About The Darph

The Darph is a Chicago-based solo project started in 2018, working across alternative, experimental, electronic and pop music. After years of making music without taking the prospect of releasing it particularly seriously, The Darph began as an attempt to make the records its sole member was privately holding onto. The first album was released in early 2019.

Self portrait of The Darph at Bear Dance Studios (Above)

Since then, the catalog has grown to twelve releases. Each record tends to begin with a concept rather than a particular sound, moving between subjects including death, dread, inner life, isolation, politics, and the effects of the external world on the people living within it. The music similarly moves between recognizable song structures and abstraction: guitar-driven alternative, electronic instruments, and pop arrangements share records with drones, noise and long-form pieces that sit somewhere between hypnotic noise and song.

Experimentation is normally the starting point. Songs are often discovered through manipulating sounds rather than fully written and then produced, although guitar remains the foundation for most of the songwriting. Earlier Darph records were mostly guitar-driven. Later, synths, sequencers, and drum machines gradually took on an equal role in more recent catalog entries.

Tape and degraded sound have been present from the start. Early recordings used cassette players, cheap, sometimes janky equipment, and improvised recording methods because those were the tools available. Static, distortion, mechanical noise and artifacts of those processes remained part of the music even as the recording setup expanded.

Most of The Darph's first twelve releases appeared during a prolific period between 2019 and 2022, separated by short periods away from recording. After a few unfinished projects and a longer break beginning in 2023, the project returned with Modernity, an album prompted by changes in technology, politics, systems, and everyday life. Throughout the record, human experiences are placed against the systems acting upon them, sometimes within individual songs and sometimes through the collision of one piece with the next.

Other Projects

A variety of projects are always going on around the main Darph musical project. Some of that gets shared here on the site. Most of it inspires me and recharges me, letting me come back and write more music. Those projects will be shared as time and space allows.