(Credit: Darkstar)

Darkstar, the electronic music duo made up of James Young and Aiden Whalley, have announced their return with the first new album in five years.

Civic Jams, due for release on June 19 through Warp Records, comes alongside the the album lead single ‘Jam’.

Speaking about the song, the duo said: “Jam is like a peripheral two step banger. Like if you were listening to your neighbour playing tunes through the wall or a car sped past and the bass reverberated out,” in a statement.

Darkstar added: “It’s built with all those classic two step presets from an altern8 sample pack we found online. The organ bass is too tempting and satisfying not to use and with Jam we were able to link it in nicely. We called it Jam cos it’s a Jam duh.”

Given the timing of the album, the band said if its inspiration: “This was all planned to go out into a world that wasn’t going through a pandemic. We don’t know what we feel about releasing music in this climate to be frank. Everything we tried to touch on with regards to tangible space and shared moments on the record seems like we were concerned about a luxury we didn’t know could be reduced further.

“With everyone going through isolation in one form or another it certainly asks the question of what people can do to help each other. We made a record and if even just a small number of people can take comfort in it it’s more than done its job.”

Stream ‘Jam’, below.