As announced, Dark Star Safari—a newly formed band project featuring Jan Bang, Erik Honoré, Eivind Aarset, and Samuel Rohrer—will present their recording debut, an evocative self-titled song-driven album, via arjunamusic records on May 10. 

The album stems from what the group describes as a two-stage process, at the centre of which lies an organic freedom that enables the music “to fill itself in,” to be self-actualizing via the musicians.

It began with an improvisation session initiated by Rohrer, who invited Bang and Aarset to the Candy Bomber studio in Berlin. The session was run by sound engineer Ingo Krauss, who worked in the famous Conny Plank studio. This meeting opened the door for something larger to emerge, and drove all four artists to attentively manipulate the material in order to discover what it had to offer. 

During this second phase, Bang, while meditating upon the possibilities of the improvised material, felt an urge to give additional colour by singing. So he stepped into the role of vocalist, a role he had not pursued since the early days of his musical career. He sent the results to Honoré, who penned the lyrics and composed two additional songs, “Mordechai (A Prophecy)” and “Fault Line,” to complete the project. 

The songs conjure shadows of memory, clouds of dreaming, and silhouettes of foreboding through the album’s layered, textured fabrics and Bang’s delivery of Honoré’s lyrics.

Ahead of the album’s May 10 release, you can hear “Mordechai (A Prophecy)” in full via the player below.