Darlingside

Darlingside first surfaced in 2012 as an indie folk outfit celebrated for intricate vocal blends and thoughtful lyrics, unveiling their richly textured debut Pilot Machines that same year. Composed entirely of string instrumentalists who fuse classical technique with folk and rock elements, the quartet swiftly gained notice for their energetic stage presence while sharpening a panoramic baroque-pop approach across later releases including the 2018 album Extralife and 2020’s Fish Pond Fish.

The four musicians—Don Mitchell, Auyon Mukharji, Harris Paseltiner, and David Senft—originally assembled in 2009 during their time as students at Williams College in Western Massachusetts. From their earliest performances they emphasized powerful group vocals, draping songs in sweeping, multi-voiced harmonies that prompted them to label their style “string rock.” After issuing a self-produced EP, they cultivated regional support through repeated New England appearances, then issued Pilot Machines as their first full-length record in 2012 before reducing the lineup to a drummer-free four-piece.

Reconfiguring their approach into a densely woven string-band format with clever pop sensibilities, the group aligned with Nashville-based Thirty Tigers and delivered their sophomore album Birds Say in 2015. The following year they put out the EP Whippoorwill: B-Sides from the Birds Say Recordings via More Doug Records, then rejoined Thirty Tigers for their next studio effort, Extralife. That project arrived in early 2018 and adopted a darker atmosphere shaped by political, social, and ecological concerns. Darlingside followed two years afterward with the pastoral Fish Pond Fish, drawing lyrical ideas from geology, meteorology, ornithology, astronomy, and botany.