Darkstar - Civic Jams (LP)

Darkstar’s fourth album, Civic Jams, landed on Warp Records in June 2020, and it still feels like a quiet manifesto from a duo that helped define a certain strain of UK electronic introspection. James Young and Aiden Whalley have been shape-shifters since their early Hyperdub days and the glitchy brilliance of Aidy’s Girl Is a Computer, through the frosted synth-pop of North and the widescreen experiments of News From Nowhere and Foam Island. Civic Jams pulls the camera back in. It’s intimate, vocal-led, and tuned to the hush between kicks, the afterglow of nights out that linger in your head long after the lights come on.

The record opens up like a careful conversation rather than a proclamation. You hear it in the production choices, which lean on space and restraint. Basslines move like soft tides, hi-hats tick like crosswalk signals, and the duo’s voices sit close to the mic, processed but warm, almost conspiratorial. It reads as UK club music remembered from the bus ride home, when the details smudge and the feelings get sharper.

Jam is the key. It slides along a two-step pulse that never overplays its hand, with a hook that circles and glows rather than shouts. Text feels even more minimal, a late-night check-in turned into melody, clipped phrases floating over pads that breathe in and out. Wolf tightens the screws a bit, the tension building under a barely-there beat, like you’re walking past a venue you used to visit and catching the thump through the wall. These aren’t bangers, and that’s the point. Darkstar drill down on mood, trusting that small gestures carry weight.

What makes Civic Jams stick is how human it feels. Darkstar have used their own voices before, but here they feel central, woven into the production as another instrument and also as the emotional core. The harmonies sit low and unforced, cutting through the reverb with real tenderness. It’s easy to hear echoes of UK garage, dub, and R&B in the DNA, but the duo shave away the genre signifiers until only the contour remains. The result is a set of songs that work on headphones and on a good home system, when you can let the sub and the spaces between sounds do their thing.

Context adds an extra layer. 2020 was a year without dancefloors for most, and Civic Jams felt like a document of that pause. Not a pandemic record by design, more a reminder that club culture also lives in memory, routine, and the small civic rhythms of daily life. Foam Island brought community voices into the fold. Civic Jams turns inward, but the city is still there in the edges of the mix, the way a snare echoes like a stairwell or a synth flickers like a passing train.

The album’s economy makes it perfect for vinyl. Side A pulls you in gently, so you notice how the low end is sculpted and how the midrange carries their vocals with a soft glow. Flip to Side B and the patient sequencing pays off, the cumulative mood doing more than any single peak would. If you are hunting Darkstar vinyl, Civic Jams is a sleeper that reveals its depth with repeat plays. It pairs nicely on the shelf with North and Foam Island, so if you buy Darkstar records online and want a full picture of their arc, this one completes the story so far. There are tidy pressings out there, and Civic Jams vinyl tends to reward systems that can render quiet dynamics well. For collectors building out a section of Darkstar albums on vinyl, it is the late-night record you’ll reach for more often than you expect.

Civic Jams didn’t arrive with fireworks, but it earned steady praise for its restraint and clarity, and that slow-burn reputation feels right. The songs avoid the obvious. The hooks are gentle, the textures calm and detailed, the pacing unhurried. It is a city album about small feelings that turn out not to be small at all. If you’re browsing a Melbourne record store or scrolling a shop that ships vinyl records Australia-wide, keep an eye out for it. This is the kind of Warp release that sneaks up on you years later and sounds even more vital, a postcard from a scene that survives in our heads, our streets, and our speakers.