LABEL:CITY WALL RECORDS
RELEASE DATE:2022-10-31
FORMATS:DIGITAL ALBUM
Ross Harper presents ‘The Dark Album’ on his own label City Wall Records. The music in The Dark Album is influenced by the likes of Leftfield, John Digweed, Oliver Lieb, DJ Solomun, Luke Slater, Developer and Drumcell and also the psychedelic hippie era of the 1960s and 70s. And yet, from 2012 to 2019 Ross Harper took 7 years “out” from listening to other people’s music so he could solely focus on developing his own sound, and it is in this space that the tracks ‘The Dark Album’ were created.
The tracks are both experimental but also keeping one foot in the structures of modern house & techno music. Produced solely using digital drums machines and soft synths on touch screen devices, the audio here is purposely a brave step away from the analogue origins of electronic music. All the tracks in ‘The Dark Album’ have a different angle but each holds the same sense of beauty, power and stillness.
‘Hard Patience’ is a musical story about the need in life to stick to what you believe in and allow destiny to take it’s course. Soft strings, machine drum percussion, talking synthesisers and deep basslines. ’Deep Life’ presents booming kicks and bass, with a horn blast that will wake up any dance floor while the ’The Power of Three’ releases beautiful chilled out vibes to calm your soul.
‘Narcissist’, the third and final single to be released from the album, gives incessant and persistent dark techy drones that drive into the brain. ‘Something New’ dives into the cool experimental, techno filled with alternative drum formations and alien synth voices. ‘New Super’ goes hard and deep, with an otherworldly acid trip edge.
’Humanistic Correction’ is an expression of the constant need in life for compassion, truly epic synth work set around powerful deep techno. ‘Zeitgeber’ is a fusion of organs and drones that spiral the body and mind up into heavenly oblivion. Finally, ’My Gift’ lays down a thumping meditative journey that draws the listener in and holds them there.
Some words from Ross Harper about his personal journey with electronic music…
“I am rooted in the techno scene of London in the mid to late 90s. During these formative years I met a guy at an after party in Brixton, he was black and about 20 years older than me, so an unlikely friendship. He told me he grew up in the jungle and the animals taught him how to do miracles. One morning at an after party, I saw him leap 7 feet in the air from standing, in that moment I was no longer in the kitchen of my mate’s house but I found myself in a desert. In the middle distance I saw a group of cloaked figures performing a sacrificial ceremony against a curved stone. It was too much for my conscious mind and I brought myself back to the kitchen. Then followed 20 years of deep introspection, I went from an extravagant extroverted teenager, to introvert obsessed with spirituality and electronic music. In 2019 I flipped again, that was my 3rd awakening, now I am an extroverted introvert. The tracks in The Dark Album were all produced during the isolated years of introspection.” Ross Harper, 2022
