Introduction
Wings Of An Angel – In This Morbid Dream…
Artist: Wings Of An Angel
Title / Release Page: In This Morbid Dream, I Had A Direct Encounter With A Slow Motion Dissolution Into Nonexistence
Release Date: 2014 Dec 01
Genre: Ambient / Drone
License: CC BY-NC-ND
Media: MP3/ OGG / FLAC
Pricing: Name Your Price
Label: Self Release / BandCamp
Rating: ★★★★★★★★
Wings of an Angel In This Morbid Dream is a poetic narrative of life at night time when all the things that make up our being drift off into nothingness. It’s that time where we are faced with realization that it could all end in an eternal dissolve. In other words, happy, cheerful thoughts from this poetic drone master.
Wings Of An Angel In This Morbid Dream
Okay, so was joking about the “happy, cheerful thoughts” from Wings of An Angel. There is little that you will find on this release. It’s mostly a dark to neutral series of tonal drone compositions that are rendered with a scope that is symphonic, and the attention to detail that a poet gives his works.
When I wrote about The Year I Tried To Kill My Love I started by comparing his work to that of Debussy:
Instead of a cold, atonal series of tones arranged into some form of pattern this recording starts with a lush and rich tonal cluster reminiscent of Debussy style chromaticism with abstracted impressionist elements.
So, I hoped I had a feeling that I knew what to expect with this recording. And I was right, similar chromaticism and tonal clusters are used as the basis for the works on this release. However, beyond that similarity there are major differences to be heard throughout this work.
This is a work about abstract feelings and detachment. It’s about the place that you find yourself in when all of the trappings of the world around you dissolve into nothing. It’s about the raw feeling of helplessness that can take over, and the acceptance that there is an inevitable conclusion, even if you don’t know what it is.
Felix Kaplan (aka Wings Of An Angel) has taken these feelings and placed them in the setting that we can most relate to them: in the middle of the night:
On that unforgettable night, I had slept maniacally and dreamed that I am no longer myself; I was dying slowly, slowly, like winter’s lazy snowflakes. In that morbid dream, I had encountered a slow motion dissolution into irreversible nonexistence.
This puts the listener in a setting where anything can happen, including death, depression, or numerous other forms of malaise. And, within this setting, he brings us the tension and dynamics as waves of emotions wash through and over us, until we reach the point of acceptance. A somber experience that leaves the listener little energy, except perchance to sleep.
I find Felix’s abilities to translate the abstract and poetic into pure tonality. It’s as if he’s tapped into a part of himself as a painter might leave a bit of his own blood on the canvas as he paints, or the sculptor that has de-formed hands from the contortions required to form the shapes within his work. I know of few artists that let themselves bleed into their works the way Felix does, and uses his blood to affect our lives on such a deep level.
Conclusion
Again, another deeply affecting and moving work from Wings Of An Angel. He has once again taken the abstract, and seemingly scary things that can be most disturbing to us and turned them into an experience. It’s an experience that at once engulfs the listener, and leaves them in a place where he or she is better for having gone through it. Just stunning on so many levels.
