Premiere: Monsters & Miracles bleeds out with self-titled manifesto starring Candence Xyz
EDM producer chronicles his own aesthetic and truth with a self-titled song.
The kinds of relationships and friendships that suck us dry yet reinvigorate are bones keep our lives peeking just over the edge, an abyss swirling in stormy blackness below. We keep crawling back, our knees bloodied by rock and coated in dirt, and no matter how much we fight it, the web is too enticing to resist. Shifting from his rock background to a career in medicine, pop mastermind Jon Dray Lee finds a flourishing new pursuit as Monsters & Miracles, an iteration that lurches between grimy dive-bar club music and chewy bubblegum. His new single is a self-titled manifesto, premiering today, that juggles a relationship’s many dueling contrasts beneath synth-y starbursts and cosmic tail ends.
“Dancing all over your parallels / Want heaven and I want your hell / I’m in prison and in paradise / Even though our love was born to die,” sings vocalist and collaborator Candence Xyz, curving her voice around such juxtapositions that’ll make your head implode. But even with such a clearly-defined, tangible toxicity, it’s a black hole of lustful desires that twist and ripple the skin. “Setting fires / Pretty lies / Didn’t come with a warning / But I love what you’ve done / ‘Cuz you’re all that I’m wanting,” she cascades through a flush of intensely provocative emotions, mimicking the production’s slick swagger and dips. Also pairing with up and coming LA producer Killian Cruiser, Lee sculpts your typically angsty glitter-driver into an evocative, body-waving setpiece.
On the song, Lee writes to B-Sides & Badlands over email, detailing its year-long history, ” I wrote the song this time last year and about released it with a male vocalist. I don’t know. Something just made me put it on the shelf and revisit at some point in the future,” he says. “I revisited last month and decided to start from scratch. Also I decided to work with Killian Cruiser. I thought he did an amazing job. He even helped me find the perfect vocalist who I thought really took the song to a new level.”
With an arsenal of ’70s and ’80s horror and exploration films on Blu-ray, Lee doesn’t lack any sources of inspiration, and his burgeoning catalog of adaptations is unwavering hooking. “Monsters & Miracles” leans into the starry, sci-fi textures, zooming across a midnight blanket and penetrating into unknown territory, while also remaining a universally-accessible radio track. “Want the good the bad and in between / Every part of you and everything,” heaves Candence, a motion to let it all go, as her thoughts escape in each silky sigh.
Listen below:
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