Somewhere deep in the pennines, the progressive trio that is Darkstar are mulling over the final one percent of their second album in an old Victorian gentleman’s residence. Despite being a tad more than a stone throw away from civilization (and at least ten minutes away from the nearest Co-Op), isolation has its plus points. “It’s like going to the monastery to worship music and we have to get into a state of meditation,” suggests founding member James Young. We got away from London and it’s just not as oppressive. You’ve got lots of headspace around here and I think that made a big difference.”
2010’s ‘North’ was a melancholic creeper that ambushed many an end-of-year list that time around and since then there have been a few changes. Not least a move from Hyperdub to fellow electronic buffs, Warp. “I don’t think it was about changing our style but it just happened anyway because we wanted to push on a bit,” says co-founder Aiden Whalley. “It wasn’t anything to do with the move, we just wanted to switch it up. The sound developed and that was probably down to taste and what we wanted as a band.”
The group have employed the services of producer, Richard Formby – who’s also worked with Wild Beasts, Spectrals and Egyptian Hip Hop – and from their description, totally shook up their production tactics. “It’s not conventional in the approach and it’s pretty leftfield,” James reasons. “Richard brought a texture and sound that you could say was a little more vintage than what we would have achieved ourselves. But, it has a classic warmth to it which I reckon would be a more accurate way to describe it.”
An extensive live show stint is next up and it’s clear that the objective is to amplify the experience. “You can hear in the tracks and the way we’ve approached the album we want everything to be bigger and better,” Aiden asserts. If the last LP is anything to go by, that can’t be a bad thing.
Words by Jamie Carson
Photo by Marc Sethi
Album title: tba
Release date: Early 2013
Recorded: Just outside Huddersfield
Songs include: ‘Wake Me Up’, ‘Losing Touch’, ‘Timeaway’
Fact: False news of Darkstar working with The Field spread quickly via twitter following a joke tweet. Needless to say, the retweets were plenty.
