sun*load
Thirty years between high school and this collaboration — four goth – ambient – new wave songs and a David Bowie ghost story.
Credits:
Jeremy Markowitz (COMET17): guitars, bass, drums, production
jh0st: vocals, lyrics, saxophone
Released: 2018
Jeremy Markowitz and jh0st walked the same high school halls in the mid-eighties, listening to much of the same music. It took thirty years and the internet to actually collaborate. In 2017 they connected across oceans and time zones to create the darkstars EP — a concoction of goth and ambient influences from their youth blended with jazz and post-rock from their present-day projects. The result sounds like shared memory: familiar in atmosphere, strange in detail.
My Fallen Twin
I see the future you… your heavy wings, my fallen twin / or is it just illusionary hope in the form of a curse
The archetypal battle between future and present selves — fallen angels who once attempted to ascend to new ideal places, now peering years ahead at what they’ve become. About crossroads, vanity, and whether epic battles are really just tiny ripples in time’s momentum.
from darkstars ep 2018
Thin White Horses
a flash of the real… imaginary / crossing David’s divide / Jones-ing for a day when a ripple became a wave
Walking home through 5am fog in 1992, crossing an empty Union Square, nearly colliding with a figure in a black poncho and fedora. A glimpse of Bowie’s face, a quick smile, and he was gone into the fog. Real or dream? A week later a friend mentioned Bowie had moved downtown with Iman. The song lives in that grey zone between.
from darkstars ep 2018
The Coldest Spark
a flash of the real… imaginary / crossing David’s divide / Jones-ing for a day when a ripple became a wave
Walking home through 5am fog in 1992, crossing an empty Union Square, nearly colliding with a figure in a black poncho and fedora. A glimpse of Bowie’s face, a quick smile, and he was gone into the fog. Real or dream? A week later a friend mentioned Bowie had moved downtown with Iman. The song lives in that grey zone between.
from darkstars ep 2018
Infinity Youth
it’s all a madness, hiding from our own shadows / tape hiss, play the zipper of truth
Youth as purgatory — strobe lights, lipstick, basement walls, and the madness of thinking your ghost lasts forever. The most kinetic song on the EP, and the one that most directly channels the shared adolescent energy that brought the collaboration together in the first place.
from darkstars ep 2018
In this conversation, jh0st talks with Jeremy Markowitz about the creative details behind the darkstars EP — songwriting, gear, and the deep history of this post-rock, goth-inspired collaboration. Joined by special guest Anu Kirk (see the Luscious-235 interview).
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