Darkstar: under brighter skies

Darkstar has moved away from dubstep. On their new album, the London-based trio fills the gap between the Beach Boys and Animal Collective.

The music of Darkstar, which first took shape in London during the dubstep explosion that shook the city at the start of the 21st century, has moved away from the electronic movement, taking its beats to different constellations. Now a trio, the group spent nine months hidden away in the bucolic setting of the English countryside before reappearing to give birth to News from Nowhere, a blend of sunshine pop and synthesised flights of fancy. A radiant album.

Over the last few years Darkstar has moved from being a solo operation to a trio. When did the project really become a group?
James Young: That goes back to the time we were on a BBC radio programme. I was already working away on machines with Aiden (Whalley), but we wanted to improve the vocal harmonies on some pieces. So we asked James (Buttery) to join us to perform a few things. The experiment worked really well. So we decided to carry on as a trio. We had already known each other for a while, so there was no problem.

What goals did you set yourselves for this new album?
Aiden Whalley: Overall, our first album (North) was pretty dark. We realised that once we found ourselves playing the stuff live every night. Before tackling the composition of the new songs, we knew we would move towards different moods, brighter and more optimistic. Both in terms of singing and of rhythm. For the rest, we didn’t plan anything in advance. We just let ourselves be guided by our emotions.

For some strange reason, the titles of your albums relate to geographical locations. After North, you came up with News from Nowhere. Are you big into geography?
Whalley: [laughs] We called our first disc North for aesthetic reasons: we loved the way the word looked on the spine of the disc. As for the title News from Nowhere, that is a tribute to the novel of the same name by the designer William Morris. In that book, which was written in 1890, he looks at the question of utopias in society. He also develops the notion of balance between organic and mechanical matter. You could easily draw analogies between our music and the ideas put forward by William Morris in his book.

On News from Nowhere there is also a song called “Bed Music – North View”. Could that track be seen as a link between your first album and your second?
Whalley: “North View” is the name of the house we lived in for nine months. We found that out when we arrived there. Our life is a succession of coincidences! [Laughs] It would be hard to find a direct link between our two albums on the basis of that track. On the other hand, there is a story lurking behind every song... In the middle of the recording sessions I wrecked my back. I slipped. That accident screwed up my life for a few days. I couldn’t move at all; I was bedridden. Throughout that period of convalescence, James was writing the words of the songs and he used to come and read them to me in my bedroom. That’s why the song is called “Bed Music – North View”. Underlying every tune on the disc there is life, experience, memories, and time spent together.

Darkstar • 4/2, 20.00, €12, Ancienne Belgique, boulevard Anspachlaan 110, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-548.24.24, info@abconcerts.be, www.abconcerts.be