Darshan

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Darshan

Darshan was the pioneering dark goa trance duo started in the middle of nineties, consisting of Grant Collins and Mark Robinson. This is one of the most esoteric, obscure and peculiar goa trance groups ever existed. Unlike most of other goa/psychedelic trance artist of that era, Darshan provide unique dark and spacey vibes, full of energy with their tracks. They released a number of EPs, two albums and were featured on various compilations throughout the years.
Sadly, after the millennium the project started its gradual evanescence and since 2002 has had no more output, so project called «Darshan» has virtually disappeared from the scene.

However, in the early 2008 in some compilation called «Echo» appeared a track called «Darshan and Hopi - Freefall». A revive of good old Darshan, you ask? Well, so to speak. To be fair, it wasn’t bad at all, at least if you don’t look back to their dark goa past. Or his past… because only Grant Collins was credited on that track, without Mark Robinson. But if you try to compare it with the former work of the guys, you’d possibly be a bit disappointed, even though, as I said above, generally it isn’t bad.

But the last and the most interesting thing for all the Darshan fans, who - like me - were guessing as to where this project has actually gone will be glad to hear that the driving force is still there. The place to be is [myspace]/skeinmusic. A new(!) project by Grant Collins and… Loren Warn (according to the myspace page, a pianist and vocalist) called Skein started up. Of course, it’s no longer goa, nor even psytrance (and thankfully, not its commercial forms ) - it’s progressive breakbeat with peculiar darkish ‘Darshan’ feel you will certainly recognize; it’s absolutely worth checking and hearing, mainly if you respect the man, that has been standing behind Darshan like a decade ago.

To sum things up… Well, quite obviously, Darshan won’t make a comeback, but it’s in no way about its driving force - Grant Collins. Those ones who respected his work in the past should definitely check out his present work. It really *is* worth checking out. There’s just one thing which is sad - there’s no any info regarding Mark Robinson, the second half of Darshan. The weird thing perhaps is that he’s not even been mentioned on Skein myspace page with mention of Darshan, which was a collaboration project.