Ascending Dawn with their melodic prog-metal design, is a project with members from across the globe, fronted by Greek/Cypriot singer Marlain Angelides.
Coalesce, Ascending Dawn’s first album – a collection of 9 tracks, was mixed and mastered by Jochem Jacobs (ex-Textures) at Split Second Sound. Jennifer Fletcher is featured on bass as a major contributor to the original sound.Now being released in late 2017, the band has garnered attention from fans and various music sites, with their heavy but ambient sound coupled with powerful vocals, being cited as ‘unusually slick’ for a debut album. This is probably due to that although AD is a new band, everyone is well seasoned in prior metal/rock projects, each with an intense history of its own.
In this interview spotlight, we speak with Ascending Dawn about the new project, influences, challenges and more.
Full Q&A along with links and streams below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
Ha! Have you got a long 10 mins? 😉 Marlain is Greek/Cypriot/British, a world traveler, having been brought up in Greece, Venezuela, Belgium,Cyprus and UK and now lives in NYC, spearheading the Ascending Dawn project. Owen Rees and Mark Weatherley are both based in the UK, near London, writing the instrumentation and producing from afar. Style wise we draw from quite a few genres and styles. I guess you could say we use conventional and odd rhythms coupled with ambient 7 string guitar sounds and fx, over heavy proggy almost djent riffs, some pop melody stylings in the vocal which then also grow to layered choral sounds. We are heavy music melody junkies. Every so often there is a slight world music ethnic element. We dont follow any of the genre rules really. And who wants to be labelled anyway right?
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to stay the course?
(Marlain): I guess the main reason is I had tried everything else somehow. Being trained in theater and a pro singer I started in a more commercial world. I did musicals, jazz, pop, rock, soul and even though I loved all the styles for what they had to offer nothing made my pulse run faster. When I heard the music Mark and Owen were producing I knew I had found my family. As a pro performer, in the singing, acting and voiceover world, one needs to find a creative outlet that motivated them. This industry is so hard to live in in general. So Ascending Dawn gives me the inspiration to create and stay alive in this arena. It is also a way to channel all those wishes and idealism!
How is your new release different than previous ones? Did you set out to accomplish anything specific?
‘Coalesce’ is our debut album of 9 full tracks, mixed and mastered by Jochem Jacobs (ex Textures) in Amsterdam. Strangely we feel we found our sound pretty much straight away. Maybe its because of our individual failed previous projects, who knows? But we did set out to have our own sound and we are happy we found it. We are actually in preproduction for our next EP currently with some additions to our sound so we are excited about that…but first things first…we want people to hear us and get to know us for who we are in ‘Coalesce’.
Do you face any challenges as an indie musician in a digital age? On the flip side, how has technology helped you?
I believe the challenges we face are individual generally. So much of oneself can either help or hinder one’s progress. I could probably easily list the usual challenges, but I think the most relevant in 2017 would be – getting your audience’s attention. People’s attention is a commodity now. Access to this seems like a complicated maze. On the flip side without technology, Ascending Dawn would not exist. We met online and we built the sound online. So thank goodness for that.
Where can we follow you online and hear more music?
We will be releasing two more singles with respective lyric videos before the album ‘Coalesce’ is released on 12/01/2017. Currently we have our first single ‘ALL IN NOW’ out on all digital platforms, to be followed by ‘CANNONBALL’ in October.
