Darkside

Darkside’s debut (studio) album Psychic was very probably my favourite record released last year. I loved it. I love it. The experimental electronic-rock duo consists of Nicolas Jaar, one of the greatest modern producers and electronic artists, and guitarist Dave Harrington, who has played with Nico (as he is affectionately known) for years.
I’ve seen Jaar’s live show a couple of times; in fact, the last time was at the Barbican in London, where he bought out Harrington for a Darkside segment. But the first time I saw Darkside proper was at Fabric for their album launch party. The claustrophobic and dark club was an oddly perfect setting for this show, especially with the (over)use of a smoke machine. Their unique fusion of psychedelic rock and ambient minimal techno has proved sort of divisive to fans of Jaar, at least their recorded output, but live they are a totally different machine.
They mainly side-step conventional song structures to create a soundscape of growing intensity – each ‘piece of music’ starts with sporadic sound effects and echo-laden guitar noises, before Jaar slowly add layers of synth and drum patterns. Eventually, a guitar hook by Harrington or a brief snippet of live vocals from Jaar will resonate as the audience recognises a song, but then it disappears amongst a wave of layered noises more akin to a post-rock band. Darkside’s strengths as a live project lay in building tension and then stretching out ideas far beyond what is usually considered ‘music’. It’s challenging but heady stuff. When they do play their own music, such as the funky take on ‘Paper Trails’ or the extended version of ‘Heart’, they are electric, but the best moments come when they rock out and jam, such as during a mutated cover of Black Sabbath’s ‘Planet Caravan’. That Fabric show was absolutely incredible…I can’t wait to see them at Dimensions Festival in Croatia this summer.

Although singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Nicolas Jaar only really broke out in 2011, the 23-year-old had been making waves on the underground electronic music scene for a while with a series of inventive deep house crossover productions. He hit the big time when he released the amazing Space Is Only Noise album in 2011, which was a mesmerising collection of progressive electronic music often complimented with his peculiar but lovely vocals.
His live shows tend to be collaborative affairs. At Worldwide Festival 2012 in France he was joined by guitarist Dave Harrington, who is one half of Darkside alongside Jaar, and a saxophonist, while Jaar worked his magic on various electronic equipment and keyboards. They were absolutely mind-blowing, fleshing out Jarr’s downtempo songs like ‘Space Is Only Noise If You Can See’ into psychedelic, post-electronica jams.
I also got to see him when he performed at the Barbican in London in 2013, backed by incredible, heady visuals from The Joshua Light Show. Here he performed the first half of his show solo, utilising various instruments (including a grand piano) alongside his equipment to create a journey of ambient audio landscapes, somewhere between post-rock and melodic techno. Harrington then joined him to run through some of their Darkside material, which brought a psychedelic rock vibe, with lots of guitar distortion. ‘Too Many Kids Finding Rain In The Dust’ was the highlight, as it captured everything that Nicolas Jaar is about in a live environment: his brooding electronica, post-rock ambitions and his haunting baritone-heavy vocals.