The Norwegian expressionist painter Edvard Munch famously said: “Art comes from joy and pain… but mostly from pain.” On his recent collection, “Dominion Of The Stars”, Belgian electronic producer Innocent Darkness echoes this sentiment by channelling grief, loss, and the pain of losing a parent into cinematically ambitious and moodily dark downtempo compositions. The catharsis is audible.
The producer’s emotions are given free rein, often landing on the nuanced and complex nature of feeling. Pieces such as “I Can Wait Till All Stars Are Burned Out” see beautiful textures attempting to break through a ceiling of dark drones and oppressively rigid electronic drum beats. “Dad 1 Mom” creates a progressively intense atmosphere, with solemn, tomb-like synthesisers and disorienting drum programming deepening the darkness. While no one song stands out from the rest, “1 is eenzaam, het wil meer..” has perhaps the most consistency, its rousing lines offering something resembling a memorable melody, but with heartbreaking tendencies.
Elsewhere, “Black Star” is a roaming piece that offers a section without the markedly cadenced drums, an instrument and style associated with the “witch house” genre to which this release is labelled. When the loop is taken away, you can hear the searching look into the black void. The drums offer a heartbeat, a constant amidst a world of unspecified terror and distortions. Fitting, then, that it is a release borne from the grief of losing a mother, the heartbeat of whom is the first auditory experience humans have.
“Dominion Of The Stars” by Innocent Darkness is a primal scream of downtempo electronic music-making, where the artist wants to go as deep into the dark forest as possible while inviting the listener along.
★★★½
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