Anthony Charles Wakeford started his music career as bassist in '77 British punk band
Crisis (2). In 1980 Crisis disbanned and Wakeford formed
Death In June together with guitar player
Douglas Pearce. In 1985 he left the band to form his own personal project, called
Above The Ruins. The music continued in the vein of early Death In June and
Joy Division, with a nervous and dramatic post-punk sound. The new band disbanned quite soon, and Tony Wakeford stayed away from the music scene for some years, pursuing his own political and magical interests. He came back in 1987 with Sol Invictus, involving
Ian Read and
Karl Blake of
Lemon Kittens and
Shock Headed Peters. The music of Sol Invictus on the first recordings was a strange mixture of acoustic and electronic sounds, creating some epic and dramatic songs which stand against the decadence of the West and of modern society. This original and unique sound characterizes the first three albums, "Against The Modern World" (1988), "In The Jaws Of The Serpent" (1989) and "Lex Talionis" (1990). In 1991 Ian Read left the band to form
Fire And Ice (3), and Wakeford took the sound of Sol Invictus progressively more towards a dark folk approach, hiring new talented musicians, such as genius violinist
Matt Howden and talented singer and instrumentist
Sally Doherty. He's also active with the project
L'Orchestre Noir,
HaWthorn, and a series of collaborations with different artists. Sol Invictus' own self-produced label was
S.V.L. Records, then called
Cerne and finally
Tursa.