· By Mattias Forsgren
A Paradise Dot - Latter Days Debut single released September 8th via Icons Creating Evil Art
As the frontman of the spiritually violent post-hardcore band Tengil, Sakarias Westman has released albums via Prophecy Productions, toured Japan, China and several laps around Europe. Now he is launching his solo project A Paradise Dot and in a new collaboration with Swedish alt-art connoisseurs Icons Creating Evil Art, he is getting ready to release his first album as a solo artist by introducing the single Latter Days.
Westman narrates : "The first single of the first A Paradise Dot album is a love and hate letter to the self destruction that gives our hearts passage forward through time. The first flame that lights the stars in an otherwise aphotic night… at a price of body, blood and soul.
It’s about the wretches playing god who in their refusal to pay this price instead leave a monster for us all at the end of the story, and the well meaning scholars who won’t take the final step into the light despite their creed of truth.
The song imagines that after the nuclear tempest, the AI, the wanton confusion, the good intentions a lone wanderer walks the wasteland, recanting a neo-classical tune he wrote as a way to remember the horror of knowing what was waiting but being powerless to stop it.
In hopes of finding a way to save it for a future generation he sings it to the wreckage of the monuments, the unmarked graves and the debris.
This final account of his civilization.
Right next to the brightest thing is the total annihilation of all we hold dear and when the night is black and seemingly endless we need an exit. Still it’s all for nothing if we go too close to the sun.
The story begins with a part of a vision of the end. The treasures and ecstasy we indulged and at the top of the world came with a price. It’s so much fun playing god but when we met the monster and the end of the dream none of us were ready to face it. And when you can’t pay it the debt you owe, it smiles as it breaks apart the very ground below our feet. Just as we had enjoyed picking apart atoms and stars, in fire our world was torn apart in an instant. I will never forget the screams as we all fell out of heaven, none of us knew - or at least had remembered how harm felt.
Not many survived that first day of the latter days. I think those who didn’t die from the wounds we’re unable to live with the realization of what they had done. I’m the only one left. I still dream of flowers as I wonder, - if i had gotten to the top before it all ended, would I have been able to stop it, or would I have failed in the same ways as everyone else did?"
A Paradise Dot was initiated in late 2019 and despite the pandemic, Sakarias managed to tour both Mexico and Europe. As the world reopened, some successful concerts have been held in Sweden, Denmark and at New Friends Fest in Canada.
The album is his own mix of Emo, Black Metal, Folk and Noiserock, where he by himself has written everything and plays all the instruments and a chorus of beautiful noise gathers around Sweden's best singing voice. The album is recorded at The End studios in Lund with mix and master by Ulf Blomberg.
The past years have been sprinkled with artist collaborations; Westman lent his voice to Respire's "Black Line", he released a song on Tokyo Jupiter's "Memories of a lost city" and appeared on Maulén's album "El Miedo De Amar Pero Igual Lo Hago". In May this year A Paradise Dot supported Liturgy on their show in Gothenburg.
Latter Days is released September 8th via Icons Creating Evil Art.