a path, a way to talk to strangers
avoid this constant fear of danger
tortured poets and staving artists
turn their backs aghast comfort in the arms of loneliness
In the half-light between night’s exhaustion and morning’s mercy, The Mystic Underground find their pulse. Darkness Hides at Dawn, out via Re:Mission Entertainment, is more than just a song; it is an act of reckoning, a mirror held to the tender self that survives each sleepless hour.
For over a decade, Vladimir Valette and Benedetto Socci have haunted New York’s synthpop catacombs, their music an elegant balancing act between bruised optimism and metropolitan despair. Here, that duality burns brighter than ever. Valette’s voice carries the quiet ache of a man both confessing and consoling; something in its phrasing recalls Andy Bell’s melodic vulnerability, or Neil Tennant’s cool ache. He sings not toward the heavens but across a crowded room at closing time, a plea for recognition from whoever’s left still dancing.
The lyrics reflect a reckoning with exhaustion, fate, and self-doubt. They trace the collapse of luck, debts coming due, and the sense of being hunted by consequences. Yet amid fear, alienation, and artistic struggle, there’s a flicker of resolve; a belief that redemption or purpose may still emerge from loneliness, even as time slips away.
“‘Darkness is a track that came together pretty quickly,” says Valette. “An arresting melody cloaking a lyric revolving around the idea of escaping the mental prison we often put ourselves in. Shackled by self-doubt and regret, only to remember you are someone worthy of love. Most importantly, self-love. Something I believe we universally grapple with often in our lives.”
It’s a sentiment that feels almost too fragile to stand, but Socci’s immaculate production builds a cathedral around it: ascending synth lines, heartbeat percussion, and a glacial clarity that refuses sentimentality.
Darkness Hides at Dawn holds its power in restraint. The duo resists the temptation to chase nostalgia or irony. Instead, they inhabit a space where melancholy and momentum coexist; a philosophy inherited from The Smiths’ doomed disco, Pet Shop Boys’ urban poetics, and Boy Harsher’s mechanized romance. The track’s chorus doesn’t so much explode as expand, blooming slowly in the blue hour before the city wakes. It is a dance song for people who no longer believe in salvation but keep moving anyway.
To listen is to stand on the platform of a sleepless subway station, neon flickering, wind rising from the tunnel. Somewhere far below, the beat approaches. When it arrives, it doesn’t offer deliverance, only the rhythm by which to endure. In this way, The Mystic Underground remind us that the truest dance music has always been about survival. Even when the night seems endless, even when hope feels like fiction, the pulse continues. Life, as Valette once put it, set to a dance beat.
The accompanying video for Darkness Hides at Dawn, directed by William Murray, unfolds like a dream shot through a monochrome lens: poignant, intimate, and steeped in 1980s sincerity. Stylized portraits of the duo move in slow motion, faces half-lit, emotions suspended between vulnerability and poise. Every frame feels like a fleeting confession: fragile, honest, and utterly human.
Watch the video Darkness Hides at Dawn below:
Listen to Darkness Hides At Dawn below and order the single here.
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