DARWIN
Ambitious and mysterious prog project that yearns to inspire social change…
As Prog interviews DarWin, 10,000 firefighters battle devastating Californian wildfires.
“In our current era we will probably never face bigger challenges to humanity – both climate change and the human destruction of our environment,” DarWin laments. “But there isn’t really any music out there capturing this. We’re yearning for meaning returning to music. In the 1960s, music was created to inspire social change.”
Under President Trump, the perspective is bleak. “The United States was facing challenges before Trump, but it’s reached a fever pitch of insanity recently. It’s heartbreaking to see so many homes burning uncontrollably across California.
“People don’t pay attention to what’s really important,” DarWin continues. “How do we make our planet safer, manage fire risk and ensure there is enough food, energy and water for everyone? These are all questions without quick, cute political answers. The issues are grounded in science. If we don’t get things right, we’re going to drive off the cliff.”
Hence DarWin’s extraordinary debut album. “There was a lot of thinking about the future, combining music with concerns for our planet,” explains DarWin.“We wanted to make an album capturing those ideas in an open musical exploration using all kinds of instruments and songwriting approaches.” Four years in the making, Origin Of Species is ambitious and expansive, containing almost 90 minutes of rich but accessible progressive rock.
Multi-instrumentalist DarWin wrote and demoed the material before involving drummer Simon Phillips, formerly of Toto, who also co-produces, and bassist
Matt Bissonette.“When they play something it sounds 100 times better. Matt is best known as a bass player, but he has a fantastic voice that complements the music and has always been my favourite singer.”
While DarWin is principally a guitarist, virtuoso Greg Howe provides some solos.“When you’ve reached your own limitations, Greg can realise a vision for a solo and execute it beyond what I thought was possible.”
Other guests, an orchestra recorded at Abbey Road and a string quartet in Reykjavik embellish the album,“ensuring that each song realised its full potential and made a unique statement. We wanted to make the absolute best-sounding progressive rock album without constraints.”
But who is DarWin? Describing himself as “an American in exile, now living at an undisclosed location outside America”, DarWin steadfastly declines to reveal his identity.“I want people to focus on the album’s very important concept. It’s really not about the individual: it’s important to remove celebrity from this project. Celebrity can be poisonous: we have enough of it in society.” Prog devils out only that he’s originally from California and “has some roots in Silicon Valley”.
Alongside a graphic novel accompanying the album, there’s a spectacular video for single Escape The Maze. Clearly, considerable funds were lavished upon this project.“I stopped counting three years ago how much it was costing,” DarWin laughs.
So how was the self-released album financed? “I have been working with nation states,” DarWin says.“I have deep relationships in the technology industry and with financiers who felt this project was important. When I’m not working on music, I focus on using technology to improve life on earth and human survival.” ns
“THERE WAS
A LOT OF THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE, COMBINING MUSIC WITH CONCERNS FOR OUR PLANET.”