4TheRcrd Mag.

[EDITORS NOTE: this article is equal parts fact and fiction -- and hereby opens up our magazine to more than simply the non-fiction writing we have been releasing since our inception.]

This article is a the collaborative effort of the editorial and the directors of what is known as darqlab media, a semi-monthly gathering of experimental music in the Downtown east side.

I saw the best minds of my generation talking like they were each alone together…. A metaphor that loves to revisit and eternally recur. Angelheaded soundster raging for the ancient herb and soundwave looking for an angry fix and knob, for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo of night.

Behind a large retail coffee lounge u find the core live music lounge called dark labs media. Enter this vortex and u will find music studios and sequencers and a half dozen laptops with. A flock of keen idm desogners and atmosphere fiends to say the least. Think of this as a livingeoom of expweimental music with a retail end and sueprisingly a smoke room no less. In a time of sanctions shutdowns of public lounges and intelligent hypster smokerooms of dialogue you have east hastings nringing it to a new level just as it did in the sixties. Nobody has defined nostalgia and innovation rwecipeocally and why had they not? Because to do so would be to create a sonic lespace l’iteraire.

This is what could be called a darqlab manifesto, in a sense. But, rest assured, it won’t be contained just one part, or just one piece of writing, as there is more than this.

a’ight , an impromptu/off the cuff biography of darqlab media : darqlab was conceived around the dawn of 2007 when a.t. johnston & will claeys first collabor8ed on a sortuv audiobook project whereby claeys provided a soundscape backdrop to a reading by johnston. the text was a short story of johnstons’ called nyarl@z’ qyss , & the duo dubbed itself “psyqlops”, & recorded other material toward an upcoming EP or album, and concluded soon th@ they themselves should be the ones to go about functioning as a record label/event co-ordinating crew/publishing imprint to promote & distribute their work & products.

“i wuz compelled to play Chas Chandler to his Jimi Hendrix,” says johnston of his early motivations regarding claeys & the purpose of darqlab. “i saw th@ the world needed exposure to his briliance urgently, for it wuz & iz strong medicine.”

claeys had dj’ed drum & bass as thebeatmonkey for 5 years b4 becoming jabberwock & starting to focus on producing emotional experimental electronica for the next couple years, & has since developed a new alias [alien complex] which caters to the more psychedelic spectrum of soundz. On the organizing side, he’d partaken in several renegade parties in the Hope area, & set up a stage @ Apex 2003 under the aegis of hardbeat productions.

johnston has been involved with grassroots show promotions since his involvement with ant records & lip lever records in the early 90s in the Nova Scotian indie/underground scene, & released his debut album as motornerve on ant records in ’95. in ’98, after many cross-canada rambles, he started the audience-interactive interdisciplinary experiment series known as ARTLAB @ the now-defunct meld cafe in downtown Calgary, & also co-created (w/ rev.j-sun fnord & friendz) mind-meld, a chaos magick performance crew who also held court @ meld. his noise/experimental/psychedelic resume includes working in no head, wirehed, gasket, slithis empire, die noisome, lucid murder, wolfmother wallpaper, spitfia, flowerpunq, velocity atrocity, & post-motornerve solo work as the metaprogrammer.

The pair soon were organizing their first party,titled simply “darqlab” to bring darqlab to the world, which went down on april 14, ’07, w/ over 1/2 the artists on the bill being darqlab signees. This event served as a business card to the vancouver psy/IDM/glitch community, & made a stoking impression.(local tripster doqtor pookwize sed uv it: “a myriad of blips, blaps and zorps. It was as if Proteus himself had overtaken the spirit of the room to lay down his own zeitgeist.”)

“vector”, their second major event ( not counting some renegade gigz they threw in a west end health club illegally) wuz on the night of october 27 with a mind to honour the immanent all hallows’ eve/celtic new year, again boasting several darqlab artists including the debut of decibel hunters, as well as ridylan, & chairface(then going by amblygon), not to mention headlining bc psy-trance legends nystagmus & j. michael.

the date of the 3rd major darqlab event iz yet to be announced, but they’ve been cookin’ on the front burner w/ napalm @ the herb museum (343 e.hastings) doing a psychedelic multimedia night every 1st & 3rd thursday of every month for a while now, where patronz are encouraged to bring their vape-ables to do up in the volcano &/or enjoy some organic refreshments (coffee/teas/soft drinx).

the goalz of darqlab media are to showcase local /unknown talent, release recordingz thereof, & to create/provide psychedelic/chill environments where patronz
can unwind & mingle & frolic & medit8 & just BE , in the midst of some majyqal mayhem from the maniax of the electronic underbelly. shouts out to trypton media, who’ve provided stunning analogue fractalic visualz for “darqlab” & “vector”, EOS , who were also along for visual madness @ vector & one o’ those renegades mentioned above, plus to all the psy qydz who came out & danced their faces off & kept it goin’.

soon out on darqlab :decibel hunters debut album, the waters of dysnomia, the 1st official darqlab release.

(check myspaces for: alien complex/decibel hunters/cryptik moses/circuit society/the faceless aces/malicious code)

blah! there’z an earful 4 ya!
now ya know wut we’re all about & th@z enuff 4 me 4 now.
g’night main, paxetluv, -@

IMAGE CREDIT: here.