A controversial band with a chequered history, Death in June was associated with World Serpent Distribution for many years but has since parted ways with almost everyone associated with WSD. Currently they release records through their own label, Tursa.
The original members of DIJ -- the pretentious acronym DI6 is preferred by some fans -- were Douglas Pearce (better known as Douglas P.), Tony Wakeford, and Patrick Leagas. Pearce and Wakeford were previously members of a Trotskyist punk band called Crisis, which had split up in 1980. Later in his life, Pearce would renounce the leftist movements with which he was associated in his youth, though what he replaced those ideals with (if anything) is a matter of a great deal of anxious speculation among his friends and fans.
In 1985, Wakeford would leave DIJ to form a short-lived band called Above the Ruins and, by 1987, a much more stable project called Sol Invictus. Wakeford and Pearce still collaborate frequently, and Sol Invictus is currently signed to Tursa. Leagas, who would eventually adopt the nom de plume Patrick O'Kill, also left in 1985. His subsequent project was called Sixth Comm, which eventually transformed into Mother Destruction.
Since the mid-eighties, then, Death In June has been predominantly the work of Douglas P. in collaboration with a constantly-shifting group made up of whatever like-minded artists happened to be nearby. The band's early sound was strongly influenced by the moody, guitar-oriented rock of the day ("it's Joy Division with trumpets," sneers Stewart Home, though I'm not so sure that's such a bad thing). Over time, the music got more and more complex and ambiguous, bringing in industrial samples and tape loops, on the one hand, and acoustic guitar on the other. During the World Serpent years, David Tibet of Current 93 provided occasional backing vocals.
Whence all the controversy, then?
In a word, it's about Nazism. Douglas P. is fascinated by the Second World War, and the aesthetic is all over his records: even the band name itself is a veiled reference to the Night of the Long Knives (June 30, 1934), when Adolf Hitler purged Ernst Roehm from the Nazi party. The band would play their live shows masked and wearing Nazi uniforms; a death's head engraving similar to (though not, Pearce hastens to assert, identical with) SS insignia appears on most of their record covers; songs and albums have provocative names like Triumph of the Will and Rose Clouds of Holocaust; and the lyrics return frequently and obsessively to issues of totalitarianism and fascism. For this reason, the band has occasionally been forced to cancel concerts both in the United States and in Europe due to death threats and highly-publicized outrage from human rights groups.
Pearce himself has consistently refused to explain his use of these symbols and images, claiming that it is up to the listener to decide what they mean. Some DI6 fans find this ambiguity refreshing, since they are sick of being inundated with advertising and propaganda that tells them exactly what to think. Others, however, find Pearce's attitude disingenuous, manipulative, and morally questionable; people in this camp accuse Pearce of using the Nazi controversy to sell more records rather than as a way of making any kind of serious or meaningful political statement. Still others don't care much one way or the other, figuring that if the music is worth listening to, it doesn't matter whether Douglas P. is a crypto-fascist or not.
All of these opinions have been rehearsed ad nauseam on every single mailing list and discussion board that has ever been dedicated to Death In June; veterans of these boards will generally lose their tempers the instant anyone asks the question "So, d'you think Douglas P.'s a Nazi?"
A Select Discography
I've included only full-length, single-artist releases. For more information on the numerous EP's and collaborative works that Death in June has released, see the Brainwashed discography cited at the bottom of this entry.
In case it matters, my favourites are "But, What Ends..." and "Rose Clouds," from the rich acoustic period in the mid-90's. I also have a soft spot for the much more aggressive/industrial "Take Care and Control."
Further Reading:
The only biography of DIJ that I'm aware of is the insufferably
fanboyish
Misery And Purity: A History and Personal Interpretation of Death In June by
Robert Forbes. Personally I think it's tedious and unreadable, but it contains lots of interesting photographs from the band's early years.
A good introduction to Death In June's music is the compilation/retrospective "DISCriminate," released on the
Tesco label and still available here and there.
Brainwashed, as always, is an excellent source of discographies; unfortunately, the one for Death in June stops at 2001. It can be found at
http://brainwashed.com/dij/discog/disc.html.
Tursa's web site is http://www.tursa.com.
For a sharp critique of Douglas P.'s part in the Nazism controversy, see
http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/dij.htm