Darkstar - ＂Stoke the Fire＂

What this video is

Released October 2015 alongside Darkstar's third album 'Foam Island' on Warp Records, 'Stoke the Fire' is embedded within a specific socio-political moment: David Cameron's re-elected Conservative government and its ongoing austerity programme, which fell heavily on post-industrial northern English communities. Darkstar — the duo of Aiden Whalley and James Young — recorded the album in Slaithwaite, West Yorkshire,…

Why it matters

Represents a key artefact in the post-dubstep / art-electronica lineage emerging from Warp and Hyperdub in the 2010s, wherein electronic artists adopted documentary and socially engaged visual strategies previously associated with British social realist cinema (Ken Loach tradition). The video's…

The director

Cieron Magnat is a Hackney-based UK filmmaker and music video director known for combining street-level documentary sensibility with VCR-inflected aesthetics. Associated with projects including ISYS and T-Shirt Party, his work is characterised by community…