It is a privilege to have one of our favorite underground legends back at the blog, Innocent Darkness. Coming out of the mysterious lands of Ekeren, Belgium, this amazing artist has become an absolute force of nature in the world of electronic music and creates music with such artistic excellence that he is miles ahead of all the others. To all of us, especially me, who were absolutely entranced by his prior EP, “Dominion of the Stars”, this is not just a fantastic beginning but a timeless classic that immediately found itself a permanent place right atop my own playlist, where it remains even now. And here he goes, yet again demonstrating that there are truly no limits to his creative power; Innocent Darkness comes back once more with another one of his artistic masterpieces, “Dark Fungus”, released on April 11th. Let me show you through this incredible EP and into the world of darkness and magic of a man at the absolute height of his powers.
With a captivating “gravitational pull” via sound, the track “Trance (Witch House)” by The Infected opens its EP with sounds that don’t just amount to noise but include a pitch-shifted, reversed vocal sample playing within an immense and cavernous hall of digital reverberation with a low-pass filter sweeping across a deep, detuned synth pad. As the building atmospheric tension reaches a point of almost being unsustainable, a crisp, down-pitched snare snap and a hefty, sidechain sub bass pulsing rhythm drop into place, immersing the listener into an endless groove. Instrumentally, Innocent Darkness creates this wordless track using breathtakingly precise technique, utilizing staccato trap hi-hat triplets and razor-sharp saw leads in juxtaposition with an ocean of fat, juicy sub-bass frequencies. Glitched synth hits move across the stereo field like electric pulses, using only pitch modulation and frequency modulation techniques to gain momentum. For the listener, the effect is visceral and immediate, putting one into an extremely trance-like state of mind in which all external sounds are stripped away for sheer blissful electronic euphoria.
As we dig further down, “The Mycelial Call (Witch House)” starts off with a very delicate and clean-sounding synth pluck played through a dotted eighth tape delay, underneath which lies a faint low-end throb and a subtle vinyl hiss. A harshly distorted synth stab sounds out abruptly in the stereo space, immediately followed by a hard-hitting kick drum and a dry clapping sound, establishing a high-energy tempo for the song. Musically, the song is highly dynamic, with lead arpeggiating synths weaving above dense bass sounds, along with metallic percussion hits and side-chain compression. As a result of incorporating dynamic melody textures and atmospheric sound design elements, the song creates a thick electronic canopy of layers. The effect created on the listener is highly immersive as they become drawn into the underground soundscape.
The opening track of Witch House, The Last Rave (Of the Living) [Witch House], signals an increase in the energy levels with a muted and low-passed beat of a kick drum as if the sound is being heard from behind a concrete wall, along with the distant and ambient sounds of synthesizers. Abruptly, the frequency filter opens up, resulting in the explosive sounds of full-frequency electronic beats accompanied by a sharp razorsaw synth melody. The instrumentation is fierce, unforgiving, and perfectly balanced, featuring kick drums that pound, snare fills that snap, and synth melodies that soar, all of which cut sharply through the thick production. With the use of polyrhythms and sidechain compression, Innocent Darkness maintains an intensity that is absolutely insane. The result is an adrenaline rush of pure music, giving the listener an intense musical thrill that can simply not be ignored, just like music at a rave
Ending the EP on a meditative note, Spores Of War (Drone Wave) opens with a monolithic sub-frequency drone augmented by slowly sweeping feedback harmonics as well as panning white-noise effects imitating the wind blowing across an open field. Ridding the track of any form of drum patterns, the music focuses on building up the density of sound via the expansion of frequencies. The sense of music comes from the slowly moving analog synth swells, the pitch-bent drones, and tape saturation producing a massive wall of sound. Lacking any vocal or percussion hits, the effect on the listener is overwhelming and meditative.
Built in the haven of his private studio space, this extraordinary album reveals a horrifyingly frightening world in which the last stand of a civilization in conflict against the forces of fungal warfare is the eternal Witch House rave, an idea that has been brought to terrifying life with astonishing sonic accuracy. Innocent Darkness does not simply create electronic music; he builds living myth from voltage and synthesis. Within the very core of this grim world is the main piece, “The Mycelial Call,” an exceptional work that successfully demonstrates just what makes this artist so unique, namely a special ability to transform abstract existential terror into something that moves you physically and becomes a part of your body. Created within the depths of the electronic world with the utmost care and dedication to hardware construction and pure creativity, this EP represents a perfect example of what can be achieved through artistic vision free from any kind of commercial considerations. The Innocent Darkness EP is another proof that pure artistry is always superior to any kind of empty popularity.
With his latest EP, “Dark Fungus”, Innocent Darkness has provided a gut-wrenching dive into the depths of conceptually insane brilliance. As a perfect “soundtrack to the slow, rhythmic death of a civilization,” Dark Fungus is an EP that pulls us into a world where the electronic soundscapes no longer serve just as music but as the act of survival itself. The thing that makes this album so irresistible is not only its intensity but the passion behind it, expressed so clearly by the artist himself: “damn this was fun to make!” Being able to witness the artistic vision of Innocent Darkness again, it becomes quite obvious that he is definitely not some sort of fleeting moment or just a one-hit wonder but rather a very deliberate and careful artist who controls his craft with true artistic prowess. Dark Fungus is a perfect example of the work of an artist who has absolute creative freedom, and I am absolutely in awe of his talent, and I look forward to hearing more of his music.
Stream the “Dark Fungus” EP on Spotify
Follow Innocent Darkness here
- LIFTING AS WE CLIMB: WHY MICHAEL ALLEN’S LATEST SINGLE “COME ALONG FOR THE RIDE” IS THE MUSIC THE WORLD NEEDS RIGHT NOW - 25 September 2026
- PURE ANTHEMIC MAGIC: KELLY GRAHAM PROVES HE’S BORN FOR SUPERSTARDOM ON ‘RIDE WITH ME’ - 25 September 2026
- MASTERING THE CONTRAST: WHY WELTSCHMERZ ’S ‘REFUGIUM’ IS A MUST-LISTEN INSTRUMENTAL JOURNEY - 25 September 2026
