Dark Sky Society is a composition and recording project led by Vid Cousins and William Hesselink in collaboration with Ryhna Thompson, and is made up of 14 musicians and 5 filmmakers.

Dark Sky Society’s sprawling, nebulous, large-ensemble draws from its membership of mind-bending musicians and filmmakers and is fully-rooted in its iconic and adventurous, Montreal artistic heritage.

Beginning in 2018 with a pile of entangled compositional threads, over a period of six years William Hesselink and Vid Cousins enlisted the help of collaborators inside and outside the studio to develop and refine their statements and process. DSS calls on a number of talented Montreal collaborators from the musique actuelle, avant-rock and jazz scenes. They include members of well-known Quebec bands such as Bell Orchestre, Land of Kush, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Esmerine, Aaron Parks Little Big, Amon Tobin, Kid Koala and many others.

William Hesselink
Co-director, composer, band-leader, drumset, marimba, vibraphone

Vid Cousins
Co-director, composer, recording producer, pedal-steel, chapman stick, harp guitar

Ryhna Thompson
Producer & Manager

David Barlow-Krelina
2D / 3D / Dome film direction / animation

Cielle Graham
Hand-drawn / Digital illustration / animation

Tracy Maurice
Cinematography, Dark-Field Microscopy, Chemical macrophotography

Corinne Merrell
Miniatures

AJ Korkidakis
Videographer

Keiko Devaux
Piano

Nathan Gage
Contrabass

Jonah Fortune
Contrabass

Sarah Pagé
Harp, Bass Koto, Electronics