The Cassandra Complex are a British electronic rock group originally formed by Rodney Orpheus, Paul Dillon, and Andy Booth in 1980 in Leeds, England.[1] The current line-up still features original members Orpheus, Dillon, and Booth, with the addition of part-time US musicians Chris Haskett and Mera Roberts.
Previous lineup L-R: Axel Ermes, Andy Booth, Rodney Orpheus, Volker ZachariasSinger Rodney Orpheus at WGT Festival, Leipzig, Germany 2019
History
The band was initially composed of Rodney Orpheus and Paul Dillon, who met when Orpheus gatecrashed Dillon's 21st birthday party in Leeds. They began putting on large multimedia shows featuring various avant-garde acts from the Leeds area.[3] Andy Booth was a journalist who interviewed the band and was later asked to join.[4]
The band released their first self-financed single, "March", in March 1985.[5] A live cassette followed a month later, and the band signed to local label Rouska. Dillon left the band to get married and the band recruited Rodney's childhood friend John Marchini, with Jez Willis and Keith Langley guesting live and in the studio.
They released two albums on the Rouska label, Grenade (1986) and Hello America (1987),[1] and added tracks to the compilations Raging Sun (1985) and Zarah Leander's Greatest Hits (1987).[6] Afterwards they signed to the Belgian-based Play It Again Sam label,[1] which issued the double-live album Feel the Width in 1987.[7] During the production of the Theomania album in 1988, Marchini and Booth left, with Orpheus recruiting a new line-up for 1989's Satan, Bugs Bunny, and Me album.[5] Hamburg guitarist Volker Zacharias from the band Girls Under Glass joined a year later, and has been a stable member of the group since then.
During this period Orpheus also began work on the book Abrahadabra, published by Looking Glass Press in Sweden and later republished by Weiser Books.[8]
Orpheus set up a recording studio in Hamburg where The Cassandra Complex recorded their next albums, as well as producing and remixing several records for other German alternative artists, including Die Krupps and Girls Under Glass.[9] Orpheus had a role in the German vampire movie Kiss My Blood, and toured with The Sisters of Mercy. He was described as a "technopagan" in Mark Dery's 1996 overview of cybercultureEscape Velocity[10]:
To Rodney Orpheus the ease with which such metaphors are turned upside down underscores his belief that there's nothing oxymoronic about the term technopagan in end-of-the-century cyberculture. "People say 'pagans sit in the forest worshipping nature; what are you doing drinking diet coke in front of a Macintosh?' " says Orpheus, who in addition to being a card-carrying Crowleyite is a hacker and a mind machine aficionado. "But when you use a computer, you're using your imagination to manipulate the computer's reality. Well, that's exactly what sorcery is all about – changing the plastic quality of nature on a nuts-and-bolts level. And that's why magickal techniques dating back hundreds of years are totally valid in a cyberpunk age."
Booth went on to become a lawyer and the head of Company Commercial and Creative Industries at Manchester firm Turner Parkinson.[2]
The band continued with Orpheus and Zacharias releasing Cyberpunx, The War Against Sleep and Sex & Death. In 1995, Orpheus worked with Patricia Nigiani and Markus Giltjes on a side project called Sun God.[4][11]
In 2000, the band released the Wetware album on SPV in Europe and Metropolis Records in the USA.[4][12] The album ranked #32 on the German Alternative Charts (DAC) Top 50 Albums of 2000.[13] The EP Twice as Good was also released in 2000, ranking #84 on the DAC Top Singles of 2000 chart.[14] Orpheus also produced the surround albums Planet Earth for LTJ Bukem and A Gigantic Globular Burst of Anti-Static for The Future Sound of London, and published his second book Grimoire of Aleister Crowley.[15]
In 2007, the original three band members reformed along with Volker Zacharias to play several festival shows in Europe and Brazil. Dillon subsequently left the band again and was replaced by Axel Ermes.[16]
In 2019, the band remastered and re-released their two earliest albums, Grenade and Hello America.
At the end of 2020 the band released a studio single: The Crown Lies Heavy on the King (Destroy Donald Trump Mix), which reached number 3 in the German Alternative Chart on December 31, 2020.[17]
The band released a new studio album entitled The Plague, their first for 22 years, on May 6, 2022.[18] The album went on to spend 4 weeks at #1 in the German Alternative Charts.[19]
In 2024 the band reformed their original lineup, along with guest musicians Chris Haskett (who formerly played with Rollins Band and David Bowie) on guitar, Mera Roberts (Faith & the Muse, Black Tape for a Blue Girl) on cello, and Brent Heinze (Probe 7) on keyboards. This lineup recorded the album Death & Sex, released by COP International.[20] Like the previous album, this went on to spend several weeks at #1 in the German Alternative Charts.
The band are currently spending 2024 on their CX40 retrospective world tour taking in 11 countries across 3 continents.[21]
Discography
Studio albums
Grenade (1986) Rouska
Theomania (1988) Play It Again Sam
Satan, Bugs Bunny, and me ... (1989) Play It Again Sam
^Cope, Nicholas (October 2012). Northern Industrial Scratch: The History and Contexts of a Visual Music Practice (PhD thesis). University of Sunderland.
^"Rodney Orpheus". Discogs. Archived from the original on 25 September 2019. Retrieved 24 October 2019.
^Dery, Mark, 1959- (1996). Escape velocity : cyberculture at the end of the century. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN0340672013. OCLC43123797.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^"DAC Top 50 2000". Trendcharts oHG. AMC Alster Musik Consulting GmbH. 2001. Archived from the original on 11 February 2001. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
^"DAC Top 100 Singles 2000". Trendcharts oHG. AMC Alster Musik Consulting GmbH. 2001. Archived from the original on 23 April 2001. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
