my elbows on the monitor and giving myself bruises. What I can remember is actually grabbing a hold of one of Chris Corner's high black boots and having the song "Venus in Furs" fly into my head. Other members of the audience, boys and girls, reached out and ran their hands over Corner's legs, and he rocked his body so violently over the edge of the stage, his sweat rained on the front row. His bodily convulsions continued as he constantly fell to his knees and twisted through jumps in the air. He wielded the microphone cord like an S&M whip, nearly strangling the guitarist, and hanging it between his teeth. The band threw themselves into every song even though the pace never slackened, and Chris Corner's voice cajoled and pleaded, dripping with dark purpose and freewheeling hedonism.

The encore was "Attack 61," a song from the soundtrack for the French film Les Chevaliers du Ciel, an album that Chris Corner produced, and "Song of Imaginary Beings." When the show ended, I was drenched in everyone's sweat and genuinely understood what "After Every Party I Die" meant. Though the drummer and the guitarist hung around the venue after the show (the former eventually changing into track pants and the latter no longer bare-chested) and talked with the fans, Chris Corner had disappeared from the venue and into the tourbus before anyone had even gotten outside. I completely understood why. He had just prostituted his entire being for the fans and needed to shift back into reality. I, too, had to shift myself back into my own reality. If you never came down from all that, you'd probably go insane.

One of the girls I met after the show (while waiting for the manager to get our stuff signed by Chris Corner) asked if I would be interested in seeing IAMX again in two nights in Detroit. She wanted someone to split the gas money with her, and the trip was doable since Detroit was about four hours away. A large part of me really wanted to experience that incredible feeling again, that feeling of completely losing yourself in the music and performance - that was my own Mr. Hyde's desire. The Dr. Jekyll, sensible side of me said that I had class the afternoon before the show and that I should be doing all the weekly homework required by a Masters Degree, so I should just forget about it. However, by the end of Sunday evening, Mr. Hyde won out and I followed IAMX to Detroit.

The Detroit show was at an even smaller venue than The Mod Club called The Magic Stick, and the crowd was also disappointingly smaller. I actually worried that the crowd wouldn't be enough to support the alternative universe of IAMX properly. And in my crazed state, I somehow fancied myself a crowd leader. My metamorphosis happened all over again the second that IAMX took the stage, Chris Corner this time sporting a silver hat. Screaming like I was trying to exorcise my average persona, I couldn't stand still and felt myself dancing in imitation of Chris Corner's erratic movements, unbeknownst to me, smashing my knees into the stage in front of me. I have a feeling he may have recognized me from the Toronto show because he grabbed my hand multiple times and kept grinning at me, a twinkle in the event horizon of his black eyes. Even in my mind's eye, his direct gaze in combination with his smile takes my breath away. After I had touched him, the rest of the crowd seemed more comfortable with doing the same, and the connection between the band and the audience grew with each song. At one point, Chris Corner grabbed the head of a guy who had also followed IAMX from Toronto to Detroit, and he roughly ruffled his hair. To the waltz beat of "President," the audience swayed together like a pendulum, pacing out the perversity and drowning in the decadence of Chris Corner's cadences, his voice wracked with desires that were tearing him apart.


The set was virtually the same as the Toronto set, but this time the encore featured "Your Joy is My Low" instead of "Attack 61." At one beautiful moment, Chris Corner pointed directly at me as he sang the title line of the song. As ridiculous as this moment would seem from an outside perspective (and perhaps from my more rational brain), it was transfixing and enveloping while in that moment. And really all that counted was what was self-contained in that world of the stage.

Nursing knee-cap-sized bruises, I've now gone back to my unassuming, regular life as a quiet graduate student in Waterloo just as Chris Corner retires to his tourbus every night and hides his bewitching eyes behind sunglasses. We all need a little escape from ourselves to keep sane. I have no need to reconcile the willowy man silently fleeing soundcheck with the ringmaster of musical fantasy. The beauty is in the division.

Missile (Acoustic) - IAMX

The Alternative - IAMX

Spit It Out (String Version) - IAMX