Saint Daniel's Alchemy of love is taught in his new album

UK's and Europe’s best-selling LGBTQ+ publication magazine has repeatedly made room for him, accurately calling him a 'Rising Star'. Saint Daniel combines the insistent and energetic rhythms of Electronic Dance Music with deeper melodic overtones flirting with Euro and Synthpop modes in order to hit both the body's compulsion to dance and the mind's need for deeply emotional connections.

Saint Daniel's repertoire is rich and delightfully complex, an auditory stimulant keen on making you either introspective or blissful -or both simultaneously- and his latest outing is a thoroughly inspired example of that.

“All That Is Profane Becomes Sacred Again” is Saint Daniel's debut long format, yet it feels more like his 3rd album by now in terms of refinement and quality. Talk about starting out firmly! "All That Is Profane..." is not necessarily a conceptual piece, all of its songs are tied together by common themes with an overarching purpose, a poetic philosophy that it wishes to boldly proselytize to its listeners and beyond. 

Inspired by "The Alchemy of Love" by renowned 13th Century Persian poet Rumi, Daniel made the phrase “All That Is Profane Becomes Sacred Again" the centerpiece of his debut album in order to exemplify the wondrous and transformative properties of love, a force capable of turning even the lowliest thing into something precious. The record presents a blend of genres which includes deep, melodic, and Latin house, a variety of trap and trip-hop influenced beats, all fused with pop.

“All evils transform into goodness. All opposites unite. All that is profane becomes sacred again.”

The record is decidedly romantic, but it is rather subtle about it, choosing a metaphorical language over a more direct approach, though certainly not lacking in any genuine sincerity nor going off the rails with purple prose. Each song walks us through a different facet of romantic love, such as "Love of My Life", about rekindling the flame of a once-lost love. "Culture Shock" is about the earth-shaking feeling of the physicalities of romance and the bodily presence of the subject of your affection, meanwhile songs like "Ménage a Trois" experiment on how self-love enters the equation in a relationship, and how it can be "a form of polyamory within oneself" - a curious way of looking at a relationship, but someone who brings so many new horizons together in their music like Saint Daniel, has certainly earned their unique perspective.

All in all, the album ties beautiful meditative vocals with club-ready rhythms that captivate and elicit all sorts of very vibrant feelings and emotions. Do not miss this one out, there's hardly anything like it out there!

meet the author

Samuel Aponte is Venezuelan-born raised and based.

I joined Rival Magazine after a few years of doing PR work for independent musicians of all stripes; understanding their struggles to be heard in a sea of constant  ADHD noise and paywalled access to platforms, I now bring a willingness to always appreciate and encourage the effort and creativity that artists put into their work . Can also find some of my writings on LADYGUNN and We Found New Music.