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John Bence employs music as a tangible expression of the immaterial. The British composer’s visceral and spiritual sound world probes the metaphysical. Raised in Bristol’s burgeoning underground electronic music scene and a graduate of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, John Bence manages to employ compositional complexity to manifest potent emotions. Gregorian chant, orchestral arrangements, rippling synthesizers and field recordings are equally at home in his music. Bence’s acclaimed early works focused on the human experience, charting the composer’s own experiences with addiction and alcoholism in both stark minimalism and caustic noise eruptions. Written two years into his recovery, Archangels finds the composer casting his gaze heavenward, sculpting radiant soundscapes that offer a glimpse of the divine.

Bence comes fully into his own as a composer on Archangels, deftly threading together gauzy electronic atmospheres, brooding orchestral passages and minimalist piano meditations; revealing new surprises at every twist and turn. Bence’s composing follows his daily meditation and prayer – creative and spiritual practice woven so tightly that the two became inseparable. Bence transmutes complex theological and philosophical concepts into something tangible and immediate. Rather than ascribing to any one religion or philosophical viewpoint, the composer juxtaposes myriad concepts as he does sonic elements to reveal new insights, crafting a new sonic language to articulate the inexplicable. Archangels’ opening track “Psalm 34:4” evokes “The Fool” tarot card and its promise of opportunity and new beginnings, finding the composer standing at the edge of the next phase of his life post-recovery and stepping off and into the unknown. “Metatron: Archangel of Kether” and “Gabriel: Archangel of Yesod” both draw inspiration from Damien Echols’ Angels and Archange.......
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