Darkstar
The founding members of Darkstar, Aiden Whalley and James Young, first coalesced in London in 2007. In the underground, electronic thrum of London’s nascent grime and dubstep sphere, their unique sonic futurism with an avant-garde pop sensibility immediately set them apart from the glut of producers emerging at the time.
17. March 2015
The first significant success came in 2009 with the single “Aidy's Girl Is A Computer”. The Guardian and Pitchfork ranked it among the best singles of 2009. A year later, the singer James Buttery joined the band and they released their debut album “North”, which gained widespread recognition and excellent reviews from critics. Following this success, Darkstar moved from London’s rush to the countryside of west Yorkshire. Here they started working on other songs already as a trio, and they collaborated with the producer Richard Formby in his old-school dusty studio full of tape recorders and analogue synthesizers. The result was an album aptly named “News From Nowhere”, which, as critics say, is the evidence that emotions have their place in electronic music, too. Similarly, live concerts of Darkstar are a strong experience. While Aiden and James bend over synthesizers, laptops and lots of effects boxes, James Buttery sings to two microphones connected with a pedalboard with effects and looper, which brings choral harmony into the dark atmosphere. Actually, this is not a value of Darkstar that could be mediated with written word, it is necessary to come and take it in person in Trenčín.