Les Voyages de l'Âme
| Les Voyages de l'Âme | ||||
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| Studio album by Alcest | ||||
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Publication |
January 6, 2012 |
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| Label (s) | Prophecy Productions | |||
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Format (s) |
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Title (number) |
8th |
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running time |
50 min 23 sec |
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| occupation |
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Martin "MK" Koller |
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Studio (s) |
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Les Voyages de l'Âme ( French for "The Journeys of the Soul" ) is the name of the third studio album by the French Blackgaze band Alcest , which was released on January 6, 2012 via Prophecy Productions .
The work contains eight titles and has a total length of 50 minutes and 23 seconds. Martin "MK" Koller, who recorded the album in the Klangschmiede Studio E in Mellrichstadt, was responsible as the producer .
The English-language trade press received mostly positive reviews of Les Voyages de l'Âme , including the New York Times , Allmusic and Pitchfork Media . At Metacritic , the album achieved a score of 82 percent based on a total of ten reviews, which means that the album can achieve worldwide success.
Backstory
The album was produced in the Klangschmiede Studio E in Mellrichstadt by Martin "MK" Koller. Furthermore, showed Markus Stock , who with The Vision Bleak and Empyrium worked, and Mr. Zort of Anorexia Nervosa in the production process responsible. Zort mixed and mastered the album in the Drudenhaus studio in Limoges .
To Autre Temps , the album's opener; a music video was released, which is called a short film. For this a script was written and actors were hired.
Album cover
The album cover shows a peacock walking through a gate. According to Neige, the peacock feathers have something elegant about them and go well with the music of Alcest. The colors of the feathers also have, according to the singer, “something otherworldly about them.” The gate represents the entrance to this otherworld; the light that shines out of the gate comes from this dreamlike dimension. The cover was designed by Fursy Teyssier .
music
The music on Les Voyages de l'Âme is described as “slow, beautiful and extremely fine metal ”, which is paired with “grandiose, distorted guitar playing and cathedral-like clear vocals, as long as Neige does not use his biting screaming vocals.” There are elements of Black Metal , combined with shoegazing melodies, ambient soundscapes and post-rock , which is described as a fusion of music on the two previous albums Souvenirs d'un autre monde and Écailles de Lune .
Neige itself rejects comparisons with Black Metal:
“Alcest have been compared to black metal so many times, I have nothing to do with black metal. It is not correct to label me as black metal because I did a few screams. There is nothing in my music about about hate or angriness. "
“Alcest has been compared to Black Metal so many times that I have nothing to do with Black Metal. It is not correct to label myself Black Metal just because I used a few screams . My music has nothing to do with hatred or anger . "
In contrast, Neige said the album was a continuation of the journey into the Otherworld that he saw in vision as a child and an attempt to discover that esoteric experience. While working on the texts, he dealt a lot with asterisks and read stories from other people who also had an out-of-body experience with the Otherworld, which also inspired him.
Neige said he was inspired on this album by artists such as Yann Tiersen , Dead Can Dance , Summoning and Burzum . Many pieces by Alcest do without lyrics, including the piece Beings of Light . Instead, he sings in this song in a purely onomatopoeic fantasy language. The musician saw himself influenced by Sigur Rós , Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins . The singer is impressed by the singer of the latter group, who gradually creates her own language from initially understandable words.
As on the previous Alcest publications, all texts are in French , with a few song titles published in English . According to Neige, this was only the case because the names of these songs sound "stupid" in his native language.
Track list
All lyrics were written by Neige . The text for the fourth track on the album, Nous Sommes l'Émeraude , is in the original version by the Belgian poet Charles Van Lerberghe (* 1861, † 1907). The music was composed entirely by Neige.
| # | title | composer | length | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Autre Temps (Another Time) | Running out | 5:50 | |
| 2. | Là Où Naissent les Couleurs Nouvelles ("Where the new colors are born") | Running out | 8:50 | |
| 3. | Les Voyages de l'Âme ("The journeys of the soul") | Running out | 6:56 | |
| 4th | Nous Sommes l'Émeraude ("We are the emerald") | Original text: Charles Van Lerberghe | 4:20 | |
| 5. | Beings of Light ("essence of light") | Running out | 6:11 | |
| 6th | Faiseurs de Mondes (" Creators of the Worlds") | Running out | 7:57 | |
| 7th | Havens ("harbor") | Running out | 2:10 | |
| 8th. | Summer's Glory (" Summer's Glory ") | Running out | 8:04 |
promotion
Two days before the official release of the album, it was possible to stream the entire work in advance on the Internet. A month earlier, a music video for the song Autre Temps was released, directed by Neige in person alongside Julien Marie.
Alcest spent 2012 mainly touring to promote the album. The band played in several countries in Europe at the beginning of the year , while concerts were played in Japan for the first time in September .
Reviews
At Metacritic , the work received a rating of 82 percent based on ten reviews from the English-language trade press. This value in the scale means that the album was perceived as very successful. The album was largely perceived positively by the trade press: This is how the Canadian Exclaim! that the album delivered everything that fans expected from Alcest. This is the mixture of trembling beauty and a touch of vitality and wanderlust. Thom Jurek from Allmusic wrote that the album was a musical combination of the band's first two works, as a musical evolution. He is of the opinion that this is absolutely okay, since this mixture is quite successful. The critic also praised the improved production compared to previous works. At Pitchfork Media it is said that one cannot deny the beauty, although it comes across as strangely calm or not very surprising. However, the reviewer wrote that Les Voyages de l'Âme was the most accomplished work to date. He mentions the pieces Beings of Light and Faiseurs de Mondes as musical highlights . Ben Ratliff was of the opinion that not all songs knew how to convince, but he praised the piece Beings of Light and said that Enya could sound like this if she played Black Metal.
Les Voyages de l'Âme was also received largely positively in the German-language press . Only a few critics did not like the release, like Niklas Baschek from Plattentests.de , who did not like the first half of the album. Only in Faiseurs de Mondes and Summer's Glory was the merging of “Black Metal-Gebolze with the melancholy of Shoegaze ” successful. Jan Wischkowski from the online music portal Metal.de sums up that Alcest managed to sound like themselves, but without copying. He describes the music as casual, passionate and individual. Wischkowski writes that fans, who would have liked the first two albums, could take this album to their hearts after a while. However, the album needs several runs to be able to ignite. According to Julian Rohrer, reviewer at Powermetal.de , Les Voyages de l'Âme offers wonderful moments, describing the vocals in the song Beings of Light as elf-like female vocals or the “great melodies” and harmonies of the title song. According to Rohrer, they have the strength to make you forget the sadness and problems of everyday life. In summary, he states that Alcest "makes feeling easier again." Michael Edele from Laut.de writes that the atmospheric melodies in the interplay of Neige's fragile and calm voice make the album a spherical, melancholy experience. According to Thomas Patsch from Stormbringer.at , Les Voyages de l'Âme is not an album for everyone's mood; If the mood is right, the album is "atmospherically dense and wonderfully beautiful in its relaxed sublimity."
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c According to the insert
- ↑ Steve C: Kill Your Stereo : Alcest | Interviews
- ↑ Jan Fischer: Legacy : Alcest ( Memento of the original from September 2, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Meredith Schmiedeskamp: Rock Hard : French sounds stupid ( Memento of the original from September 2, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ A b Ben Ratliff: New York Times : Alcest - Les Voyages de l'Âme criticism
- ↑ a b Thom Jurek: Allmusic : Alcest - Les Voyages de l'Âme criticism
- ↑ Natalie Zina Walschots: Exclaim! : Alcest
- ↑ a b c Rock Edition : Interview with Alcest
- ↑ Robert Müller: Metal Hammer : Alcest Interview: Introverted Globetrotters , excerpt from the interview published in issue 02/12
- ^ No Clean Singing : Stream The New Alcest Album
- ↑ Bravewords.com : ALCEST Announce Tour Dates For Japan
- ↑ Brooklyn Vegan : "Alcest streaming Les Voyages De L'Âme in full, playing Public Assembly (with DJ BBG)"
- ↑ Natalie Zina Walschots: Exclaim! : Alcest - Les Voyages de l'Âme review
- ^ Pitchfork Media : Alcest - Les Voyages de l'Âme review
- ↑ Niklas Baschek: Plattentests.de : Alcest - Les Voyages de l'Âme criticism
- ↑ Jan Wischkowski: Metal.de : Alcest - Les Voyages de l'Âme criticism
- ^ Julian Rohrer: Powermetal.de : Alcest - Les Voyages de l'Âme criticism
- ↑ Michael Edele: Laut.de : Alcest - Les Voyages de l'Âme criticism
- ↑ Thomas Patsch: Stormbringer.at : Alcest - Les Voyages de l'Âme criticism
