Darkswoon

Portland’s one-woman band, Darkswoon is preparing to release her new album this summer. Surviving the Golden Age is excited to premiere the latest single, “Necromancer.” With wall-of-sound production and numerous vocal harmonies, the track sounds somewhere between My Bloody Valentine and Julianna Barwick. The driving, thumping drums propel the song forward while the long drawn-out syllables of the vocals keep the balance. Its a beautiful track from an artist that you’ll want to watch. - Surviving the Golden Age

Featured off their recently released Silhouettes EP, Portland’s Darkswoon take us by the hand toward the dark globe glow of the world premiere for the Christina Broussard video for “Necromancer”. The cloak, veil & monk’s hood aesthetic is created by the duo team of Jana Cushman & Christian Terrett who follow up their debut EP Year One with new crypts & catacombs of sound with audio inscriptions & runes that contain more intricate & illustrious details & definition. The overcast blanket of clouds that often covers the span of the northwest is embraced by Darkswoon as a security cloak style that they alter & tailor to make their own in a blend of chords & ghosting percussion.

Darkswoon’s visuals for “Necromancer” curated & directed by Christina B. combines collage film imagery that is interspersed with portrait images of Jana interwoven in a cryptic gothic narrative. The video begins with images of an alternate new world, populated by mysterious movements made by shadowy figures that populate parks, crypts, pools & materialize from dimensions of the unknown. The song “Necromancer” is an example of Darkswoon illustrating the meaning of their name through locomotive rhythms & chords that sound as if strummed by apparitions materializing in the physical realm. The duo remain committed to keeping Portland weird (despite their own current spate of cultural upheavals, redevelopments, tech influx, etc) by flying their own fashionable freak flag for all new & old denizens who yearn for the Old Portland spirit of individuality & creativity. After the following debut for “Necromancer”, read our roundtable interview with Jana & Christian.

Take us to the beginning when Darkswoon was first formed.

Jana: I started writing for Darkswoon in 2013. I was just experimenting with some electronic toys and my guitar. It was a solo bedroom project. I started using Ableton as a way to play all the parts that came out as the project developed. Writing is a personal and vulnerable process for me. It can be lonesome and awesome but I knew this project needed someone else to help carry it out of the bedroom and into a live setting. I love performing so this was totally necessary for the growth of the project. My longtime friend Christian stepped in and we’ve been performing and recording as Darkswoon together since 2014 now.

Christian: A few years ago I flunked out of grad school. Jana and I were drinking at a dive we used to hit up after work. I asked her how her music was developing, and that if she needed a lackey to hit cue sequences for her I’d be available. A couple months later we were blasting drum and bass beats in her apartment. Now we’re here.

Describe the making of both your recent release Silhouettes & your debut Year One and where you both feel Darkswoon is headed.

Year One was recorded in my friend John Mowatt’s basement studio over the winter of 2014-2015. We drank a lot of dark beer and smoked a lot of cigarettes and somehow the EP happened. I released it in February of 2015. We toured for the release last summer. I had already started writing for Silhouettes. I spent the fall and winter of 2015 writing and working on the songs almost every day. In February of 2016, Christian and I spent two days recording on Sauvie Island with Sean Flora at his Rock N Roll BNB studio. We worked pretty hard-not as much drinking and smoking. It took the spring to mix the album, the summer to master (Foster Mastering) and figure out the release details.

Now that we’ve released this EP, I’d love to go on tour again. I am already getting into writing the next batch of songs and hoping to have another record out by next summer. I am always trying to evolve and I expect the music to continue to shift but what this will look like is hard to say. There are parts of me that want to go darker and noisier but I have a heart for pop sensibility.

Christian: The project hasn’t thus far adhered to genre specifics, in turn allowing us to progress and grow in whatever direction that we find clear or fitting. Every year is full of new experiences and new information to process and develop into material.

Interested in hearing about the synergistic process that you two share in sound composition.

Christian: Jana composes the entirety of the Darkswoon catalog. My job is to come into the studio space with a critical ear and finesse some of the surfaces that might need specific attention or clarification. I try to build from a foundation of constantly asking “What does this mean to communicate?”

Jana: I am always working on a song. If the song makes it into the work shopping stage, I share it with Christian and we continue to work on it together. His musical intuition and ear is really a valuable part of bringing the music into fruition.

What are the most exciting & interesting things in Portland right now?

Jana: I’m excited about the music scene opening up and diversifying. Portland has always had infinity for garage, indie, folk rock and many bands of those genres have come out of Portland and grown into huge popularity. Right now, I feel like there is more electronic, goth, metal, hip hop, shoegaze and other subgenres shaking it up. Musicians are carving out new spaces to make room for music that doesn’t fit the mold. I am really excited about S1 Gallery, an artist run space that frequently showcases women in electronic music. The Lovecraft Bar is creating a space where dark music is embraced, XRAY radio is providing a unique take on radio broadcasting and hosting a variety of music. And there’s so much more. On one hand, you have punk rock dives that are closing due to the growing population and inflating housing market but on the other hand, there is a whole new world rising up from the ashes of Old Portland.

Christian: Portland finds itself in the center of a great urban influx currently. Over a thousand people have moved to the metro area since the beginning of the year, and regardless of how one feels about this data it means that there’s a diversity of ideas arriving in the region. I just hope that it can attract the talent of a truly diverse pool of artists outside the norm of white middle class cis males that get boners for making scenes on the stages of bars. Let the people come, but bring some real shit with you.

What are you two listening to constantly around the clock?

Christian: Tonsstartbandht. Cities Aviv. Binaural ASMR.

Jana: At this moment, Cigarettes After Sex

Most Played according to iTunes: Jenny Hval, Light Asylum, Boards of Canada, Kate Bush, Fever Ray.

Darkswoon’s Silhouettes EP is available now. - Impose Magazine

Darkswoon – “Necromancer” (Portland, USA)

Darkswoon - "Necromancer"RIYL: Julianna Barwick, Slowdive, Lower Dens, Briana Marela

It’s a bit difficult to describe the music of Darkswoon, the project of Portland, Oregon resident Jana Cushman, and that is a compliment. Her dark but ethereal music expands genres and styles, offering some of the most innovative, imaginative, and captivating music being made today. Her new single, “Necromancer”, is the perfect example of her hypnotizing and piercing approach, as the deep percussion and Cushman’s hallow voice penetrate deep into your soul and leave an everlasting impression.

This will not be the last time you hear from Cushman, who is planning to release a new album sometime this summer. - The Revue

There are those tracks that you listen to and think, “yeah enjoyable but nothing ground-breaking”, and then there are tracks that take hold of your senses and leave you feeling excited by what you’ve just heard…Darkswoon’s ‘Necromancer’ does just that.

The build in tension is of a colossal scale, supported by a pounding backing beat and impressive vocals from Jana Cushman, who’s been releasing music under moniker Darkswoon now for two years.

Taken from her forthcoming new album, Darkswoon’s sound is considered a cross between shoegaze and darkwave, generating a genre imagined by Cushman to be electrohaze.

Her musical landscape is cultivated by the interplay of dynamic guitar and vocals that reflect emotional depth syncopated by stunning textures and driving rhythms; revolving around the themes of death, love, dreams and ghosts. - Never Enough Notes