Highly productive, Dark Supreme continues to display his melancholy, rage and love of cinema through tracks that draw on a whole range of musical genres (post-punk, industrial rock, darkwave, etc.). Recently, he has not only opened up his little world to other artists (Ailise Blake, Dzeta and Synthamour have contributed to his latest singles), but has also leaned towards more progressive and complex tracks. The EP Soundtrack for a Dying World confirms these recent trends: Joss Wayne works with Christian Gonzales, alias Grosso Gadgetto, a jack-of-all-trades who we already encountered alongside Loki Lonestar last year.
This new EP stands out from Down the Drain, released in early 2024, offering a much more uniform whole and more tortuous, complex tracks. Dark Supreme abandons its angry outbursts and desperate cries in favour of compositions closer to atmospheric post-rock than the post-punk/darksynth/industrial mix of the previous EP. However, the melancholic and cinephile DNA is still very much present, and once again the samples serve as a narrative thread: the twilight and pessimistic spleen of Thomas Ligotti, who inspired the first season of True Detective, is embodied here by both the cold, nocturnal atmosphere and the voices of Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey.
Cinematic post-rock: we know the association and the clichés that go with it, its alternation between bright moments and more earthy parts, and the introspection that goes with it. Fear not, Dark Supreme flirts with it but avoids its clichés and has not lost its deviant identity, as the gloomy synths that haunt the EP, sinister extensions of Claudio Simonetti's experiments, give it a giallo-esque tone that is both flamboyant and gothic (All I Do Now is Hope, a dark, surreal dreamlike delirium with its distant chant, is perhaps the most ‘supremely dark’ moment on the EP). Furthermore, it's quite refreshing to see that for Dark Supreme, cinephilia isn't just a matter of ghosts from the past: of course, he quotes Argento and other illustrious predecessors, but the samples on this EP come from works that are at most a decade old. We encounter the disturbing and little-known The Evil Within with good old Michael Berryman, as well as Pearl and Mia Goth's torments in Don't Forget to Live Your Life As Well, a creepy electronic conclusion with a spectral violin whose intensity only swells. Beyond the playful aspect for easter-eggs hunters, their judicious use brings an extra dimension to the compositions through the questions and sufferings of the actors invoked.
We've already seen Dark Supreme more passionate, theatrical and funny in his own way. Lately, the artist's music seems to have been overtaken by a pessimism devoid of irony, which translates into both a new form of sobriety and a deeper, more nuanced sound. In Dark Supreme, Joss Wayne has found a laboratory in which to experiment with his malaise and doubts, a monstrous sandbox that Soundtrack for a Dying World now represents. At almost half an hour long, this generous EP contains enough darkness to prolong the flavour of winter nights.
