Darkside is a meeting of minds between guitarist Dave Harrington and electronic producer Nicolas Jaar, recently expanded to include percussionist Tlacael Esparza. Since forming the band at Brown University in 2011, Harrington and Jaar have had plenty of time to explore a heady mixture of dance, ambient and prog-rock. The result is a live show that feels at turns carefully planned yet wildly unpredictable. It has been 18 months since their last London gig at KOKO, and the Victorian setting of Alexandra Palace Theatre provides an equally compelling backdrop.
Opening with an unreleased track, Jaar imbues his vocal performance with tremulous drama. His voice is the most exposed it will be for the entire set, jumping from quiet rumination to forceful staccato. Sparsely arranged, the song sets a mood of restless expectation. Pulsing lights cast the musicians as silhouettes, while gushes of smoke engulf both band and crowd in glimmering fog.
Jaar hunches over his library of electronics, introducing layers of beating synths. The band transitions from soulful contemplation to a 15-minute jam based on 2021’s ‘The Limit’. Harrington likewise switches between meandering guitar lines to howling bursts of noise. With few breaks in the performance, the overall feeling is one of controlled chaos, finely tuned frenzy. Where else can you see a psychedelic rock tune morph into a 160 BPM techno beat?
This genre-melting quality might stem from Jaar’s instinct for collaboration. Whether teaming up with Ali Sethi or scoring Pablo Larraín’s ‘Ema’, his appetite for exploration is well-documented. This isn’t to ignore the skill of his bandmates. Harrington’s roots in jazz evidently give him an edge—picking out a melody among keening synthesisers and glitching textures is no small feat. Esparza meanwhile grounds the set. Rather than competing against the electronic drum machines, he supplies a crucial human touch.
Combining their talents to great effect, Darkside pushes themselves to the extreme. Halfway through the gig, Jaar almost catches his band off guard, mangling the music to a shuddering, stuttering halt. An extended version of ‘Paper Trails’ from their debut album ‘Psychic’ then offers a clean, shimmering reprieve. These dynamic shifts create an ebb and flow of tension, carrying the audience along in a churning current.
The encore lavishly expands on ‘Liberty Bell’. With so much creative excess, Darkside could likely create an album’s worth of extra material. Epic prog-rock evolves into a moody downtempo outro, knitted together by a shifting bed of textures. Although the nearly two-hour set ends abruptly, the fact that they pushed their allotted time to the max signals their love of the craft.
In an industry increasingly beholden to 60-second fragments of media, it is encouraging to see an audience eagerly receive whatever musical alchemy that is laid before them. Here is a community that, rather than clamouring for neatly packaged hits, embodies a liberal acceptance of sound and form.
Words by Ben Browning
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