Dark Star (1999-2001) were a London-based band, whose music mixed dark psychedelica with a dub undertow and noisy effects-laden guitar.
David Francolini (drums) Chrisitan Hayes (guitar and vocals) Laurence O'Keefe (bass)
Christian, David, and Laurence, all former members of Levitation, formed Darkstar in 1999 and signed to the now defunct Harvest Records, the progressive rock subsidiary of EMI. With production by Steve Lillywhite Darkstar released a number of EPs and a debut album Twenty Twenty Sound. Their live performances, often with a stage decorated with fairy lights, attracted a dedicated following. The band's common musical influence was Public Image Limited.
Despite reaching the Top 20 with the re-release of Graceadelica as a single, and an appearance on Top of the Pops, they failed to achieve the commercial success demanded by their record company. After recording a second unreleased studio album Zurich the band split to pursue different projects in 2001.
"A fine excursion into the murkier reaches of obsession crawling from the wreckage, then. It's not always pretty and seldom comprehensible, but you have to admire a band who can yell lyrics like I am centrifugal as if they were the meaning of life. Although what it all means is anyone's guess. And they said Bickers was the mad one." — Jim Alexander ( NME) on Twenty Twenty Sound
The cover art on all Darkstar releases up to I Am The Sun in 2000 was by Tom Phillips, an artist from Peckham, South London. The images he used were based on his work A Humument, an illustrative and textual reworking of an 1892 Victorian novel.