Tonight in Indio, California, Matteo Milleri—the Italian-American DJ and producer better known as Anyma—debuts ÆDEN, his ambitious new audiovisual project, on Coachella’s main stage. His headlining performance, set to be reprised next Friday, marks the start of a major world tour, leaping from Shanghai to Brussels, Ibiza, London, and beyond, before concluding at Paris La Défense Arena in December. It’s all heady, exciting fare for fans of the fizzy textures and throbbings beats that define Anyma’s most beloved tracks.
Before all that, however, he joined forces with another agenda-setting global superstar, Lisa, to release the dance floor–ready single “Bad Angel” this past Wednesday. Already streamed more than six million times across Spotify and YouTube, the track arrived alongside a mind-bending video. In it, Lisa—sporting a white bodysuit and long, ashen tresses—transforms into Beatrix, an alter ego that is part human, part angel, and seemingly part android, existing in a dazzling liminal space between classical antiquity and a futuristic dystopia. (Aesthetically and conceptually, per Anyma, the world of ÆDEN reconciles the fantasy of a “digital afterlife” in which “human-uploaded intelligences and artificial intelligences try to find a point of coexistence” with the loose structure of Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia.)
“When you first showed me the visual of this character, I loved it,” Lisa enthuses in an exclusive interview with Anyma. “I didn’t even want to add any input on it because [it was] already perfect and on point. The concept and the song just felt so good.”
Needless to say, fans are already clamoring for a live performance of the song—something Anyma can certainly appreciate. In his work, as in Lisa’s, music, stagecraft, and world-building are all rolled into one Gesamtkunstwerk. “It’s not just music, what you do; it’s music, visuals, and performance at the highest level,” he says, addressing Lisa. “Everything is crafted to perfection… and you need dedication, stubbornness, and really to focus to make this stuff like you do it.”
Watch his conversation with Lisa—covering their first meetings at Coachella and in Ibiza, the points of connection between their creative paths, and the graphic T-shirt that helped inspire “Bad Angel”—below… and we’ll meet you on the YouTube livestream of Anyma’s main stage set in a few hours.
