An important early influence on Jane’s Addiction, Kommunity FK has been haunting L.A.’s Goth underworld for 30 years. Patrik Mata is the dark wizard behind the Kommunity curtain, guiding his musical minions through the shadow-strewn labyrinth of post-punk, avant-garde, synth-pop and proto-industrial noises that characterize Kommunity albums like 1985’s Close One Sad Eye, a landmark that fetches more than $1,000 on eBay for an original copy. “Something Inside Me Has Died,” from that album, was a 120 Minutes favorite and one of the definitive American Goth anthems of the ’80s, and Kommunity’s “To Blame” was included on Rhino’s 3-CD A Life Less Lived: The Gothic Box cauldron in 2006. Mata and friends will be mixing those old incantations with material from Kommunity’s brand-new LP La Santisima Muerte.
This article appears in Aug 27 – Sep 2, 2009.
