BIOGRAPHY
2012 also saw CWNN contribute the opening track to a remix album from the German band S.Y.P.H., which features ex-Captain Beefheart guitarist Gary Lucas and Rambo Amadeus, amongst others. In early 2013, Kelli Ali released her fifth solo album Band of Angels, which saw the band co-write and perform on two songs including the track "Eternity". The band's sixth album, 'Another Landing', was released in April 2014 on the band's own CWNN Music label. The album again saw the band collaborate with Tuxedomoon members Blaine L. Reininger, Bruce Geduldig and Luc van Lieshout, Kelli Ali and John Ellis, as well as Japanese electronica artist Coppe', and features the track "Swept Away", which was subsequently remixed by Rusty Egan. 2014 also saw the band contribute a cover 'Typist of Candy' by Nits (band), a significant influence on CWNN, for the album 'ISNT NITS'.
​
In early 2015, CWNN were commissioned by German filmmaker Peter Braatz to produce the soundtrack for 'Blue Velvet Revisited', a feature-length documentary film based around previously unreleased footage that Braatz had shot on the set of the David Lynch's classic film Blue Velvet, at the invitation of Lynch.[23] The band invited Tuxedomoon to collaborate on the project, with John Foxx also contributing music. The resulting soundtrack was released in October 2015 and received significant international press and extremely positive reviews. The film premiered in October 2016 at the London Film Festival, with David Lynch selecting the film to be screened at his own Festival of Disruption in Los Angeles on the same weekend as the premiere. Since then, the film has been screened at a large number of festivals and cinemas worldwide. In May 2019, The Criterion Collection re-released Blue Velvet on DVD and Blu-Ray with Blue Velvet Revisited included as a main extra at Lynch's request.
​
2016 saw the band contribute to a cover of Tuxedomoon's 'Loneliness' to a Crammed Discs reissue of the band's classic 'Half-Mute' album, that also featured Foetus, Aksak Maboul, and Simon Fisher Turner.[16] Working once more with Blaine L. Reininger, Luc Van Lieshout and Kelli Ali, they also covered S'Express's 'COMA' for their 'Enjoy This Trip' remix album, which also included tracks from Chris & Cosey, Tom Furse from The Horrors, Primal Scream, Billie Ray Martin and Reuben Wu from Ladytron.
​
'Heir of the Dog', the band's 8th album, was released in September 2017, featuring the usual guest appearances from Tuxedomoon and Kelli Ali. The album includes the song 'No News', which closes the film 'Blue Velvet Revisited' but was not included on the soundtrack. Roger Spy directed a memorable 'cut up' video for the song 'When I Was a Girl'. The album picked up very favourable reviews. A cover of The Residents's 'Boo Who?' appeared on the 2018 collaborative fan project 'I Am A Resident' through Cherry Red Records, and the band also contributed a cover of 'I Hate Heaven' to a tribute to the late Hardy Fox, which also featured The Residents, Renaldo and the Loaf, and Fred Frith.
The band's 9th album 'Mediaburn' was released in October 2019 and was met with very positive reviews. More political than earlier albums, it includes a number of sardonic put-downs of contemporary society. The album is also notable for the track '(No Such Thing As) Silence' which was commissioned by the Olympus Corporation and composed using ambient sounds solely captured via an Olympus LS-P4 mobile audio recorder.
​
In 2021, CWNN reached double figures with their 10th album 'Nights in North Sentinel'. Soaked in opulent late-night atmospheres, it sees CWNN at their most electronic, touching on synth wave, dark wave and dance in their inimitable expressive and melancholic style. The band's close association with Kelli Ali continued, co-writing. and performing two tracks for her jazz noir epic 'Ghostdriver'.
​
CWNN soon returned in 2023 with ‘X into I’, a brighter offering and their first album not to feature any guest artists since their debut. It saw Electronic Sound finally declare CWNN to be ’synthpop’s best-kept secret’.
​
​
​
Post-punk electronic balladeers’ Cult With No Name, comprise the East London duo of Erik Stein and Jon Boux. Having been the first international signing to LA label Trakwerx in 2007 (founded by Jackson Del Rey of Californian punk legends Savage Republic), CWNN’s first two studio albums – ‘Paper Wraps Rock’ and ‘Careful What You Wish For’ – have been met with considerable critical acclaim. Leading UK music journalist Mick Mercer proclaimed the band his discovery of 2007 (with both albums sitting in his subsequent annual top ten lists), Blaine L. Reininger of genre-transcending legends Tuxedomoon collaborated on their second album (on the stunning ‘You Know Me Better Than I Know Myself’), the likes of Don Letts spun tracks on BBC6 and BBC Radio 1 Wales, and Brett Anderson (Suede) asked CWNN to open for him at the launch of his album ‘Slow Attack’.
Having provided the music for two blacker than black comedies at the Edinburgh Festival (‘Moz and the Meal’ and ‘Bored Stiff’), it’s fitting that Cult With No Name then turned their attention to cinema for their first DVD release, ‘Lightwerx: The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari’. Cult With No Name’s compulsive and compelling 2009 soundtrack extends their ability to instantly create evocative moods over 51 breathtaking minutes, on a journey that takes in mystical ambience, nerve-shredding distortion, popular and unpopular song, electronica, and vast, futurist soundscapes.
In the fall of 2010, CWNN returned with their 4th studio album, ‘Adrenalin’. From the psychedelic guitar washes of ‘7’, to the thundering faux-discaux of ‘The All Dead Burlesque Show’, to the electronic pop of underground hit ‘Breathing‘, ‘Adrenalin’ is a breathtakingly original song cycle. Building on their considerable achievements to date, and deftly hinting at everyone from Scott Walker to Sparks to Tuxedomoon (sometimes across a single song), CWNN presented an album that’s as much of interest for its lyrical wordplay as its musical dexterity.
​
'Above as Below', Cult With No Name's fifth album, was released in January 2012. For the first time, it saw the band collaborate with a number of outside artists. Kelli Ali (ex-Sneaker Pimps) contributed extensively, including co-writing the song "Shake Hands with the Devil". Other contributors included Bruce Geduldig and Luc van Lieshout of Tuxedomoon, ex-Stranglers and Peter Gabriel guitarist John Ellis and Meg Maryatt of 17 Pygmies. The cover art and packaging for the album was designed by David Bowie and Damien Hirst collaborator Jonathan Barnbrook and manufactured using a letterpress. Mark Moore of S'Express described the album as possessing "such warmth, such style, such bliss".