The Precious Dark by David Helpling & Eric "the" Taylor
Release date: April 25, 2025Label: Spotted Peccary Music
The under-watery effects with its electro vibrations, ethereal guitar arrangements, and analog synths, sets up the moody landscapes David Helping and Eric “the” Taylor have done to create The Precious Dark. A collaboration that is new, California-based David Helping had learned to use his guitar by experimenting with effects, sound, processors, and illusion as a young teen.
He wanted to use his instrument, followed by the synths and percussion work, into the background. And an eccentric vision with sonic escapades, followed by this vibrant soundtrack atmosphere. New York-based Eric “the” Taylor originally started out in the alternative music scene in Upstate NY back in the early ‘90s. As soon as electronic drums set to dwell in for him, he started to use synths and studio techniques to create his own arrangements.
He went to Woodstock, NY and studied music theory from Jerry Marotta (Peter Gabriel, Robert Fripp, and David Sylvian of Japan) and The Fixx’s Rupert Greenall. The trio would later form The Fragile Fate who unleashed their debut album on the Carpe Sonum label Lilliam Ocean ten years ago on Trey Gunn’s record label 7d Media. For a collaboration between Taylor and Helping, that’s what Marlon Brando would say in the 1972 classic of The Godfather, “an offer you can’t refuse”.
Listening to The Precious Dark, it evokes the mystery, the surrealism, and floating across our galaxy in which Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarre had endured listeners to float beyond space and time many years ago. Everything has that click Taylor and Helping have endured to bring the cosmic voyage upon our shoulders.
‘Cavernous Heart’ endures the soft, gentle lullaby and guitar vibes, Popol Vuh-like settings from the Aguirre sessions, and the space between the loss of losing someone as they fade off into the night while ‘Her Endless Cold Embrace’ swirls into this dark-blue analog in its intensive environment. Here, the duo is imagining themselves writing this composition for an episode of the cult-classic animated series Aeon Flux in 1995 when MTV was cool back in the day.
I wouldn’t compare it to the other legions of the German scene of the 1970s because that would be too much of a cop-out, but Taylor and Helping have brought enough tails of a strong meditated guidance in which is needed to modulate, create, and adding in a spiritual resurrection to travel and see who you really are. But listening to this album, I do feel as I’ve mentioned a moment ago, this is the duo’s alternate soundtrack to Aeon Flux as we know it.
From the guitars, synthesisers, the visual of cinema in its IMAX form is here. This isn’t just an album that needs to be played in the dark, it’s an album in which both Helping and Taylor have put together something hospitable and something more dreamlike. A refuge to a psychological multiverse that’s preparing for the journey that awaits you.
