Darkside is the work of electro-pop minimalist composer
Nicolas Jaar and Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist
Dave Harrington, which steeps
Jaar's spacious solo work with brittle bursts of electronic distortion, watery drums, and slick neon guitar patterns. A self-titled EP in 2011 yielded three lengthy songs of the duo's wild combination of airy atmospheres and menacing fuzz, but debut full-length
Psychic moves into more compositional territory, though it remains drifty and narcotic in ways similar to its predecessor. The album kicks off with 11-minute standout track "Golden Arrow," moving like a suite through an intro of dark, fuzzy ambience and wobbling stereo effects into a sleazy, submerged house beat and fragmented synth and string samples. Caught between the creeping underground thump of minimal avant-techno experimentalists like
Pole or
Gas and the sharp, clean lines of nocturnal pop acts like
the Chromatics or
James Blake, the song is an unlikely success in its deep contrasts. Space is a primary concern throughout
Psychic, with plenty of ambient interludes and raw tape experiments serving as cushioning between pop moments like the oddly bluesy dirge of "Paper Trails" and the dubby shadows of album-closer "Metatron." Ultimately, it's the contrasts and the way they fit so well together that makes
Psychic a success. The meeting of hurried noise, slick dubstep-styled R&B undertones, wonky blues, and grainy electronics seems destined for ugly clashing, but somehow the organization of sounds, stereo field space, and the amount of distance
Jaar and
Harrington put between the disparate elements themselves makes so much compositional sense that the album floats by like a strange, faraway dream. [
Psychic was also released on LP.] ~ Fred Thomas