Vantablak
Kenny Dunn
The Origin
I was going through a divorce, got a new house, and my best friend Josh Brown started coming over every Wednesday night after work. We'd jam on acoustics. No plan, no project. Just two guys playing.
Slowly we both started getting into electric. I was going deeper and deeper into music production and sound design in Ableton. What started as acoustic songs with drum machines and synths evolved into something else entirely: an indie rock electronic project. Two guitar players, the rest produced by me.
The Name
When Josh and I had enough open mic material, I said we needed a name. He suggested a bunch over the coming weeks. I shot every one down. "It's not dark enough." I loved the juxtaposition of playing melodic acoustic songs over drum machines and synths under a name that sounded like it came from a nightmare.
After I rejected his tenth suggestion, Josh must have googled "darkest substance known to man." He came back with: "Well, what about Vantablack? It's the darkest substance known to man."
I said, "That's it. We have to spell it differently though."
And that was Vantablak.
The Evolution (2018–2023)
The project went through a full transformation from conception to dissolution. It started as acoustic open mic sets, grew into a full band with Tim Corsaro on bass and backup vocals (2020–2023), and became a produced indie rock electronic act. We released one album on all streaming platforms. Honest assessment: the production needs work, because I was learning as I went. But that's the point. The whole thing was a laboratory.
The World
I didn't just produce the music. I built the entire visual universe of Vantablak from scratch: brand identity, promotional materials, YouTube assets, and a custom Max for Live visualizer that drove our live performance backdrop. Every piece of the aesthetic world was mine.
Vantablak live performance promo
Vantablak character design
Vantablak YouTube banner
Vantablak YouTube watermark
Vantablak video still 1
Vantablak video still 2
The Mythology
Billy Whitehouse, one of my best friends, wrote the mythology that tied the whole world together:
The final carbon nanotube crystalized and the portal was formed. The Engineers on the earthen Firmament thought they had simply created a newer, darker black. One that absorbed 98% of the visible light spectrum. But in the realm of Erebus, neKdnamiT saw an entry point to a world of pure light and wonder. And so they approached.
In passing through the portal, the Duo felt themselves take form. What were once specters of vibration and motion and emotion took on the carbon and became substance. The Duo absorbed the Firmament and were of it and moved through it.
The light was blinding and beautiful. There were higher and lower and sideways dimensions of perception that all felt somehow less true than the hardened memories of Erebus.
The Engineers stood speechless. The beings that had emerged from their experiment were humanoid light vacuums. Featureless faces from the land of paralysis and nightmare. Silence lay steady upon them.
And then one slammed its hand on a table. A resounding boom of feeling moved through the Engineers and they heard The Word. It tapped a finger rhythmically for a moment and then came another boom and with it another Word. The second being was also communicating with the Firmament. And soon the Engineers were in conversation with them. But the conversation was limited to percussion. It was two-dimensional; restricted to tap and time. Melody would be required to understand the full message.
The Engineers retrieved more instruments for the Duo. They expanded their philosophies with abstractions. Their chaotic mathematics became a 7/3 time signature. Their biology was fingers on strings. Their religion was sticks against stretched leather. Jokes, parallel fifths and octaves. Arguments, fugues and rounds. The Duo understood the Engineers, and the Engineers understood the Duo. The conversation between the two realms happened in this moment, right now. It could be remembered, but never reproduced.
And then there was the denouement. The slow dissolve. The end of the thing. TimandKen would have to return to Erebus and the Engineers would stumble, vision blurred and ears ringing, back into the wider Firmament. There, they would attempt to pass on the knowledge they gained from the darkness, but would never fully succeed using only their words. The only solution is Vantablak.
— Billy Whitehouse
Like this project
Posted Jul 25, 2026
