Out Now
Words by Kris Peters
Names can often be misleading.
Just take music project The Angel Affair for example and hit play.
Heck, just read the press release for the bands latest EP Def-Eye: The Renaissance Part 1 and you will discover a world void of angelic creatures, replaced instead by a bleak dystopian future overwhelmed by the battle between man and machine.
This EP is the first of a mooted four-part series of releases, so rather than get too ahead of ourselves and the plot line let’s just hit play instead and live for the now.
Why rush into a future that sounds so uninviting?
The first track, simply titled intro, sets the tone from the outset with a stripped-back and expansive piece of music with a monologue drawl encouraging you to defy anything and everything within close proximity.
And then, as quickly as it began the track is over amid a stuttering haze of static that opens up the doorway to Connection.
This track more resembles the sonic structure defined by conventional music, but still skips along at a dreamy, almost hypnotic pace that is sent veering sporadically in different directions by deft musical touches that resonate without dominating.
The brainchild of Luke Melton – who performed all instrumentalization and mixing and mastering on the EP – The Angel Affair paints a brooding musical landscape from which resistance seems futile.
This Machine delivers the first surprise with a beautifully orchestrated piano intro that must surely paint a contrasting world of hope where previously there had been none.
Then suddenly the piano fades and we are led into an eclectic world of heaviness that dances haphazardly between light and shade before settling somewhere in between.
There is a hell of a lot going on here which demands repeat listenings and I get the feeling I am just scratching the surface of Melton’s vision on the first take.
This track ebbs and flows at a frenetic pace, a whirlwind of sounds and emotions that hint at an uneasy uprising within the dystopian landscape. But you get the impression good is definitely starting to triumph over evil!
This is by far the longest track on the EP and needs to be to sustain the violent and alternating sonic disparities. It’s dead-set exhausting, yet strangely satisfying.
Release wanders into life amid subtle chanting and an Egyptian-sounding instrument that could be a sitar, but I am probably completely off the mark.
Whatever it is it makes for another interesting segue into more diverse musical territory that romps along with greater urgency.
Despite this, the track is still an unnervingly edgy slab of music that threatens to explode at any given moment. There’s quite a few different instruments at play here that sound like they don’t even belong in the same room together but once more Melton somehow manages to intertwine the contrasting tools of music into something resembling a controlled train wreck – albeit one with an awesome soundtrack.
Three of the four tracks bar the intro have been released as singles with accompanying videos – all shot and edited by Melton – so from here I plan to revisit the whole album with visuals and see if I slip further into the dystopian rabbit hole.
With one part down and three to go the fun is only just beginning…
