[music] The Legendary Pink Dots

The Legendary Pink Dots started as a synth-poppy kinda goth-y band in the early 80's in England; a few years later, the LPD's de-facto leader Edward Ka-Spel, got sick and tired of Thatcher's conservative England and packed up and went to the Netherlands, where they are still based. Despite having been Dutch residents (as well as having some Dutch natives in the band for a while) for well over 20 years, the tone of the lyrics and vocals are still very English. Whenever I am asked to describe them, I try to dumb it down to "a jazzy Pink Floyd", but really, they've covered a lot of ground. Their early stuff is very synth-poppy (the best of which is "The Tower", a concept album about Thatcher's conservatism going to it's extreme and England reopening the Tower of London as a prison; check out the wonderful song "Astrid") as mentioned above, their middle stuff is like a bit darker and somewhat more experimental (e.g., "Asylum"), and their latter stuff goes in a more psychedelic/jazzy direction ("9 Lives to Wonder"). They've collaborated often with Skinny Puppy (c.f. The Tear Garden, whose albums are great on their own,) smoothing out some of SP's edges and getting harder themselves. I have seen them live once, and their live shows are a great great thing. If they come near you, make an effort: it'll be cheap and good entertainment.

from Epitonic.com here are some mp3s:
Hellsville '98
Belladona
Spike

and one of my personal favorites, "Siren" from "9 lives to wonder":
Yousendit.com link

Relevant webpages:
legendarypinkdots.org
the live archive, live recordings from all periods of the bands existance
WikiPedia article