REWIND: Dark Star - 'Gracedelica'

A band who were tipped for big things.... A three piece from London who emerged in the late 90's and who excited me with this excellent groove. The other day while re-sorting my CD collection, I came across a promo sampler of their album 'Twenty Twenty Sound' and a CD single of this lost 1998 classic 'Gracedelica'. Judging by their impressive debut (and only ) LP, it's shame they didn't carry on. Dark Star consisted of Christian Hayes, David Francolini and Laurence O'Keefe, making a psychedelia-flavoured sound with a dub undertow and effect-heavy guitars. 

The band enjoyed two Top 40 UK Singles Chart hits with re-releases of 'Graceadelica' and 'I Am The Sun', both from their Steve Lillywhite-produced debut album. After, the band entered the studio to record the follow-up, but despite a song 'Strangers And Madmen' receiving play on The Evening Session, the band parted ways with their label EMI due to a change in personnel at EMI and a general lack of interest from the label in the new material. The band subsequently split in 2001 but were unable to release the already recorded second album, as the rights belonged to EMI. A bootleg of pre-master mixes of this album found its way onto the internet, entitled 'Zurich. According to a website, "the title 'Zurich' came from a sketch in Dadaist comedy show 'Big Train' of which the band were huge fans. It was Laurence's job to make sure that the latest episode was always ready for viewing on the tour van VHS. Apparently the sketch comprised a tense office meeting, a deadline to be met, a graph paper bikini and, of course the word 'Zurich' was involved." If this sounds interesting, you can hear that album HERE.

Dark Star are featured on my mega, mega 1998 best of compilation, which is now is HERE for all to listen to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Star_(band)