BEHIND THE
MUSIC

DARK MATTERS is a musician, singer and composer based in Florence, Italy. The meaning behind his artistic name, refers to reshaping our lives from a past in which dark events occurred. Dark patches helped form our personalities, even if we tried to erase them. If we accept our darkness, then we are able to find the colors and nuances we embody: that is why dark matters. Feeling lost, sorrowful, empty or drowned in angst, these can be some of the dark matters that we can come across along our paths. They can be means of becoming better versions of ourselves.

 

Dark Matters’ past has been characterized by episodes of violence, as well as suffering from panic attacks. But thanks to the music that he wanted to create and share with other people, he never stopped believing in himself. He decided that his main goal as a musician was to talk about his dark matters and to let others find the inspiration and courage necessary to forgive and move forward, even stronger than before.

 

All of this is expressed through Art Pop / Rock songs, with a sort of darkness-turned-beautiful sound, which take their hue from a wide variety of music including pop, electronic, cinematic, jazz and classical music: indeed, his main influences are Radiohead, Stevie Wonder, Pink Floyd, Billie Eilish, Ryuichi Sakamoto, György Ligeti, Bernard Herrmann, Leyland Kirby and many more.

 

Dark Matters (Gianmarco Contini) started making music at the age of 5, assembling loops in DAWs and writing short pieces for drums. Over the last years he has studied classical composition at the Florence Conservatory and started working in the cinematic industry as a composer and  orchestrator. His major awards are the 1st prizes in international composition competitions including “Mariani-Pratella 2020” and “Stresa XXXVIII 2021”, as well as 1st prize and 2nd prize in two Italian composition competitions (“Insieme 2022” and “50 anni del Conservatorio”).