Black Wing

Dan Barrett, the man behind Connecticut-based Have a Nice Life, Giles Corey, Enemies List and countless other endeavors, has announced the first proper full-length from his digital-only solo project, Black Wing. Titled Is Doomed, this seven-song album is available courtesy of The Flenser label.  
The majority of the tracks on Is Doomed are brand new, although the release boasts a mastered version of the widely circulated song “My Body Betrayed Me,” which has been available on Bandcamp and made waves immediately upon upload. The Chicago Reader described the track as combining “a stark, mechanized post-punk beat, gentle shoegaze guitar hum, feathery ascending synths and Barrett’s cool, multi-tracked vocals into an uplifting, celestial tune that belies its heart-wrenching and bleak lyrics; even as he sings about dying Barrett manages to sound just a little bit blissful.” 
Like all of Barrett’s projects, Black Wing was self-recorded at home, but this process was a bit different for him. At the time, Barrett was having some health problems—the first serious health issues he’d ever had—and was “surrounded by all sorts of machines, lots of beeps and boops and what have you. I had a heart monitor strapped to my chest for a month. I was dripping a lot of blood all over the place. It was all very undramatic and fleshly and strange. I didn’t know what to make of any of it. Meanwhile, it was a beautiful, hot summer, sun everywhere. So I decided to just go ahead and make a depressive chillwave record—basically, music to listen to in the car with the windows down while feeling slightly melancholy and distracted.”  
The resulting seven tracks are gloomy yet uplifting, heavy while ambient, overwhelming yet alluring, resulting in one of the most remarkable electronic releases of 2015. 
 
“Those familiar with Barrett’s previous projects will feel instantly at home; the bleak, body-horror lyrics rub shoulders with gorgeous melodies at once depressing and vaguely uplifting.” —The Quietus  
“Barrett has combined his penchant for somber and expansive songwriting with textures of the digital. Black Wing’s Is Doomed is if Ian Curtis lived in a cyberpunk alternate reality. Each track finds emotion packed away into the waves and tones of electronics, making the project stand right at home with the rest of his output.” —Vice / Noisey