darkDARK Announce Debut Album ‘Feel So Much’; Remix Featured In Joe Biden Ad

 

darkDARK – the producer-performer duo of Chris James and Genevieve Vincent – will release their full-length debut album Feel So Much on February 26, 2021 via Nettwerk Records and share new track “Tell Them You’re Here.” 

Artfully distilling pop and R&B into a beat-heavy, off-kilter power ballad, “Tell Them You’re Here” is one of the most personal tracks on the album, promoting mental health awareness and drug addiction recovery.  At the time, Genevieve was grappling with news of a friend’s passing. “Suddenly, it was as if all these molecules disappeared from the Earth, and I should’ve felt that,” she says. (“Go up to the stars, and tell them you’re here,” Genevieve sings to her friend.) Chris translated that heavenly theme into a levitating expanse of ambiance that explores, he says, “some interesting transitional percussive sounds.” Its magic lies in the fact that even if you don’t know, or relate to, Genevieve’s story, you still feel that unbearable lightness of being that she’s feeling.

The album shine lights on all facets of the human experience percolating in our lonely minds. The timing of these zeitgeist-ready songs, penned just before the world turned upside down, is coincidental. But Genevieve and Chris’ desire to blur time and space through music is not. “We imagine each track as a setting,” Genevieve says. “Chris and I share this weird synesthesia thing.” They’re so intuitive at creating elastic, genre-elusive storytelling because they’ve spent their professional lives exploring the connection between music and emotions.

Genevieve (DarkDARK’s co-songwriter, lyricist, and vocalist) is a classically trained composer/producer/music supervisor who has scored feature-length films, orchestral performances, and commercials. Meanwhile, Chris (co-songwriter and principal producer) is a go-to sound designer who’s worked on spots for the NBA, Toyota, and the SyFy network. With two previously released EPs – Heathered and we forget when we’re apart. – darkDARK’s music has been featured by outlets like NOISEY, NPR’s All Songs Considered, Consequence Of Sound, SuicideSheeep, Acid Stag, This Song Is Sick, and others.  Since then, DarkDARK’s music has made its way onto Empire, Power, and The Hate U Give. “I’m a broad-stroke kind of person with a lot of big ideas. I’ll sketch out a song. Chris is a meticulous producer,” Genevieve says. “It’s the perfect combo.”

The secret to their synchronicity lies in their work practice too. With Genevieve in Los Angeles and Chris in Austin, they wrote and mixed projects for four years before even meeting. Also, they have a very expansive DropBox, where they organize their ideas. That journey is a big part of the alchemy driving darkDARK.  One of them starts a track, and they pass it back and forth sometimes more than a dozen times, adding and subtracting elements until it hits an aural sweet spot.  Then, mixer Andrew Maury (Shawn Mendes, Lizzo, Post Malone) came in at the end to put some final touches on the tracks.

That journey is a big part of the alchemy driving DarkDARK.  “We don’t have defined roles,” clarifies Genevieve. One of them starts a track, and they pass it back and forth sometimes more than a dozen times, adding and subtracting elements until it hits an aural sweet spot. Mixer Andrew Maury (Shawn Mendes, Lizzo, Post Malone) comes in at the end, to put some final touches on a track. “I would call our music a pastiche of elements,” Chris explains. “All of our original stuff pulls from all these different directions, and we just let it flourish.”

“We’ve always talked about the fact that like Chris and I are empaths to a certain degree,” she says. “We wanted to write songs that, when you’re listening to them, you’re not necessarily thinking about what we had in mind. We want you to think about yourself, your own situation with other people.” In this way, DarkDARK is a looking glass that illuminates the ghosts inhabiting our minds, the emotions we elude, the life we could be living. “We want you to have this experience,” Genevieve says. “It’s for you.”

Most recently, the duo was approached to remix Nina Simone’s “New World Coming,” as part of a larger collection of tracks.  Consequently, the remix was featured in the latest Joe Biden ad, making its debut during The Billboard Music Awards.  To watch the 30-second spot, click here: https://youtu.be/BPOYVQhAuto.

“Tell Them You’re Here” is available at digital retailers HERE.

Track List:

1. Enemies
2. Headless (feat. Madge)
3. Watercolors
4. No Symmetry
5. Tell Them You’re Here
6. Sequels (feat. Leonis)
7. Kill the Light
8. Save It
9. In Two
10. Distance
11. Back to the Start
12. Tell The You’re Here (Heyz Remix)
13. Watercolors (Duralumin Remix)
14. No Symmetry (Giraffage Remix)