Rockin' Our Turntable: Dark Party
By Jake Guidry in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 8, 2010 9:20PM
The electronic duo Dark Party, comprised of Eliot Lipp and Chicago-based Leo 123, sort of burst back onto our radar roughly a month ago when we'd heard their debut LP, Light Years, would finally see release on Novemeber 2. It was about two years ago when we first heard of Dark Party; their haunting, beautiful single, "Active", was featured on a 2008 Adult Swim/Ghostly International collaboration titled Ghostly Swim, but in the time since then there wasn't much to be seen or heard from Dark Party. Well, turns out they were making one of the best albums of 2010.
Light Years is on some nostalgic '80s electro tip, yet it simultaneously incorporates the fresh, Balearic sounds that have permeated stellar 2010 releases like Matthew Dear's Black City and Jimmy Edgar's XXX. It's a release where the genre association IDM (intelligent dance music) actually makes sense: Light Years is a well-crafted, restrained dance album not concerned with the "banger" (a welcome trend currently transpiring in electronic music). Instead of formulaic song structures, Light Years explores soundscapes how it sees fit, and this is where the intelligence comes from. Less buildup and drops, more thought-out ventures into lush, thick synthesizers and genuinely creative drum patterns.
Though Light Years seems generally concerned with '80s electronic music, it still takes bits and pieces from funk, house and ever-so-vaguely the post-dubstep sounds that have taken over the UK in the past year. But overall, it's much less club-inspired than its influences. It's a listener's album with the bounce of a club album; a nice addition to the current landscape of electronic music that seems to go one way or the other.