The music of London’s Sun Angels is pure transcendence. Their signature synth arpeggios and orchestral trance build-ups rain down like the nectar of the Gods, nourishing our depraved souls. Although little is known of the auteur responsible for these divine creations, there is much to be said of the mythos behind Sun Angels.
Following last year’s wholesome Hemma EP, Sun Angels return with a new EP entitled PALESTRA, to be released Dec. 4 on Lyxliv. The inspiration for this release is unlike anything typically outlined in a press release and yet, it makes total sense considering Sun Angels’ cryptic yet sincere spirit. As they explain, “the concept for the EP came about last year when I started watching DJ sets from psytrance festivals. I liked that there was a whole ecosystem of apparently big name DJ’s playing high-production-value festivals in mysterious locations, yet never piercing the veil to the mainstream.”
With PALESTRA, Sun Angels tell the story of a secret compound in Abruzzo where male models and female pole vaulters are trained in ancient combat. Cut off from the modern world, they train to the sounds of organic psy-trance, romantic hardstyle and 90’s techno pop sensation Antiloop, all psycho-acoustically engineered to promote peak physical performance.
This is the bizarre back-drop by which PALESTRA is presented to us, the succinct 3-tracker invoking visions of chiselled subjects moving in lock-step to venerated dance beats. Lead single “Gazelle” opens the album with cinematic strings that unravel into an Antiloop vocal sample and jubilant cascading synth melodies. As a 4/4 beat falls into place, fantasies of utopic dance music futures flash before the mind’s eye.
In Sun Angels’ vision, this future is one in which dance music is a purified form of worship, devoid of hedonistic submission. As they tell it:
“PALESTRA imagines a world where dance music is taken back by an elite force of beautiful warriors. They will reclaim Berghain and fabric, kicking out the ghouls and making them safe spaces for handsome yuppie bodybuilders in Brooks Brothers suits to dance and flirt with Dutch rollerskater cuties. They will repurpose the London Nightingale hospital into a night club where Zyzzian demi-gods and Rachel Cook-tier models are packed together like sardines. They will storm the beaches of Ibiza and make it into the first beach party military state, populated by Texan high school quarterbacks and Italian ballerinas.”