Duchess 33

Mark Nicholas is a Detroit-based electronic musician, well known in the underground Synthpop community as the man behind the band Cosmicity. Cosmicity was active from 1994-2003, selling tens of thousands of albums during that time. Now recording under his given name, Mark has shed the confines of pristine, 80's-influenced Synthpop for a modern hybrid electronic sound - a sound he calls Dirty Electronic. There's nothing pristine or elegant about the sound of the synthesizers and drum machines you'll hear on Mark's debut album quot;Duchess 33quot; (released February 6th, 2007). In fact, everything's just a little bit filthy, from the production straight through to the lyrics. Distortion-washed... clipped... crushed... and divine. One track from the album, quot;Backlashquot;, garnered some early attention after being selected as one of only 3 finalists in the 2006 John Lennon Songwriting Contest in the Electronic category. Subsequently posted on their website - well ahead of it's scheduled debut on quot;Duchess 33quot; - the song has since received a huge listener response. Other early favorites include quot;Greenquot;, quot;Perversequot;, and quot;Little Goth Girlquot;, the latter of which chronicles the story of a quot;straight-edgequot; entering a Goth club for the first time. quot;Duchess 33quot; has drawn early comparisons to Prodigy and Depeche Mode, but, like most satisfying new music, it's generally difficult to categorize. A recent fan e-mail to Mark probably says it best: quot;Dude, seriously... The new songs kick ass! ...it has elements if Goldfrapp, Nine Inch Nails, and even DM, yet it sounds very unique.quot;