Ex-VoTo returns with ‘Laodicea’ EP on Poor Alice Music, limited to 100 copies on vinyl and CD
Ex-VoTo
Los Angeles deathrock band Ex-VoTo has released “Laodicea,” an eight-track EP on their own Poor Alice Music label in an ultra-limited pressing of 100 copies each on vinyl and CD. The release combines four new studio recordings with rare and previously compilation-only material, including covers of Bauhaus and Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Side A collects four new studio recordings: “Angel,” “Fear Me,” “I Want to Stop,” and “Say Goodbye.” Side B features “Emmanuelle,” “Resurrection Mary,” a cover of Bauhaus’s “Slice of Life,” and a cover of Siouxsie and the Banshees’s “Monitor.”
“Slice of Life” appeared on Bauhaus’s 1981 album Mask. “Monitor” appeared on Siouxsie and the Banshees’s 1978 debut album The Scream.
The new EP follows the release of the anthology “Don’t Look Back (1982–1990)” on Phantom Chord. The anthology compiled songs from Ex-VoTo’s original 1990 “Don’t Look Back” EP alongside rare recordings from the 1982–1990 period that had not previously seen official release.
The original “Don’t Look Back” 12″ EP was issued in 1990 on Poor Alice Music and New World Records, pressed on translucent blue, purple, and black vinyl, and recorded at Poor Alice Studios in Garden Grove, California.
Ex-VoTo ‘Laodicea’ California tour dates, June 2026
To mark the release, Ex-VoTo plays three California dates beginning June 5, 2026.
- June 5, 2026 – Queen Bee’s, San Diego, CA – Supporting Kommunity FK, with The Exile and Nervous Gender (Re-Loaded).
- June 6, 2026 – Klub Terminal at La Santa, Santa Ana, CA – Supporting Kommunity FK, with Gitane Demone + Paul Roessler and Ravens Moreland. The press release lists this show as Los Angeles; a confirmed ticket listing places the venue at 220 E. 3rd St. (Basement), Santa Ana, California — Orange County, not the city of Los Angeles.
- June 7, 2026 – Club Gallows, Los Angeles, CA – Ex-VoTo headlines, with Pilgrims, In A Darkened Room, Funeral Process, and Bizarron.
About Ex-VoTo
Ex-VoTo was formed in 1982 in Los Angeles by Larry Rainwater, David Rhine, and Linda Patti. Based initially in Orange County – where the prevailing scene was still dominated by punk rock – the band relocated to Los Angeles to build a following. Their early sound combined drum machines, synthesizers, and heavy guitars at a time when live drummers were the norm, drawing audience friction and, from fellow Deathrock bands, recognition.
In 1988, the track “Falling Apart” appeared on Bomp! Records’ “American Gothic: The Krypt Kompilation”, a compilation featuring bands from Los Angeles’s gothic club The Krypt. The placement brought the band to the attention of New World Records and XXX Records. The result was “Don’t Look Back” (1990), Ex-VoTo’s first official vinyl release, a four-track 12″ EP recorded at Poor Alice Studios in Garden Grove and co-released by Poor Alice Music – the band’s own label, which Rainwater has operated independently since then – and New World Records.
Throughout the 1990s, Ex-VoTo contributed tracks to several Cleopatra Records gothic compilations, including “The Goth Box”. “Anno Domini” (1995) collected studio versions of their earliest songs, including “Falling Apart” and “If I Never.” “The Light of Day” (2003) moved toward a darkwave electro direction. “Doloroso” (2006) returned to a guitar-driven deathrock approach, and “Antioch” (2009) was the first album Rainwater set out to write as a unified work rather than a collection of individual songs.
The band relocated from Los Angeles to New Orleans, and subsequently to Houston following Hurricane Katrina. The core of the lineup has remained Rainwater on bass and lead vocals, and Linda Patti on keyboards and backing vocals. The current lineup adds Heather “Spleen” Rainwater on keyboards and backing vocals and Patrick Midnite on guitar and backing vocals.
“Laodicea” is their first new recorded release since “Antioch” (2009), seventeen years on.
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