Dark: dark_2
DARK’s newest contemplative album is an innovative exposition of the “perfect dark.”
As a further exploration of DARK’s just released first album, dark_2 attempts to dig deeper into ambient and meditative soundscapes meant to transport listeners into the depths of their own mind. Utilizing pulsing beats and trance-like rhythms, each track on the album feels both incredibly intentional and graceful as each song bleeds into the next with ease. The album “continues the fervorous and ceaseless pursuit of the perfect dark.” In this way, dark_2 attempts to “go deeper” and explore the “unbounded depths of dark.” These explorations were not in vain as the 9-track record seamlessly transgressed through “circuitous routes and hidden pathways” by using artful sonic layering and meticulously precise ambient guitar. The aura of the album encompasses a “dark ambient, adventurous and deep-listening body of work.” This all-encompassing record serves to encourage listeners to explore different pathways without the need for words. “With layers upon layers of abstract guitar textures that breathe into your ears, dark_2 aims to reveal a door in your mind that helps you escape this reality and put you in a deeper world.”
“neural_,” the opener for the album sets the tone with “a beautiful concoction of harmonics that explores the network of the human mind” by employing “advanced harmonics that encompass the entire fretboard.” Finding ways to cleverly and subtly convey tone and atmosphere with a “non-traditional, non-specific approach,” some tracks delve into thematics which are meant to evoke certain emotions or lead listeners to abstract ruminations. For example, “reflections_” adopts a mysterious essence as it “envisions one being lost and alone within hidden hallways, rooms and chambers.” There is “no desire to escape,” but rather a desire to “get lost deeper into its infinite space.” In this way, there’s no pressure in the wanderings of the mind, DARK is just allowing a space for listeners to cultivate meaning in the dark abstraction. Another track, “proof_,” sonically “represents the intellectual fortitude and seeking of the human mind.” With a dreamy lightness that invokes mental stimulation, “proof_” finds a way to indefinably balance the dark with the light, and seeks to explore the formidable struggle of the two within all of us. “biopolis aeternalis_” ends the album with textural brilliance, opening up a whole new dimension for contemplation as it was “inspired by the evolution of architecture and biology.” As a whole, the album is a vivid and complex sojourn of sounds and experiences.
DARK is an ambient-experimental composer and guitar player who has carved their own territory and innovation in ambient music. Drawing inspiration from numerous strains of human inquiry— architecture, geometry, nature, philosophy, and meditation— DARK’s approach to music reflects the restless and ceaselessly pursuing nature of consciousness. DARK can be described as the coming together of two opposing worlds—the world of real, organic, and tactile signals of the guitar, and the world of abstract, synthetic, supple ambient soundscapes. The merging of these two worlds presents music that can best be described through a cloud of sensations and aesthetics:
ambient. abstract. drone. experimental. existential. minimal. noise. textures. industrial. surreal. spaces. atmospheres. pulses. organic. fluid. electronic. still. anxiety. introspective. progressive.
The music of DARK aims to integrate with one's conscious experience. It serves as a lens through which to look at the world—to change one’s relationship with the internal and external.
DARK’s study of the guitar is distinctly fine-tuned and surgical. Every single detail bears the responsibility of the fragility and subtleness of each composition. With sweeping, whirling guitar textures that cascade over blankets of plush, modulating soundscapes, DARK transcends all concepts and conventions, leaving nothing but a pure sphere of sound.
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