Cult legends Tuxedomoon are a welcome exception in today's over-formatted musical world. Born in 1977, in the heady atmosphere of San Francisco’s postpunk golden age, the band soon became a central part of New York's No Wave scene (as documented in the "Downtown 81" film, centered around Jean Michel Basquiat and featuring performances by Blondie, James Chance, DNA and Tuxedomoon). "No Tears", their 2nd single (1979), has remained an electro punk club classic to this day. The band went on to sign to The Residents' Ralph Records, and released two seminal albums, "Half Mute" (1980) and "Desire" (1981) which soon got them overseas exposure.

Fleeing Reagan's America, Tuxedomoon moved to Europe in the early '80s, and stayed there throughout the decade. Although their ability to crystallize a certain dark and romantic zeitgeist quickly turned them into one of the most influential bands around, their music transcended all genres and included impossibly wide parameters –rock, electronics, minimal music, classical, jazz, Gypsy music and pop were all simultaneously consumed and transmutated into a quasi-prescient blend.

After releasing a string of albums on CramBoy (the imprint they set up with Brussels-based label Crammed Discs), the band stopped recording together in 1988, and the various members pursued solo careers, becoming as disparate geographically as sonically, with Steven Brown (vocals, keyboard & saxophone) living in Mexico, Peter Principle (bass, electronics) in New York, Blaine L. Reininger (vocals, violin, guitar) in Greece, and Luc Van Lieshout (trumpet) & Bruce Geduldig (films/visuals) in Brussels.

Many years later, Tuxedomoon got back together to write and record the awesome "Cabin In The Sky" album (2004), which found them in absolute top form, as romantic, rebellious and boundlessly imaginative as they ever were. "Cabin" featured contributions by a carefully hand-picked selection of guests such as Tarwater, Tortoise's John McEntire, Nouvelle Vague's Marc Collin and DJ Hell.

Shortly after finishing "Cabin In The Sky", Tuxedomoon traveled back to San Francisco, the band's birthplace, in order to start writing material for their next album. But the local atmosphere had unexpected effects on them, and drove them to record a series of "spontaneous compositions" (as Mingus would have put it) instead, which soon formed the basis of a side project entitled "Bardo Hotel Soundtrack" loosely connected to Brion Gysin’s novel ‘The Bardo Hotel’ set in the Paris hotel where he and William Burroughs invented the radical cut-up/fold-in technique.

Both "Cabin…" and "Bardo Hotel…" were warmly welcomed, and a wildly eclectic array of references sprang from the pens of reviewers trying to describe Tuxedomoon's music (Charles Ives, Radiohead, Philip Glass, Miles Davis, German electronica, Tom Waits, John Cage, Kurt Weill, Tortoise, Can…).

If anything, these two albums revealed that Tuxedomoon were never connected to a particular period: they had become '80s cult figures simply because that's the period in which they happened to develop and rise to fame… but the band have always been evolving in their own space, and their music is as relevant and fresh today as it was then. An impression to be further strengthened by their album "Vapour Trails" (2007), which appealed equally to fans of contemporary cutting-edge avant-rock, electronica and jazz.

To celebrate the band's 30th anniversary, Crammed have released a limited-edition boxed set entitled 77o7 tm, which includes "Vapour Trails" along with a CD of previously-unreleased archives, a DVD containing 160 minutes of rare or previously-unreleased videos, and a live CD recorded in early 2007.

2014 saw the release of "Pink Narcissus", an original soundtrack written for the eponymous film.

In the fall of 2015, Tuxedomoon have released "Blue Velvet Revisited" (containing music they wrote and recorded with Cult With No Name for the soundtrack to Peter Braatz's documentary on David Lynch's movie), as well as the 10-Lp Tuxedomoon Vinyl Box.

An Abridged Tuxedomoon Discography
2015 The Tuxedomoon Vinyl Box  |  CramBoy
2015 Blue Velvet Revisited (with Cult With No Name) | Made To Measure
2014 Pink Narcissus | Cramboy
2007 77o7 tm (the 30th Anniversary box)
2007 Vapour Trails | CramBoy
2006 Bardo Hotel Soundtrack | CramBoy
2004 Cabin In The Sky | CramBoy
2003 No Tears/What Use: Remixes & Originals | International Deejay Gigolo
2002 Live In St. Petersburg | Neo-Acustica
1992 Solve Et Coagula (Greatest Hits) | CramBoy
1991 The Ghost Sonata | LTM (reissued on CramBoy)
1988 Ten Years In One Night [live] | Play Boy
1987 You | CramBoy
1987 Suite En Sous-Sol/Time To Lose/Short Stories | CramBoy
1987 Pinheads On The Move | CramBoy
1986 Ship Of Fools | CramBoy
1985 Holy Wars | CramBoy
1982 Divine | Operation Twilight (reissued on CramBoy)
1981 Desire | Ralph (reissued on CramBoy)
1980 Half Mute | Ralph (reissued on CramBoy)