Biography

Germany's Project Pitchfork are veterans of the goth scene, combining darkwave and electronic dance with ominous industrial flourishes, spearheading their own distinct genre known as dark-electro. Since the band's inception in 1989, vocalist Peter Spilles, keyboardist/programmer Dirk "Scheubi" Scheuber, and keyboardist/programmer Jürgen Jansen have been at the fore, navigating the project through multiple decades of success via career highlights like 2001's Daimonion and 2010's Quantum Mechanics. They debuted in 1991 with Dhyani and proceeded to release album after album -- almost yearly -- for the next decade. In 1992, they released two LPs: Lam-'Bras and Entities. An extension of the latter, the Souls/Island EP was released in 1993 and included additional parts of their Mirror song series. Their digitally produced Io appeared in 1994 and resulted in Project Pitchfork's first German chart appearance, as well as their first American release. The band had another prolific year in 1995. They released a pair of EPs (Ch'i and Corps d'Amour) and an LP (Alpha Omega); started their own label, Candyland Entertainment; and embarked on a European tour with then-newcomers Rammstein. By 1997, the rise of industrial music in the mainstream resulted in the addition of more guitar riffs and heavier synths on their NIN-fluenced ¡Chakra: Red! At this time, they also added Jurgen Jansen as an official member of the lineup and toured the United States for the first time. The trio released Eon: Eon (Warner Music Group/EastWest) in 1998, backed by the single "Steelrose," which was the band's first music video. A period of relative quiet followed as the band took a few years off before releasing Daimonion in 2001. The effort included the club hit "Timekiller" and was their highest-charting album to date. The following year, they released the NUN Trilogy, a triptych of releases that included the Inferno LP and the View from a Throne and Trialog EPs. A few years of silence followed before the band released the ominous Kaskade LP in 2005 and the accompanying Wonderland/One Million Faces EP in 2007. Project Pitchfork had what turned out to be yet another big year in 2009, as they released Dream, Tiresias! (Prussia Records) -- a sharply produced and more dance-oriented album -- and a remix album before their second tour of the United States. The next year, they released Continuum Ride, and followed the year after with the more accessible Quantum Mechanics, which became another German chart-climber. In 2011, the band remastered 31 songs and compiled them into a massive two-disc collection, First Anthology. The two-disc LP Black was released in 2013, furthering the band's staple sound. It was followed up by the ambitious concept album Blood in 2014. A second compilation collection, Second Anthology, was released in 2016, celebrating nearly three decades of Project Pitchfork's dark electronic dance. Commemorating their 25th anniversary, the all-new studio LP Look Up, I'm Down There arrived in 2016, with Akkretion, the start of a new trilogy, arriving in 2018. ~ Neil Z. Yeung, Rovi