Darren J. Cunningham is a giant of composition, a far-sighted philosopher whose sonic explorations have anticipated and preceded many developments in electronic music. Over the course of his career, he has not only created his own arcane language, filled with hermetic references and interdimensional techno and electro, but he has also pioneered some of the trends of the last 20 years, from reinterpreting Stockhausen to working with an AI trained on his own music back in 2018. Growing up in the post-industrial Midlands, Cunningham’s first love was football. A career-ending injury while playing for West Bromwich Albion’s youth team forced him to change career path. He was drawn into the visual arts, and his passion was the clarinet. He benefited from his classical musical training later in his career. A fan of Detroit techno, particularly Derrick May, Carl Craig and Kevin Saunderson, Cunningham was lucky when a friend sold him a studio for £200. After moving to London, Actress immersed himself in the capital’s dance subcultures. For his debut album, Hazyville, he founded the Werk Discs label. He broke the mold by not using a metronome or a grid on a screen. His label later released some of the most important producers of the late 2000s, including Lone, Helena Hauff, Zomby. Cunningham’s breakthrough came with his second album, Splazsh (2010), which was followed by R.I.P. (2013), hailed as a masterpiece. His 2014 album, Ghettoville, revealed a much darker atmosphere, with many fearing the end of his recording career. This proved to be a misunderstanding of the artist’s intentions, as he released another instalment of his DJ-Kicks mix series in 2015, followed by the Afrofuturistic album ‘AZD’ (2017) and ‘LAGEOS’ with the London Contemporary Orchestra (2018), originally performed at a sold-out Barbican concert. In 2019, Actress returned to the world of classical music with his new interpretation of Stockhausen, titled ‘Sin (x) II’. In 2018, he unveiled the ‘Young Paint’ EP project, created by an AI trained on his own previous work. In 2024, the artist released his tenth album. Published by Norwegian label Smalltown Supersound, ‘Statik’ marks the beginning of a new, cosmic-dreamy phase in the artist’s work, based on deep, fractal loops combined with infinite lightness and meditative flow.
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