Darkstar

Darkstar is James Young and Aiden Whalley, a duo who have released a series of iconoclastic ep’s over the past two years. Their debut single for the Hyperdub label was voted Pitchfork’s Dubstep single of the year in 2008, although it’s far from a typical genre track and it featured as one of their top 500 singles of the 2000’s. Darkstar contrast to their peers as unusually they’re writers and composers of strong lyrical songs that work on dance floor, or a Kode9 describes the music ‘Machine Soul for People with Mercury for Blood’. Darkstar are set to become Hyperdub’s first pop group.

The duo’s tastes come from very different musical backgrounds. When they met at University, James was a fledging dj playing House and Techno records; while Aiden studied classical music and had a love for new wave. Aiden and James created Darkstar, as a way to work their influences into their own original productions using dubstep’s modes and fx’s , but since then their sound has developed a life of its own outside easy definition.

They started releasing records on their own 2010 Records, named after the sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s2001 A Space Odyssey. Their two records for that label released drew the attention of Kode 9 who released Need You/ Squeeze my Lime on Hyperdub. The single was championed by Radiohead and Darkstar returned the compliment by recording a cover of their song ‘Videotape’ for Radio One DJ Mary Anne Hobbs ‘Wild Angels’ Compilation. Darkstar are currently finishing up their debut album, for Hyperdub and the single ‘Aidy’s Girl Is A Computer’ was released with wide ranging support from The Guardian newspaper and Radio 1 in October 2009. The debut album is due out early next year and the duo are working on a compelling and original live show.