Revel in New York
A look at the city through its people
Dark Day
Name: Dark Day
Genre: USA
Dark Day is the minimal electronics brainchild of Robin Crutchfield following his separation with No Wave band DNA. Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, Crutchfield was fascinated with both performance art and the most esoteric edge of pop music. After making his escape to New York City in the mid-seventies, he presented several noteworthy performance pieces at the New York Avant Garde Festival, Stefan Eins’ 3 Mercer Street Store and Artists’ Space.
Inspired by Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band and Lydia Lunch’s Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, he made the transition into the new music of downtown Manhattan and formed the “no wave” band DNA with Arto Lindsay and Ikue Mori in 1977. This lineup recorded a single and 4 tracks with Brian Eno for the seminal “No New York” album.
In 1979 Crutchfield left DNA to pursue a series of musical projects under the name Dark Day. The first Dark Day single, “Hands In The Dark/Invisible Man” on the Lust/Unlust label, featured Robin’s singing and modified electric piano backed by Nina Canal (of the Gynecologists and more recently, Ut) and Nancy Arlen (of Mars).
By the time of Dark Day’s first album, “Exterminating Angel” (Lust/Unlust, 1980), the group consisted of Robin, Phil Kline, Barry Friar and a revolving lineup of artists which included Steven Brown and Peter Principle of Tuxedomoon, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, Nina Canal and David Rosenbloom.
SOURCE: Last.fm
Robin Crutchfield moved to New York in the mid 1970s. He was an original member of the seminal No Wave band DNA with Arto Lindsay and Ikue Mori. He played keyboards in the first version of the band until leaving to form his own group in 1979. His band, Dark Day, explored wide varieties of keyboard and synthesizer textures and went through several lineup changes. Towards the end of the band's existence, Crutchfield explored a style somewhat reminiscent of European medieval and baroque music.
Crutchfield resumed Dark Day as a solo act in the late 1990s, returning to a familiar electronic sound but with a noticeable natural progression. The albums that followed saw his music turn away from the cold synthesizer textures he'd become known for.
In early 2002, after a twenty year hiatus, Crutchfield resumed both painting and writing. His work centered around fairy tales and his music changed to reflect this. By the summer of 2002, Crutchfield had exhibited both his new images and words at a gallery show and furthered his explorations musically.
In 2008, Marc Masters, a contributing writer for The Wire magazine, published his book, entitled No Wave. The book, which as its name implies, focuses solely on the No Wave scene, features many sections on both DNA and Dark Day, as well as performance and promotional photographs of Crutchfield from that time period.
In late 2009 Robin worked with noted independent label Important Records to release his fourth CD of harp/drone folk music entitled The Hidden Folk, which has received rave reviews from both critics and fellow contemporaries such as Kurt Weisman, and Thurston Moore.
