The aim of Bris­tol-based, New York-bred Angéli­ca Allen is to craft dreamy yet dance­able Avant-Pop with her project MyMid­night­Heart – and with new work called “Anew” she most def­i­nite­ly suc­ceeds, com­bin­ing ethe­re­al har­monies, hyp­not­ic drums, and sur­re­al sound­scapes. Her work is mul­ti-lay­ered, send­ing lis­ten­ers into a calm­ing and dreamy space.

Angéli­ca retreat­ed from per­form­ing to focus on music pro­duc­tion and sound design to be able to ful­ly con­trol her sound along its jour­ney from con­cep­tion to com­ple­tion. Explor­ing var­i­ous expres­sions of her art while the world tum­bled into chaos dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, Angéli­ca cul­ti­vat­ed a sin­gu­lar and sacred son­ic space through her music pro­duc­tion which evolved into a mul­ti-sen­so­ry pre­sen­ta­tion of her work. 

Each forth­com­ing release will be offered in mul­ti­ple for­mats includ­ing remix­es, visu­als, and a vari­ety of phys­i­cal and sen­so­ry offer­ings that the lis­ten­er can expe­ri­ence both from home and through inti­mate per­for­mances. These care­ful­ly craft­ed instal­la­tions blur the line between dig­i­tal and organ­ic, view­er and per­former, art and wellness.

The first install­ment is “anew,” a track writ­ten when Angéli­ca was preg­nant with her sec­ond child and griev­ing the woman she had fought to become. The song­writer con­fides, “Four years after my daughter’s birth I had only just begun to feel like myself again. My brain, my body, my blood final­ly felt like they belonged to me. I decid­ed it would be my year. My moment. But when I real­ized I was preg­nant with my son, I knew I would have to start the jour­ney all over again.” 

“anew” speaks about how preg­nan­cy and ear­ly-moth­er­hood requires an ego-death. It is a com­plete­ly devo­tion­al prac­tice; sac­ri­fic­ing all of your­self for the sur­vival and hap­pi­ness of some­one else. Angéli­ca con­tin­ues, “I strug­gled so much reclaim­ing my iden­ti­ty with my first­born, I wrote this song want­i­ng to allow myself to enter a spec­u­la­tive space where I gave of myself eas­i­ly… Open­ing to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of being alchem­ized in the process.” 

Accom­pa­ny­ing “anew” is a new series of mod­ern med­i­ta­tive prac­tices that Angéli­ca has cre­at­ed called My Mid­night Rites. These mul­ti-sen­so­ry in-home rit­u­als are aimed to com­ple­ment, inten­si­fy and com­plete­ly tran­scend the tra­di­tion­al lis­ten­ing experience.

My Mid­night Rites can be pur­chased through the My Mid­night Heart web­site and through Spotify’s merch integration.