Death from Above 1979 made an immediate splash upon their debut in 2004 with You're a Woman, I'm a Machine. Bassist/synth player Jesse F. Keeler and drummer/vocalist Sebastien Grainger both hailed from Toronto, where they met and formed Death from Above in 2001. (The "1979" tag was added later, following a spat with the U.S.-based music collective DFA.) Without a guitarist -- or any other bandmember for that matter -- Keeler and Grainger were free to push their rhythmic sound as far as it would go, and they eventually arrived at a severely overdriven rush of punk, hip-hop, and dance music influences held together with high volume. After issuing a few initial singles, Death from Above 1979 issued their debut album in 2004 and never looked back, touring alongside such high-profile bands as Nine Inch Nails and Queens of the Stone Age and generally making a sweaty racket wherever they went. Romance Bloody Romance, a collection of You're a Woman remixes, appeared in October 2005 before Keeler and Grainger officially announced their disbandment the following August, as the two had apparently grown apart over the recent years. Keeler went on to work with producer Al-P in MSTRKRFT, while Grainger launched a solo career under the moniker Sebastien Grainger & the Mountains.
Johnny Loftus
AllMusic.com
