Darcy Colin Adam is a sound designer, composer and audio engineer. He’s also a music technologist, multi instrumentalist and technical sound editor.
His latest creation “Lilting Atmos Works For Image 1 (LAW-FI)” is a magical collection of six tracks that take you through a sonic journey that’s cosmic, colorful and warm.
I caught up with Darcy to talk about his early musical experiences, how he began composing and the making of the new record.
CMM-What was the first music that really made an impact on you as a kid and what artist or band did you enjoy the most?
Darcy-There is a long thread connecting myself and the artists that inspired me growing up. I’ve taken all of them ‘along the way’ with me and even if their influence isn’t entirely reflected in my works – they inspired me to continue creating. Most closely related to my style as a solo artist are my minimalist influences during music university – Jon Hassel, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Steve Reich, Toby Driver, Keigo Oyamada.
As a millennial (and even more typically as a guitarist) when I was a teenager it was a lot of British and American heavy metal artists.
Each wave of my life as a musician – learning to adapt, change and create anew – owes itself to those first artists that inspired me to play. Heavy metal is like a sport, you gotta be the fastest player or the most technical performer. As a teenager, that will really put ‘a fire inside’ you to keep getting better (Excuse the AFI pun).
CMM-When did you start playing music and writing songs?
Darcy-I’ve been playing and writing music since I was thirteen years old. First, it was PowerTabs, Sibelius and Guitar Pro 5. Then, I went to university to study music technology with my first demos recorded in GarageBand. Sometimes digital workstations are a crutch and after a decade using them, I’m steering myself towards the performance, the technique and the microphone.
CMM-You recently released a new record called “Lilting Atmos Works For Image 1 (LAW-FI)”. What was the writing and recording process like? What gear and instruments did you use during the sessions?
Darcy-This record ‘LAW-FI’ is a collection of works from this year with one exception – the final track is from 2016. This record about my new persona of making music for film and image – musique à l’image. I create sounds with extended techniques using different instruments – that is to ‘prepare’ an instrument and make it sound like another instrument or something completely new. Mostly – acoustic guitar, viola and bouzouki. I use hair-pins, cello bows and other implements to find the right sound. Combine that with some of my own more ‘disposable’ vinyls that I’ve sampled and screwed; Tascam Portastudio experimentations from my own library; synths and ‘disklavier’ – which is what I call programming piano in an Aphex Twin style, like ‘Drukqs’.
CMM-How did you get into scoring for films and art installations?
Darcy-I fell into scoring for films and art installations. I’m a freelance sound designer and audio post-production mixer, and occasionally the two are seen as being synonymous. I always answer to what the project needs, and in that I have found a very exciting new way of continuing my life as a musician. Music and film; sound and art; games and soundtracks: they have such awesome synergy together that mirror what I typically feel in a live performance. Stewart Copeland said composing for mediums is like ‘cracking the code’.
CMM-If you could do a score for any film director, who would it be and what would the film be about?
Darcy-Right now, I’m working with an excellent filmmaker – Chelsea Ingram. I’d be so excited for her to make that feature that she has been incubating. I’ve read the draft script! It’s a human story about the things we go through in life that make us and it tells the story over decades.
I worked with Chelsea on ‘Wild Dog’. I released the digital album for it last year. The film is going to be featured this year at some great festivals in Australia and in the States. If I had to answer that directly? Celine Song.
CMM-What do you have coming up next?
Darcy-Next month, together with theatre director Phoebe Chan we will showcase a new contemporary dance performance across the UK. It has been fascinating to work in contemporary dance as a medium and it’s been a dream project of mine for some time. The piece is called ‘Drifting’ and I’ll be releasing that in the coming months. I collaborated with two friends of mine to create the final composition – Dylan Reid and Tomas Kidd.
I’m going to release all of my works over time. I have a very large library of my own recorded music – a lot are completely fleshed out compositions. A lot of ambient acoustic guitars and Tascam Portastudio experimentations. Some phone memos that have good performances despite the poor recording.
From 2016 to 2017 I recorded countless hours of music in Cubase – I upgraded my setup and the Cubase data files have no use except on legacy devices but luckily I have reference tracks and original stems.
I’m going to continue finding my muse in cinema and visual mediums. When I do finally begin performing again, it will be an audio-visual performance with live generative video art that I’ve spent a few years fine tuning.
