Dessau

A carpenter by trade, John Elliott of Dessau brought exactly the same careful workmanship to his music as he did to his woodworking. As the bookshelves and staircases he designed for the homes in Nashville’s rich Belle Meade suburb had been elegant and gorgeous, the music he produced because the brains behind Dessau was brash, unsightly, and utilitarian. Mining an identical creative vein as Nitzer Ebb and early Ministry, Dessau shipped powerful, rhythmic commercial dance paths that translated easier to the dancefloor than to the house stereo. Elliott started his musical profession because the drummer for punk rock and roll outfit Cloverbottom. Called after a regional state-run house for handicapped kids, the music group released Nashville’s initial indie rock and roll record, the Anarchy within the Music Town EP in 1980. Elliott afterwards experimented with digital percussion as an associate from the Actuals (afterwards referred to as Factual). Sick and tired of the stagnant Nashville rock and roll scene, Elliott shifted to Chicago in 1982, where he produced essential friendships with manufacturer Martin Hannett (Pleasure Division, New Purchase) and Ministry member Paul Barker. Time for Nashville in 1985, Elliott offered as best guy at Hannett’s wedding ceremony, luring the manufacturer into the studio room to focus on Dessau’s initial EP, Red Dialects. Dealing with veteran Nashville rockers Skot Nelson (guitars) and Mike Orr (bass), Dessau would to push out a group of dance-oriented EPs with the last mentioned half of the ’80s, including Content Disposition in 1986. The 1988 Mad Hog EP highlighted a remix from the minimal dance strike “Unshakeable” by Ministry’s Al Jourgensen. Both Jourgensen and Paul Barker would donate to a 1988 cover of Pleasure Division’s “Isolation” which would become Dessau’s dancefloor discovery. A full-length record, Exercise in Stress, would stick to in 1989. Made by Giles Reaves and including “Isolation,” the Compact disc edition included “Beijing,” Dessau’s third (and last) strike dance monitor. With commercial dance becoming outdated hat when confronted with the Seattle trend, Elliott disbanded Dessau. Through the ’90s, Elliott changed toward modern Christian music, dealing with performers like Newsboys and Albertina Walker. Elliott became a member of former-Chagall Guevara people Dave Perkins and Lynn Nichols within the music group Passafist, the group’s 1995 self-titled record finding a Dove Prize nomination for Greatest Christian ROCK Record. Re-forming Dessau with guitarist Norm Rau, Elliott released the heavier, much less dance-oriented Information Sketchy in 1995, collaborating with users of Ministry, Pigface, and Filtration system. Mausoleum Information would later on buy the privileges to Dessau’s back again catalog; old close friends Jourgensen and Barker revisiting and remixing Dessau tunes like “Beijing,” “Skeletons NATURALLY,” and “Isolation” for the label’s 1995 Compact disc reissue.