7 fans
Miraclis - 'Origin of Truth' is OUT!
Serendipity seems to play a large part in Crosstown Rebels’ new label Secret Teachings. The first release on the label, Music Inspired By The Film Beijing Spring, came about after the legendary producer, DJ, and label founder Damian Lazarus met director Andy Cohen in a nightclub in Geneva. The story of how Lazarus met Miraclis is even more extraordinary – involving a chance midnight encounter in Pucón in Chile at a woodland campfire after the DJ was locked out of his hotel room. This meeting of minds was the start of a remarkable friendship. Miraclis invited the DJ to stay at his house and break bread with his family, and the two kept in touch, exchanging music and ideas. (It also involves a bear rug, but that’s a story for another day…)
Miraclis earned his stripes as a DJ under the name Max Clementi in his native Chile as well as Spain after a stint at the Barcelona SAE Institute. He had been playing and writing music since his parents gave him his first guitar at age twelve, and found himself inspired by synth wave, electronic pop, trip hop, and psychedelic rock of the ‘80s and ‘90s, drenching himself in music by the likes of Massive Attack, Tricky, Depeche Mode, and Nine Inch Nails. However, it wasn’t until he had to move back to Pucón to take care of his father during the pandemic that he began working on what would become Origin of Truth in earnest.
During the summer Pucón is a popular holiday destination, filled with tourists enjoying outdoor activities at the foot of the Villarrica volcano. During the winter, however, it’s a different story. “In winter it can be a sad and melancholic place, with winds of up to 120 km/hour,” Miraclis says. “It was cold. It was raining a lot. And with my father being high risk, I didn’t get to see a lot of people for months. I turned to writing music, and the desolate landscapes and social isolation formed a really strong inspiration for the album.”
Taking lyrics from poets such as Shakespeare, Sara Teasdale, John McCrae, and the Cuban national hero and poet José Martí, the songs all have a common theme of death and transformation. “Writing lyrics isn’t my strong suit, and for some of the tracks I have used translations of old poems. I am heavily influenced by poets like Edgar Allen Poe (for me he’s the king), and I also read William Blake, Frost, among others.” However it’s not all melancholy on this album. Miraclis found a new side of life and a deeper connection with his inner self thanks to his period of reflection and solitude. The bass-heavy drone-like soundscapes across the album combined with lyrics inspired by gothic and Elizabethan poetry give Origin of Truth a truly meditative quality.
This quality could also be inspired by his time working at the Corporates, one of Santiago’s primary cultural institutes that houses exhibits by world class artists such as Ai Wei Wei and Anish Kapoor as well as orchestral performances by the London Symphony orchestra and Simon Rattle. “When I worked there, I could position myself anywhere in the building, and I would love being on top of the orchestra so I could feel all the vibrations. I think subconsciously I’ve tried to bring those vibrations back into the album. I love the sound of the double bass. The sound they produce – to me, it’s perfect. I just love those frequencies, you know?”
It's this meditative quality that initially drew Damian Lazarus to the project. “It’s a record that has its roots in electronic music, but it’s a very alternative, very deep, melancholic album. I find it both soothing and stirring at the same time, and that’s a quite interesting juxtaposition in that it feels edgy but delicious at the same time,” says Lazarus. “The fact that this was written in this place surrounded by the most incredible desert landscapes makes this a very important piece of work to me. It doesn’t sit in any particular genre, which is why it feels right for a Secret Teachings release. It hints at so many genres that I as a DJ am quite into, and it feels like a first as it’s unique and unclassifiable. That mystical, esoteric, edgy feel makes this a perfect release for the label.”
