Crime and The City Solution – Paradise Discotheque

A band out of time, Crime and the City Solution were perennial outsiders who could not rest in their native Australia, and instead found inspiration in the colder climes of London and Berlin. Their mesmeric, expressive music evolved through many incarnations and a great deal of adversity. The first incarnation of the band appeared in 1977/78, in the midst of Australia’s nascent punk scene and re-grouped in London in 1984. The later line-up of singer Simon Bonney, Einstürzende Neubauten’s guitarist Alexander Hacke, DAF’s synth player Chrislo Haas, jazz bassist Thomas Stern, violinist Bronwyn Adams and Bad Seed’s Mick Harvey on drums recorded 3 studio albums in quick succession.

Crime’s freedom of expression and adventurousness reached an apex on 1990’s Paradise Discotheque and its epic Last Dictator saga, which spanned four songs laid out like chapters at the album’s conclusion. The album and the variety of styles used on it, from the metallic sounds of ‘I Have The Gun’ to the magic realism of ‘The Last Dictator’ quartet, were influenced by Bonney and Adams’ move to Vienna