Astro-Darien

by Kode9

supported by

Lord Dubious Sonically and thematically rich stuff!

more...

Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
A ten Inch record in a triple gatefold sleeve, coloured vinyl.
Strictly limited to 500 only
Artwork by Optigram & Lawrence Lek

Includes unlimited streaming of Astro-Darien via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 5 days

Purchasable with gift card

£32.99 GBP or more
Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

£8 GBP or more

	1.	Astro-Darien PT 1 13:08
	2.	Astro-Darien PT 2 12:33

about

Triple Gatefold – Single Vinyl 10” / Download
Release Date: 11th November
Astro-Darien is a 26-minute sonic fiction about the break-up of Britain narrated by synthetic Scottish voices and framed as an eponymous video game. It is the 2nd vinyl release on Hyperdub’s sub-label Flatlines and its dark green 10” comes packaged in a triple gatefold sleeve, with artwork by Kode9’s long time collaborators Lawrence Lek & Optigram. Whereas the first release on the label, Mark Fisher and Justin Barton’s ‘On Vanishing Land’, wove an audio essay around a walk along the South East Coast of England, Astro-Darien takes off from a road trip along the North Coast of Scotland.

From a Caledonian heart of darkness to a supernova Scotia? The documentary fiction spirals between the role of the catastrophic Darien Scheme in the late 17th century in the founding of the UK, when Scotland failed to colonise part of present-day Panama, and the contemporary disintegration of the union.

In a somewhat wild extrapolation of the race to become the Scotland’s first vertical satellite launch station currently playing out between Sutherland Space Port and the Shetland Space Centre, independence is speculatively framed as an exercise of escapology, a jailbreak and exodus to an orbital space habitat, with all the risks and dangers that entails.

The loose plot follows a game designer from a fictional games company called "Trancestar North" who, in attempting to lift the dark spell cast by Darien, models a counter-future by ingestingcosmism, the history of racial capitalism and the demise of Empire into T-Divine, the geopolitics simulator of the game engine. She follows the Brexit algorithm as it runs to its logical conclusion.

Initially conceived as an audio essay for diffusion on François Bayle’s 50 speaker Acousmonium for INA-GRM in Paris in March 2020, but subsequently postponed by the pandemic, Astro-Darien first surfaced as a 3-screen a/v installation on the dance floor of Corsica Studios in June 2021. In October 2021 it finally reached the acousmonium in Paris. In July 2022, an instrumental, rhythmic version entitled Escapology was released on Hyperdub. A live A/V set relating to the
Astro-Darien game universe will debut at Unsound Festival in October 2022.

credits

released November 11, 2022

Artwork by Lawrence Lek & Optigram

(Download comes with artwork PDF)

license

about

Kode9 London, UK

kode9.com

contact / help

Contact Kode9

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Kode9, you may also like:

ANTIDAWN EP
by Burial

supported by 36 fans who also own “Astro-Darien”

How hard it is to find the right words to describe this EP. The layers of daily sounds in every song, the free-form of raw emotion and pure vulnerability “Antidawn” and “New Love” give creates such nostalgic feelings which somehow give life to active memories. But then glitchy, strange disorientated noises make you feel as if you are fever dreaming. It comforts me and embraces me in ways no other music has done before. I have been so mesmerized by Burial’s music, this one I hold dearly. sul1i
go to album
Streetlands
by Burial

supported by 31 fans who also own “Astro-Darien”

Lonely but warm... loving embrace from a distance .. Thanks so much for putting these tracks up!! bogbogbogbog
go to album
The Bug Ft Dis Fig, In Blue
by the bug, dis fig

supported by 20 fans who also own “Astro-Darien”

There's something about this track that I just love! Karl Meentalo
go to album
Oito [CD & Digital]
by Octa Push

featured on Bandcamp Radio Jul 2, 2013
go to album
I'll Wait, I Guess
by Hyroglifics

A scorcher! Dubstep, drum & bass and more get thrown into the shredder on this album, and the results are delightfully defiant. Bandcamp New & Notable Jul 10, 2023
go to album
Connecta
by Swindle

featured on Bandcamp Radio Aug 2, 2016
go to album
Infirmary / Unknown Summer
by Kode9 / Burial

supported by 20 fans who also own “Astro-Darien”

Beautiful and complex sickb90
go to album