Operating in the divide between art collective and rock band, Discoteca Flaming Star (a.k.a. core members Cristina Gomez Barrio and Wolfgang Mayer) create richly layered performances that combine belly dancing and noise rock, counter culture and cabaret, chanson and disco in a hallucinatory genre they have called “hardcore karaoke.”
Barrio and Mayer describe their eclectic performances, which also integrate banners, projections, drawings and elements of drag, as an attempt to evoke a fictitious space for the unfolding of individual and collective memory. That their sensibilities draw from the darker side of the subconscious is obvious from works like their Suicide Audio Piece, the banner adage “I hope everything you love dies in your arms” and the dancing dead-Elvis skeleton that greets homepage visitors (full of their work and Discoteca Flaming Star (DFS) quirkiness, the website is certainly worth a visit!).
But despite some of its dark, mesmerizing qualities, at the core DFS is not really about doom and gloom. Improvisation and the celebration of collaborative creativity permeate the mood of their work to create open-ended propositions that really rock. For example, their Lili Marleen video includes shots of Barrio and Mayer performing an evocation of John and Yoko’s 1969 bed-in for peace, a slightly robotic group dance number and animated group dinner table discussions over a fabulous soundtrack of the two singing a grungy Lili Marleen in Arabic.
DFS has the ability to make all their appropriations coalesce with an intensity that is alluring, but never overpowering, while their mean guitar and under-rehearsed delivery give their work the accessibility of pop. This combination of depth and surface is perhaps best summarized when Mayer says: “Klaus Kinski is my father, Bonnie Tyler is my mother.” Similarly, another one of their banners, reading “innocence and mystery”, mingles the letters of the bands AC/DC and ABBA.
While DFS celebrates this kind of split personality, fragmentation and pastiche, its unique back-in-black musical and cultural remix mirrors the associative processes of memory and integrative processes of identity that make up our cultural condition. And this is why the group is attracting a widening fan base. Thank you for the music, Discoteca Flaming Star!
Link:
www.discotecaflamingstar.com
