Darlingside

Darlingside is a four-person indie folk band from Boston, MA. The band consists of , , , and . Their style has been described as “exquisitely-arranged, literary-minded, baroque folk-pop” by All Songs Considered.^[1] Their latest full-length album, Fish Pond Fish, was released in October 2020.

History[]

Darlingside began as a five-piece touring Indie rock band in the fall of 2009. Members (Sam, Don, Auyon, Harris, and David) met as undergraduates while attending Williams College in Williamstown, MA.^[2] A previous iteration of the band existed while they were students and included as many as seven members (other members were Eli Walker, , and ).

In 2010, the band went on their first national tour and released a self-produced six-track studio EP, EP 1. They released their debut full-length album, Pilot Machines, in 2012, which was recorded and co-produced by Nathaniel Kunkel (who has worked with Sting, Lyle Lovett, Graham Nash).^[3] Writing about Pilot Machines, David Fricke of Rolling Stone praises the band as having “a rich line in acoustic textures and chamber-rock dynamics.”^[4]

After Kapala's departure from the band in 2013, Darlingside moved toward a traditional bluegrass set-up (notable because they do not play bluegrass) with all four remaining musicians clustered around a single condenser microphone. Following additional national tours translating their indie-rock songs into quartet arrangements, Darlingside released their second full-length album, Birds Say in September 2015. After headlining across New England on a regional release tour, they further promoted the album on a national tour supporting Grammy Award-winner Patty Griffin at sold-out venues such as the Ryman and Fillmore theaters.^[5] Birds Say received critical acclaim from NPR (“exquisitely-arranged, literary-minded, baroque folk-pop”),^[6] Rolling Stone (“A ‘must-see’ act...locomotive folk-pop confections so richly executed it's hard to tell if it's one voice or 12”),^[7] and The New Yorker (“Sometimes the sunshine breaks out in their harmonies and it feels like 1965 with David Crosby and the Byrds”).^[8]

In 2016, Folk Alliance International named Darlingside “Artist of the Year.”^[9] In October of the same year, Darlingside released its second EP, Whippoorwill. In 2018 the band performed at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival.^[10]

Band Name[]

The band's name originates from a songwriting class taken by the band members at Williams College. The course instructor, , quoted British writer Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in teaching the class to “kill your darlings.” Lewis applied this philosophy to songwriting, wherein a favorite line, lick, or riff (“a darling”) might compromise the balance and arc of the song as a whole. The name “Darlingside” is an homage to “killing one’s darlings.” It is spelled with an “s” instead of a “c” (like regicide, fratricide, or homicide) because the band felt the “s” is easier on the eye.^[11]

Discography[]

• EP 1 (2010)
• Pilot Machines (2012)
• Woodstock (with Heather Maloney) (2014)
• Birds Say (2015)
• Whippoorwill (2016)
• Extralife (2018)
• Look Up & Fly Away (2019)
• Instrumentals Vol. 1 (2020)
• Fish Pond Fish (2020)

References[]

External links[]

• Official website
• Official Youtube Channel
• Official Vimeo Channel
• Twitter
• Instagram