Felix Laband - Dark Days Exit (Extended Version) (2026)

Felix Laband's highly acclaimed electronica masterpiece album "Dark Days Exit" (2005) is now available as an Extended Version 2LP vinyl. Originally planned for last year's 20th anniversary, this special edition features a new design by Felix Laband and includes a double-sided DIN A2 art print. Dark Days Exit features four exclusive tracks, alongside five vinyl-only tracks available for the first time in their original long versions.

Listening to the key track, Sleeping Household, on Dark Days Exit is unsettling: like being an impostor rambling around an uncanny house, a Lynchian leitmotif in the form of a young girl divulging secrets that you probably shouldn't hear. Dark Days Exit is an album that paints an interior landscape, an invitation to transgress private thresholds.

Made with old-school production tools that require hands-on application, Dark Days Exit is a sound-production tour de force. The music is as wide as the savannah and microscopic at the same time, a lesson in what can be achieved when 'music' is placed on an equal footing with sound as a phenomenon, by an artist who decides to apply themselves without reserve. The masterful manipulation of reverb and delays and hyper-detail was a generation ahead of its time, and Dark Days Exit is preferred by audiophiles for testing their systems.

Dark Days Exit is intimate, demanding, and a masterclass in tension, and Laband's ability to use all sound without hierarchy to paint a detailed personal vision — one that is less overtly political and streetwise than on subsequent albums — is unsurpassed.

Most discerning listeners are into music because, in the hands of a master, it can manipulate our mood and transport us. Felix Laband opens with a sonic portrait of spring happiness and gradually dismantles the atmosphere in front of our ears, as epitomised by the haunting track Black Shoes. No sooner are we afraid than the artist drops us off where we started.

In many ways, the intimacy derives from the tight group of friends and believers whom Laband corralled as contributors: Mark van Niekerk (xylophone, "Miss Teardrop"), Jane Rademeyer (clarinet, "Black Shoes," "Radio Right Now"), Brendon Bussy (mandolin, "Black Shoes"), and Derek Gripper (sampled violin, used throughout) and Alex van Heerden on Minka.

The difficulty in categorising Dark Days Exit is probably due to Laband listening mostly to ambient and classical music at the time, and consequently registering the album at the lush, cinematic end of the electronic spectrum. There is poise and restraint in the spare use of beats, and when they do appear, they hit hard.

Forged in the optimistic post-apartheid years, Dark Days Exit is music about life and death, spanning hope, despair, terror, tension, with humour and empathy.

Twenty one years on, the album's gravity endures, due to its almost perverse authenticity, its timeless themes of hope and despair, and its apex level of technical mastery.

The additional, immaculately produced tracks add new rooms to the uncanny house we are invited into.

Quotes:

“Dark Days Exit is an interesting blend of latin, ambient, folk, and lounge flavors. The production and composition is top notch throughout, but check the choppy clicks of "Crooked Breath" or the eerie, melodic "Radio Right Now" for signs of true inspiration. A talent to watch.” XLR8R

"It has the dark sparkle of Air`s `Moon Safari`, random trippy flashes of Pink Floyd´s earlier sounds, and if David Lynch had based `Twin Peaks` in Cape Town´s City Bowl, then this would work as the soundtrack." SA Rockdigest

“An insane swirling ambient dub glitch freak show.“ Dazed & Confused Magazine

“Sometimes dark and sinister, always a little melancholy, infused with a retro hipness that is entirely cocktail inspring. Felix´s greatest quality must be his use of space – the music breathes with space around the beats, fresh fresh fresh. Infinitely listenable, espacially outdoors.“ World Online

"An album that will bewilder due to weird electronic nature, but by the same token has the power to melt the soul. Mindblowing." Jon Freer

“Laband´s superbly-layerd, multi-tiered soundscapes are tantalizingly tranquil and intriguingly unique – they amble like ambient and slip into the bloodstream like liquid LSD.“ rage.co.za

"An inspired and deep album of esoteric kindness and warm technology. Had a very sensual evening with this record." Peter Kruder

"`Miss Teardrop`is a sublime brill supertune....sneaking carefully into your ears and remaining there for a long long time, excellent!" Richard Dorfmeister

"Stunning album!" Laurent Garnier

"The soundtrack for sensitive people's lifes - very recommendable." Martin Gretschmann (NOTWIST / CONSOLE)

“The new album takes Felix's music deeper than before. 'Whistling in Tongues' is a hypnotic tune perfect for late-night driving“ Ennio Styles

“...if you have too less money to travel to South Africa, no problem, just listen to “Dark Days Exit“ and close your eyes...“ Nat Queen Cool / Sounds Good Inc.

“Kraftwerks´s AUTOBAHN might have been a prelude but this is the omega! Fur sure!” Helene Ramos Galagarza