Hi everyone, Roughthony Nighttano here, the Internet's busiest music nerd and it's time for a review of this new DARKSIDE album, Nothing.

Here we have the newest full length LP from DARKSIDE, a once-duo, now-trio consisting of producer Nicolas Jaar, guitarist Dave Harrington, who are joined by now-full-fledged-member drummer and instrument designer Tlacael Esparza, who they've collaborated with under different contexts in the past. Still, despite that previous connection, it is understandable that a line up change such as this would change the sonic and creative dynamics of the DARKSIDE project.

But change it from what to what? Though DARKSIDE has existed in some way, shape, or form for over a decade now, it's a project that has always had a difficult to define sound add onto this. Jaar's creative output being especially difficult to predict lately cause you had the experimental electronics and dance grooves all over his 2020 Against All Logic album. Also the Sufi music excursion he jumped in on with the Ali Sethi collaboration in 2023 and then last year. Honestly I did not even touch the five hour plus project that Jaar dropped that was like this mix of sound, collage, radio play and score.

It seems that anything Jaar touches these days is working with very little in the way of creative boundaries. And I would say now with Esparza in the mix, DARKSIDE is sounding even more adventurous than ever.

Of course you have the continued allusions to minimal and subtle electronics and dance grooves. Really anything you could categorize as micro house, which Jaar's music is usually associated with. But DARKSIDE's sound has always had a little bit more of an art rock and improv edge and I think that is enhanced even further on Nothing with some especially wild genre fusions. Like really the most consistent thing about this project at this point is the depiction of some kind of curious sphere on the cover. Yeah, we've had sphere after sphere after weird little sphere. Everything else creatively for DARKSIDE is subject to radical change on this record, for better or for worse.

'Cause I do think you could make the argument that Nothing is DARKSIDE's most experimental album yet. But some of those experiments truly go off the deep end in ways that are just draining or grating. Like with the howling pitched lead vocals that break the very very very heady and cerebral vibe that is built up in the first leg of the opening track. "Slau". Yeah, the singing, whatever this is, it sounds like nails on a chalkboard and honestly, I never want to hear it again for the rest of my life.

The following track "S.N.C." however is a lot better and a thrilling combination of funky slap bass, meditative dance grooves and entrancing lead vocals. Some really cool vocal sample hits around the midpoint too. The whole track is like a very intriguing fusion of what sounds like an all out jam, but also like a great DJ mix that eventually shifts into a pretty chill art pop song. The track is always evolving, you never really know what it's going to become with the next oncoming shift. And yet like each section is catchier than the next and you know, moments and tracks like this in the track list are really when the record is at its best.

I would say this is also the case for another lead single on the lp, "Are You Tired?", which is great, though not nearly as direct or exciting, and terms of its overall progression, I would say this one is a bit more of a meditation. And even though there are a lot of elements, especially in the first leg, that come across as just being methodically produced and very detail oriented, there are simultaneously a lot of bits that feel like they are totally improvised and happening in real time. Be it the acoustic 70s rock breaks around the midpoint of the track, or the feedback and howling atmospheric tones that paint all of the grooves in the second half, where we also get some fluttering guitar embellishments as well as this very loud, pitchy intense rush of synthesizers.

The first leg of the album continues forward with a pretty solid run. Next we have the very gruff and aggressive "Groucha Max", whose lo fi thumping percussion and distorted organ bits sound like something out of a late-era comeback Tom Waits song. I also love the understated but insanely catchy "the long second is over" refrains across the track, under which everyone on the song locks into a really intense and aggressive groove.

Then, "American References" is a really cerebral cut en espanol with hand drums, meditative bass lines, and this track is yet another excursion that launches off into all of these driving but subtle beats, more hand drum layers, spacey guitars, they really lock into this layered up experience that gets more and more enveloping as it progresses along. And the beat breakdown in the second half really puts on display how much rhythmically DARKSIDE has grown with the lineup change on this record.

After this, though, I will say the album kind of shifts into a very weak second half. For one, you have "Hell Suite (Part 1)", which is part noisy jazz improv, part tongue in cheek dreamy lounge singing act with lyrics about us collectively all living in hell. And I get the point, I truly do. And the meaning of the song definitely resonates with me, but by that same token, I feel like a performance and an instrumental palette that was a bit more audacious might have been in order, given what the song message wise is trying to get across.

Part two, though, by comparison does actually feature much more outlandish singing. It's just funny how little consistency there is to the vocals on this thing. Either they are downright entrancing and kind of alluring, or they are just borderline unlistenable and just hurting me on some level.

After this we have a kind of okay, ambient-ish outro that, I mean, given the experience of the record so far, why not go out in a blaze of noise and distortion and glory, I guess.

And while on one level I can most definitely appreciate the the unpredictability of this record, that's for sure, simultaneously it doesn't always lead to a coherent or enjoyable or even stimulating experience. Because yeah, this album, I think, is mostly genius, sometimes masturbatory, and sometimes deeply underwhelming, but still difficult to categorize, that's for sure. Which is why I'm feeling about a light 6 on it.

Anthony Fantano, DARKSIDE, Forever.