„I think of this record as taking place at night, in contrast to the daytime setting of Home Time. This is an album about empty dance floors, lacklustre parties and lonely night buses home.“ The record is entirely electronic and recorded on Darren’s collection of ’70s synthesisers. „These instruments themselves are very fragile and mortal, they corrode and decay and behave in erratic ways. They do however, remain alive, for now.“
Darren is the only musician on the album and the music conforms to a strict set of self-imposed rules; only one voice, only 12 tracks, only one polyphonic instrument. ̈Through this control and limited palette I found new melodies and structures. I wanted these old machines to guide me towards my most human record. ̈
‚A Real Human Being‘ is inspired by Darren’s experience of life drawing. „Modern life encourages us to reduce people to images, jokes, memes. In life drawing, you’re treating the person as a form, watching where the light and shadows fall, and then you’re reminded that they are real, alive.“