Dark Star Safari - Dark Star Safari [Arjunamusic Records Promo]

Put on the circuit via Arjunamusic on May 10th, 2k19 is the same titled debut album by Dark Star Safari, the new musical collaborational project brought to life by Samuel Rohrer, Jan Bang, Erik Honore and Eivind Aarset. With ten songs derived from free floating improvisation later shaped and sculpted into a final form by Bang, who's bringing forth a spatial, spaced out and otherworldly quality within the projects Leftfield Pop approach. Whilst a song like "Labyrinthine" immediately evokes memories of David Bowie's more experimental and surely highly conceptual works we see the "Resilient Star" rely on a sparse arrangement of hollow TripHop-beats and (Neo)Cosmic-guitars for a well psychedelic, dreamlike effect, "Family Gospel" brings together a Björk'esque Ambient soundscape - ca. "Homogenic" era - and deep 70s ballad before "Child Of Folly" indulges into a Lynch'esque atmosphere infused by slo-mo Downbeat, early Portishead as well as elements of Shoegaze and highly inward looking PostRock to a great effect that musicians like Trentemøller would love for a reason. Dark Star Safari's "Thoughts And Prayers" are on a nocturnal slo-mo swing as well, "Mordechai (A Prophecy)" somehow harks back to more experimental, bleak polyphonic 80s SynthPop melancholia and "November's Child" goes even deeper down the downward spiral, presenting haunting vocals works over sparse, ghostly, score'esque textures and hyper-depressed minimal PostRock guitar works. Furthermore the "White Rose" is in full on romantic ballad mode, albeit sitting well in the Leftfield Pop context of this firstling, "Your Fathers' Names" correlate to the loneliness of a long, cold late autumns night in a far, fully artificial future before the final "Fault Line" embarks on a lighter, tender and possibly even hopeful journey partially reminiscent of Einstürzende Neubauten's "Silence Is Sexy" album for a moment... or two. Deep.