Darkroom are
Michael Bearpark: guitars, pedals, loops and feedback
Andrew Ostler: synthesizers, laptop, processing, woodwind & reeds
Darkroom are a UK-based duo, originally formed to provide a live film festival soundtrack on which their debut album ‘Daylight’ (released on the 3rd Stone label in 1998) was based.
Guitar but not guitar; synthesizers but not keyboards – Darkroom’s music starts with improvisation and a distinctive approach to sound design, followed by disciplined editing and stop-motion studio craft. By turns beautiful and beautifully ugly, theirs is a very human music that always sounds ‘played’ not ‘programmed’, despite the technology that's essential for producing it.
Darkroom's 2013 double album Gravity’s Dirty Work showcases their extended composition through performance and post-production approach. Beginning with the snarling lines and motorik percussion of Strung With Black Nylon, it builds through the heavenly radiance of Karhupuisto / Beautiful Retreat towards the lost-summer reveries and scandi-jazz melancholia of A Pair A Part.
2015's extended The Rest Is Noise is distilled from multiple performances captured at the Tuesdays Post nights ('Live Progressive Ambient') the duo co-host, alternating between serene ambience and noise furnace. Rather than showcasing their influences, Darkroom tease out the DNA of any music that inspires them, before exploring wherever it and their own ideas and experiences take them.
Darkroom's previous live performances include Santa Cruz (Y2K15 festival headliners), Zürich, Antwerp, Köln, Glastonbury, Cambridge, and many nights in London. They've contributed to film and BBC television soundtracks, and been remixed by Silver Apples, Bass Communion and others. New collaborators include Hubbub, a multidisciplinary research team exploring the science of noise.
Darkroom's music in progress is often made available to stream via SoundCloud, with finished released available through Burning Shed, Bandcamp, and elsewhere.
Michael is also guitarist for No-Man, Tim Bowness, Henry Fool and Pedaltone, among others, appearing both live and on studio recordings. He's also a Professor of Computational Chemistry.
Andrew runs music software and hardware company Expert Sleepers, specialising in the integration of computers and analogue, particularly modular, synths.