A SCENE IN RETROSPECT: Alcest – “Écailles De Lune”

‘Essentially, Écailles De Lune walked so that Neige could float down a river of autumn leaves doing his best Mena Suvari from American Beauty impression on Les Voyages de l’Âme.‘

Release date: March 26, 2010 | Prophecy Productions | Instagram | Website | YouTube

Black metal and shoegaze walk into a bar. A French musician looks and them and thinks: ‘I ship it.‘ And that, kids, is how we got blackgaze. Sounds made up, mainly because it is. Still, we have a single French metalhead to thank for the creation of this unlikely pairing of musical styles: Neige, mainly know as the mastermind behind blackgaze pioneers Alcest. Their sophomore release Écailles De Lune is where he first distilled that particular concoction to near-perfect harmony.

I am a firm believer that anyone can get into any kind of music (or food, hobby, innocuous niche interest, you name it). All it takes (mostly) is trying to keep an open mind as much as one can and to dig just a little bit beyond the surface. Understandably, many people are resistant to the mere thought of stepping outside their own comfort zone, but only by welcoming these novel and/or initially uncomfortable experiences do we truly broaden our horizons as individuals. I’m fully convinced that those who genuinely try to consistently push themselves out of their bubbles will get the most out of life.

There will be times in which having an open mind may not be enough, as no matter how hard you try to force yourself to get into something, you’re just not able to force a flower to bloom. All it ends up boiling down to is ‘real life RNG’, or rather stumbling upon by pure chance the perfect (for you) ‘gateway’ to get into whatever it is that you want to get into. For me, getting into black metal (and black metal-adjacent music) was just something I couldn’t make happen and that wasn’t for the want of trying. As much as I forced myself to listen to all the ‘classics’ and critically acclaimed records, it just wouldn’t click with me, yet I kept trying on and off; sunk cost fallacy much? Don’t worry, it eventually paid off.

One day, I got a random Youtube link to check out from a close friend and it was to an Alcest track (“Kodama” specifically, after having just released), an artist I had yet to hear of at the time. It was something as simple as a quick passive sharing of a song through a messaging platform that unknowingly would have such a profound impact on my music taste from that day onwards. That track alone blew my mind at first listen (as did the album), and I immediately worked from the beginning of Alcest’s catalogue and naturally came upon Écailles De Lune, only to be bewildered even more. Little did I know it at the time, but Alcest would finally unlock the door to black metal, but also to a wealth of adjacent music that I never imagined myself appreciating.

After finally having gone through Écailles De Lune (and other Alcest works), I felt something metaphorically fall into place. The first few listens of Écailles De Lune in particular left me feeling as if I had touched some sacred artifact and harnessed its energy through my fingers to learn fragments of an extinct, foreign language in an instant. These ‘fragments’ would form the fundamental basis that I would need to finally start appreciating black metal. I had to put this newfound ‘musical language’ to the test and went back to albums I’ve tried to get myself to enjoy with no avail, and only then did things start to slowly make sense. Going back to an album like Sunbather, I felt like Frank Reynolds from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia watching Mac’s performance; ‘Oh my god, I get it.’ Nothing was quite the same for me after that.

In hindsight, it makes perfect sense (while being a tiny bit silly) that it took one of the least-black-metal black metal bands out there to be the gateway that I needed. Yes, there is a plethora of similar sounding albums that could’ve served the same purpose as a musical gateway, yet Écailles De Lune was one of the very few that that was more than just the sum of its parts. The deeply alluring sonic experience that it provided is unmatched and was solely responsible for the awakening that I desperately needed. Little did I know it at the time, but this also indirectly opened the door to other styles of music outside of blackgaze/black metal. I found myself gravitating towards post metal bands at first, then towards shoegaze/dream pop artists, and eventually towards electronic and ambient music too. I became so enamored with atmospheric music as a whole and finally broke free off the ‘metal only’ handcuffs I had unknowingly placed myself in.

While I am admittedly slightly over-embellishing the joy of simply finding a new band, this particular discovery was more than just that, but rather a revelation. Alcest truly did open the floodgates for my enjoyment of hundreds of artists and thousands of albums and from those artists/albums, I continued to find other rabbit holes to dive into that were equally as deep, if not more. Écailles De Lune (and Kodama) were the exact gateways I needed and thankfully found. I am convinced that such a ‘personalized’ gateway exists for any genre and subgenre of music, you just need to find it either by active, persistent effort or sheer dumb luck. I personally enjoy the thrill of endlessly searching for things like this, although as a downside, I have massive FOMO. I cannot fathom letting the next unexpected gateway pass me by, so I have to try everything.

Reflecting on my musical journey as a whole, I’ve always been subconsciously chasing the high of finding something new and unexpected that blows me away. Finding one such track/album/artist would spark interest and open a door that would eventually lead me to yet another door (genre/subgenre), and then another, and then another. My musical voyage has been this massive domino effect of one door opening another to a musical style that I was either ignorant or oblivious to. Without any one of those doors, there is no accessing those that are behind it and I cannot bear to live without knowing what else may be out there that I would genuinely love. Anyways, I am deeply, deeply appreciative of Alcest (notably Écailles De Lune) for the enlightenment that there is more to music than I had once thought there was.

When we think about how much black metal has developed in the past twenty years, the genre has expanded way past its sinister roots off the bleak shores of Norway, where it was celebrated by an enclosed group of ‘trve’ misfits and never truly welcomed much input from outsiders. Now black metal has become one of the most transferable styles of music, sonically, and aesthetically fitting into genres like prog rock, dark ambient and, for the purpose of this feature, shoegaze. Unlike other examples of black metal fusing with other genres, the development of blackgaze could arguable be put down to one significant artist in Neige. Along with the Frenchman’s other band Amesoeurs, he lay the groundwork for a more melancholic style of black metal (after supposedly only listening to the genre for one year). But for all of the artist’s projects nothing really squares up in the same capacity than his work in Alcest.

If Emperor were the band that brough progression to black metal, Agalloch and Ulver arguably bringing the heavy emphasis on atmosphere, then I think it’s fair to say that it was Alcest that brought beauty and poignancy to the genre. This can be no more distinguishable than in the band’s second studio album Écailles De Lune. When I first put this record on I was curious about what this band were about, my interest peaked when I was made further aware of the concept of blackgaze, I’d never really had been one for shoegaze at the time but was willing to deep dive into what this sort of music had to offer. The first track that I heard from this album was “Percées De Lumière”, I think this track is something that could sum up the initial basis of Alcest perfectly. The tracks beautifully mournful tone is encapsulated by the bittersweet atmospheres created by the guitars whilst the combination of harsh and clean vocals accentuate the contrast between light and darkness perfectly. Going more into the shoegaze realm, “Siren Song” seems now like a standard album track for this kind of music, but I bet at the time this must have raised a few eyebrows in the black metal and indie rock circles for being such a step away from what both genres were conventionally experimenting with. Similarly, “Sur l’Océan Couleur De Fer” is a majestically rounded track that presses for heavy atmospheric presence and Neige’s vocals singing in his native French really lends to the allure and mysticism of the track. The title tracks were also a standout upon a second and third listen as these were arguably the most progressive on the album but also showcasing some of the record’s heavier elements in periods as well.

Of course, when we think of the bands that have come to define the modern landscape that experimented with the likes of say post-rock, shoegaze, and atmospheric black metal, I think it would be fair to say that Alcest truly are the catalyst to much of what many come to celebrate today. After I listened to Écailles De Lune I was awestruck to discover a band that could make black metal sound so beautiful, evocative, and aggressive all at the same time that I just had to hear more. There is a really existential feel to this record also that adds to the mystique of the record. The poetic workings that are influenced by the likes of Paul-Jean Toulet, and the song “Abysses” (written by Fursy Teyssier of Les Discrets): it all adds to Neige’s conceptualisation of transcendence to another world beyond reality. If it hadn’t have been for this album then I quite possibly would not have explored some of the niche aspects of blackgaze and discovered some of my other favourite records in the process.

I love ASIR. It not only gets me to go back and relisten to some pivotal albums in my life but also think back to where I was and why said album had such an impact. Alcest came to me at a time where I was pretty fucking sick and tired of a lot of shit. I had dropped out of university after failing a semester. I was being worked into the ground delivering pet products for some slave driver online platform (no, not that one). And to top it off I was over hanging out with people that thought you could base your whole personality off of listening to pornogrind. Sidenote: you can, but please don’t.

Alcest were so very different to the groups that I was listening to at the time and the absolute antithesis to a lot of the extreme metal I enjoyed but was growing bored of. Sure, Écailles De Lune still has its moments where Alcest touch on their black metal roots but they are far and away from donning some corpse paint and crab walking through the forest behind their nan’s house.

While the production quality on Écailles De Lune isn’t quite to the point where it really builds up that immense wave of post-black metal and shoegaze sound that is such a hallmark of their latter work, it still has the fundamental building blocks that have become defining of Alcest’s musical output. Softly sung melodies, lots of dreamy guitar work, and the otherworldly ability to conjure images of being shepherded away by fairies.

Essentially, Écailles De Lune walked so that Neige could float down a river of autumn leaves doing his best Mena Suvari from American Beauty impression on Les Voyages de l’Âme. Neige was still honing his craft of transporting the listener to another realm on Écailles De Lune but there was still a very natural talent there for harnessing emotion and sound to send images of pixies and fairies dancing through the mind of the listener.

My memories of Écailles De Lune go hand in hand with another album that came out on the same day through the same record label, Prophecy Productions. That album is Septembre et ses dernières pensées by Les Discrets, an album so absolutely excellent that when I remembered it while doing a little research on Alcest, I promptly stopped listening to Écailles De Lune to go check it out after roughly 10 years. Incredible album that we likely won’t feature in an ASIR, but seeing as it turns 15 on the same day as Écailles De Lune, and hits all the same musical notes, I thought it was worth an honourable shout out. Extra points that Fursy Teyssier, the man behind Les Discrets, also did the artwork for Écailles De Lune and wrote/performed on “Abysses”.

Music is felt before it is understood.

Sure, understanding lyrics can and usually will make music hit harder and connect with you in a deeper way. But it’s not the only thing and not the most important thing. Écailles De Lune is the perfect example of this: I’m pretty sure it was the first ‘foreign language’ album I ever heard, and despite knowing next to zero french (except omelette du fromage) it always speaks to me in a very personal level.

Alcest has been having a great run since day 1. To my ears, they’ve always been extraordinary throughout their whole catalogue, including the newest material Spiritual Instinct and Les Chants de l’Aurore, which I consider to be among their best. Still, I don’t think they have done anything as unique as Écailles De Lune. They’re a very atmospheric band, and it’s hard to find a single song that’s not overflowing in feeling and emotion, but Écailles manages to go beyond a certain threshold. More than a collection of songs, it’s an album that works like a journey.

I’ll never forget the first time it clicked with me – it was in a live setting, actually. Alcest played the album in full during Overload Music Fest 2016 (my first ever festival) and it was a surreal experience. Pretty much no one in the audience knew the lyrics (it was in Brazil), but still, we sang. Did we sing some mumbo jumbo? Sure, but that’s the thing about Alcest and Neige’s ethereal vocal melodies: they break the language barrier because we feel them. During that night, we all were entranced by each musical shape the moon took form onstage, and the lyrics were what we made of them.

After that night, I was a certified Alcest fan, and followed every next release with much anticipation. Still, I do always come back to Écailles De Lune to relive that live experience. From the big feels of “Écailles de Lune, Pt. 2” to the surprisingly danceable “Percées de lumière”, to the beautiful, sunny interlude in “Solar Song” and closing with the grand catharsis of “Sur l’océan couleur de fer”, it’s damn wild how this album can contain so much in its relatively short runtime.

Like I said before, Écailles De Lune works like a journey. A journey in sorrow, a journey in beauty, a journey that invites you to open up your soul for yourself and allow you to feel things. It’s the one Alcest album I just have to listen to in full, no skips, in order to get the full experience.

That’s also why I prefer to never look up translations to see what the lyrics actually mean. Because they mean something that’s unique to me that way, and it’s all the more personal and impactful for it. I do know it’s about the moon… or something like that.