As the head engineer at Dublin’s Temple Lane Studios for over a decade, widely respected Irish producer James Darkin has mixed or helmed recording sessions with everyone from Kanye West, Will.i.am and Rihanna to Hozier, R.S.A.G. and Jerry Fish. Despite working with these luminaries, there isn’t a hint of any of their influences on his exhilarating debut album. Rather, Darkin takes his cues from the likes of Gary Numan, Aphex Twin, Chemical Brothers, Massive Attack and Brian Eno (in a bad mood).
Featuring 10 well-crafted slices of heavy, futuristic and sometimes sinister electronica, Go No Matter What isn’t comfortable listening. Darkin has enlisted various artists to contribute – including Plutonic Dust vocalist Veronica Moran, Propeller Palms guitarist Paul Butler, Batuhan Mutlugil of Turkish rock act Duman, and classical flautist Róisín Ní Bhriain. While Butler and Mutlugil add to the wall of distorted noise, the others provide occasional moments of lightness in what is an essentially dark affair.
As the album title and some of the tracks (‘Chase’, ‘Destroyed’ etc.) suggest, it’s mostly music to come up on rather than comedown to. Blade Runner 2049 is already in the can, but you’d imagine that some of the more industrial sounding tracks here would perfectly suit its mood. But no matter. If there’s any justice in the world, and if Darkin can get this album out there, he’s definitely talented enough to pick up any amount of soundtrack work on horror or sci-fi movies and video games.
File under ‘Uneasy Listening’…