MP3: Dark Star - Graceadelica / I Am The Sun
Dark Star were formed in 1999 from the remains of legendary British psychaedelic/prog/indierock/shoegaze band Levitation. Under the new name, Levitation members Terry Bickers, David Francolini and Laurence O' Keefe were signed to EMI, and had some moderate success before the eventual commercial failure of their debut album Twenty Twenty Sound.I heard of the band through the I Am The Sun EP, and only managed to pick up a copy of the album recently through Lyle from the mighty Drowned In Sound forums. To be honest i'm not that surprised the record failed. Although there are a couple of standout tracks, a lot of the album seems far too experimental and drawnout, and not in a good way. Most of the time if I have to go for a choice between hooks and experimentation, then unless it's some pretty amazing experimentation, i'll go for the hooks. Dark Star obviously thought differently.
The first MP3 here is the title track of the band's debut EP, Graceadelica. Whilst having an interesting sound, i'm not sure there are enough hooks in there to justify it being a debut single. And frankly that baggy sounding drumbeat reminds me far too much of Kasabian for comfort. Now it sounds like i'm being overly negative here, but it's just that in comparison to the other MP3, the followup single I Am The Sun, it seems obvious that the bands strength lies in the heaver, more distorted sound heard here, rather than the long, drawn out and slightly boring style of a lot of the album. Whilst I Am The Sun isn't perfect (the lyrics could do with a little work methinks), it's still a pretty damn fantastic single, and well worth a listen.
Dark Star released three more singles, the first being album track About 3AM and the others being re-releases of their first two singles. If their creativity had dried up so much by this point that they had to re-release two singles then maybe it's not surprising that the album was a bit of a letdown. The band split in 2001, and the members have continued with solo projects, most notably Terry Bickers album under the name Mikrokosmos. For more info on Dark Star, check out this fan site, or this interview. Or if you fancy buying a copy of Twenty Twenty Sound, a link to some new and used ones at Amazon Marketplaces is below. Enjoy.
 from amazon.co.uk  | Download: Graceadelica - MP3 5.63mb (rapidshare) Download: I Am The Sun - MP3 3.34mb (rapidshare) |
posted by Jamie Summers at 4:09 pm
3 Comments:
Another one I've got memories of here; I remember buying the original 'Graceadelica' 10" with no idea at all of who they were just because I hadn't got any other 10"s. I don't think I listened to it more than a couple of times.
As if that's not enough, I've got 'I Am The Sun' on clear 5" vinyl, which is very cool to have but almost inaudible. I did like the song, though, so thanks for the download. Of course, it's not quite as good as I remember, but then what is?
Very nice site! » »
Where did you find it? Interesting read »
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