STEVEN BROWN

"Steven continue son chemin avec une musique fidèle à l’esprit de Tuxedomoon."

Born  in  Illinois,  Steven  Brown  moved  to  San  Francisco  in  the mid ‘70s, where he founded Tuxedomoon with Blaine L.Reininger.  The  band  recorded  two  emblematic  albums  for The Residents’ label Ralph Records, then left the toxic atmosphere of Ronald Reagan’s America in the early 1980s,  wandered  around  Europe,  and  settled  in  Brussels  for twelve years. 13 more Tuxedomoon albums followed, as  well  as  numerous  tours  that  took  Tuxedomoon  around the globe. Thanks  to their ability to crystallize a certain dark  and  romantic  zeitgeist,  and  the  originality  of  their music  (which  incorporated  and  transcended  post-punk, rock, electronics, minimal music, classical, jazz, Gypsy music and more, Tuxedomoon quickly became one of the most influential bands of the decade.

Meanwhile, Steven Brown developed a career as a solo artist:  he  released  over  twenty  albums  under  his  name (including  his  collaborations  with  Blaine  Reininger  and with Benjamin Lew), and formed several bands after moving  to  Mexico  in  1993:  Nine  Rain  (with  whom  he recorded  seven  albums),  Ensemble  Kafka,  and  Cinema Domingo Orchestra. Steven has regularly composed music for films, theatre, dance and fashion shows: his and Tuxedomoon’s music appeared in works by Maurice Béjart, Thierry Smits, Wim Wenders, Patrice Chéreau and many more.

Steven created and performed music for the Mexican pavilion at the Word Fair 2000, was commissioned to write soundtracks for Sergei Eisenstein’s unfinished ¡Que Viva Mexico! (1930) and -at the request of the Goethe Institut- for the American premieres of various restored classic films. He earned an Ariel (the Mexican equivalent of the Oscar) for his soundtrack for El Informe Toledo, a film about the widely respected painter-sculptor-activist Francisco Toledo. And last but not least, as part of a collaborative work by Tuxedomoon and Cult With No Name, he took part in the creation of the the soundtrack for Blue Velvet Revisited (2015), a documentary on the making of David Lynch’s classic film, which was selected by Lynch to appear at his own festival in Los Angeles. As for El Hombre Invisible: the album is centered around Steven’s emblematic vocals, melodies & lyrics, set in an intimate environment, with sparse elegant, arrangements for guitar, bass, horns, and of course Mr Brown’s trademark piano & saxophone playing. The atmosphere and lyrics of the songs reflect some of the experiences & impressions gathered in the course of these latest 28 years, which have included earthquakes, a kidnapping, rubbing shoulders with the Zapatistas in Chiapas, being confronted with the still omnipresent traces of the Spanish conquest five  centuries  ago  (and  the  effects  of  “The  Most  Dangerous  Book  In  The  World”,  which  guided  the  conquistadores’  steps), Steven’s years of working as a cultural activist, and his enduring love for the general beauty of the nature and the people in his new hometown of Oaxaca.

In his new live set, Steven Brown performs intimate concerts centered around songs from his brand-new album El Hombre Invisible (out in 2022 on Crammed Discs), as well as music from his previous solo albums (Brown Reads Keats, Brown Plays Tenco, Half Out), and some songs from the repertoire of Tuxedomoon, the legendary cult band he co-founded at the end of the seventies.