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Despite roots dating back as far as 1978,
Crime & the City Solution did not truly emerge until 1984, coming to life in the wake of the dissolution of the seminal
Birthday Party. The group was led by evocative singer/songwriter
Simon Bonney, a Melbourne, Australia native who led a series of bands under the verbose
Crime name throughout the late '70s and early '80s; a longtime friend of
the Birthday Party, he contacted former members
Mick Harvey and Rowland S. Howard after the group's breakup, and following the addition of
Howard's brother, bassist Harry Howard, the most successful and famed lineup of
Crime & the City Solution was born.
In 1985, the quartet debuted with The Dangling Man, a self-produced EP quickly establishing the band's moody, atmospheric, blues-based aesthetic. Former
Swell Maps drummer
Epic Soundtracks joined
Crime after the EP's release, freeing
Harvey to alternate among a variety of instruments for the haunting follow-up, Just South of Heaven. Their full-length bow,
Room of Lights, appeared in 1986 and featured the remarkable "Six Bells Chime," which so impressed the acclaimed filmmaker
Wim Wenders that he invited the band to perform the song live in his 1988 masterpiece Wings of Desire.
By the time the film appeared, however, the incarnation of
Crime & the City Solution presented onscreen was no more; after
Room of Lights, the
Howard brothers and
Soundtracks exited to form
These Immortal Souls, leaving
Bonney,
Harvey, and violinist
Bronwyn Adams (also
Bonney's wife and songwriting partner) to relocate to Berlin, where they recruited a number of local musicians, including
Einstürzende Neubauten guitarist
Alexander Hacke, to cut 1988's ornate, intoxicating Shine. Even more baroque was the follow-up, 1989's
The Bride Ship.
In 1990,
Crime returned to the studio one final time to record
Paradise Discotheque, a record built around
Bonney's ambitious four-part suite "The Last Dictator," a song cycle inspired by the downfall of Romanian warlord Nicolae Ceaucescu. After contributing "The Adversary" to the soundtrack of
Wenders' Until the End of the World,
Crime & the City Solution disbanded; while
Harvey continued to record and perform with former
Birthday Party mate
Nick Cave in
the Bad Seeds,
Bonney began work on his 1992 solo debut Forever and followed it with
Everyman in 1995.
Bonney,
Adams, and
Hacke re-formed the band in 2011 for the purpose of recording and touring. They enlisted
David Eugene Edwards (
16 Horsepower,
Woven Hand),
Jim White (
Dirty Three),
Troy Gregory (
Dirtbombs,
Swans,
Spiritualized), and
Matt Smith (
Outrageous Cherry,
Andre Williams) to record and tour. In anticipation of a forthcoming album, Mute Records released the compilation A History of Crime: Berlin 1987-1991: An Introduction to Crime & the City Solution in the fall of 2012. In March of 2013, American Twilight was released. ~ Jason Ankeny