Six Dumb Questions with Vision Eternel
Posted in Features on September 16th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
Montreal-based solo-ambient exploratory outfit Vision Eternel — think if post-black metal had a “post” of its own; post-post-black metal — has this week issued the four-song concept EP, For Farewell of Nostalgia through project spearhead Alexander Julien‘s own Abridged Pause Recordings as well as Somewherecold Records (CD) and Geertruida (tape). The EP arrives after a three-year stretch that, if you told me Julien spent the entire time putting the offering together from front to back even though it’s only about 30 minutes long, I’d have to believe it. Executed not only with an evocative spirit emblematic of the ambient instrumental style upon which its sound is based, but with a deep conceptualism that includes a composed short story and artwork based around the central theme of loss and the ensuing progression through the various stages of acceptance thereof, For Farewell of Nostalgia offers rare depth of expression and heart for the microgenre in which it resides. This isn’t just a guitarist screwing around with pedals. These are cinematic, narrative pieces tying together to tell a story, and Julien has worked to make sure the listener understands this.
That would seem to include this interview. I’ve done more Six Dumb Questions features than I care to count for fear of self-embarrassment, but in all of them, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered someone so ready and so willing to open up about their process, their history and their intention, and that purposefulness is mirrored in For Farewell of Nostalgia itself, as the melodic wistfulness of Julien‘s guitar becomes the ground from which the ambience seems to take flight. It is all the more telling that the release arrives after an initial take that was scrapped for not feeling right, as there is so much about “Moments of Rain,” “Moments of Absence,” “Moments of Intimacy” and “Moments of Nostalgia,” that feels directed and working in precisely the manner it wants to. On a basic audio level, the songs are lush and evocative, and it’s certainly possible they might take the listener someplace other than the companion story seems to want them to go, but such is the nature of art, and it seems unlikely that, even with the core of will put into what Vision Eternel does on this latest addition to an expansive discography of mostly short releases, Julien didn’t account for such a possibility. The point, maybe, is then to let it take you where it takes you, then go deeper.
Whatever path you follow, it’s hard to divorce the tracks from the narrative once you have a fuller understanding of it, and in the interest of preserving spoilers, I won’t give too much away. What I’ll do instead is turn you over to Julien, and perhaps just take this opportunity to thank him for being as open as he is here about what he does. As someone who tends toward wordiness myself, it is all the more easy to appreciate.
For Farewell of Nostalgia is out now.
Please enjoy the following Six Dumb Questions:
Six Dumb Questions with Alexander Julien of Vision Eternel
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The theme of “moments” speaks to an ephemeral glimpse at something – a moment passes. What does framing the songs on For Farewell of Nostalgia as moments allow you to bring to the experience of the listener and the narrative you’re telling?
The titling of a Vision Eternel release (and its songs) is subject to a long period of reflection. It is by no means an after-thought nor a rushed process. Since Vision Eternel releases concept albums, I would not be able to explain the titling of the songs without detailing the titling of the release.
During the composing and recording sessions, I write down words that I feel are representative of my mood and the themes that I am expressing emotionally through the music. Once I find a couple of words that I think work well together for a release title, I brainstorm several combinations and I sit on them for a while. Vision Eternel’s release titles need to have a certain rhythm, like a statement-of-fact, a short sentence. I also make sure that the title is completely original, that nothing comes up when searching for it on Google. That is very important to me. If one has been used, or is too similar to another work, I discard it.
The sense of the word farewell in the title is intended to be interpreted in its olde English sense, as in fare thee well. But I did not want to use that kind of phrasing because it did not fit Vision Eternel’s style and concept. I am old-fashioned but not that old fashioned. I took a little bit of poetic liberty so that in its used phrasing, For Farewell Of Nostalgia means for the well-being of nostalgia.
I felt that I was taking a chance giving this release a title… perhaps as grandiose or elegant… as nostalgia; there was a fear that it might not live up to its name. I take nostalgia very seriously. It has been such an important part of my teenage and adult life, constantly living with the nostalgia of yesterdays. I desperately wanted to represent nostalgia with the utmost respect.
The title, and the entire concept of the extended play, does also symbolize the heartaches of past loves. But it too is an ode, mixed with a Dear John letter, to Montreal. A dispatch saying “Thanks for the memories, the wonderful and the miserable; now good-bye”. This is my farewell to the city where I was born and where I came back to as an adult. Where romance and melancholia truly bloomed. I no longer live in Montreal but I think that Vision Eternel will always have a symbolic link to that city; even more so than to Edison, New Jersey, where the band started.
The titling of the songs is another concept within the concept: adding the first letter of each song title spells out the name of the girl to whom the extended play is dedicated. This has been consistent across all of Vision Eternel’s extended plays, with the exception of Echoes From Forgotten Hearts because it was originally composed as a soundtrack.
The process of determining the song titles is a little bit different from the release title, but it is just as exhaustive. I know ahead of time how many songs are going to be on an extended play (the amount of letters in the girl’s name). From there, I try to choose single words that are descriptive of the emotions in the songs, but that also represent the progression of events in the story-line. The song titles should define where along in the time-line the tragedy is.
Some time during the recording session I also try to pick out the common prefix for the song titles. In the case of For Farewell Of Nostalgia, the prefix Moments Of had been one that I had considered using for an earlier extended play, The Last Great Torch Song. But I was unable to due to the complexity of matching the girl’s name with two songs that were re-recorded from previous releases. Since Vision Eternel songs are technically only given a single-word title (Absence, Intimacy, Rain, Nostalgia, Narcosis, etc), the song can be accommodated to fit on any release if it is re-recorded. For example, Absence had originally been recorded for Un Automne En Solitude and was given the title Season In Absence; it was re-recorded for For Farewell Of Nostalgia and its title was updated to Moments Of Absence.
I went a step further with song titles on For Farewell Of Nostalgia. Since the songs were much longer and they all had different sections and movements, different segues and repetitive codas, I was able to provide extended track titles. This was something that I had been interested in utilizing for roughly fifteen years; it was something that impressed me from Harmonium’s concept album L’heptade. I used it to some degree on Soufferance releases, like Travels Into Several Remote Nations Of The Mind (completed in 2009), but it was with For Farewell Of Nostalgia that I incorporated the method to my satisfaction. At first glance, the extended play appears to feature only the four principal songs, but once one delves into the tracks, or consults the booklet, there are titles for each movement of the songs. The extended track listing also parallels the short story that accompanies the physical editions of the extended play.
The album is defined by this profound sense of loss in the progression of each moment within the tracks themselves. After working on For Farewell of Nostalgia over such a period of time, how has your perspective changed on what inspired the work in the first place? How did the development of the story coincide with the development of the songs themselves? Which came first, the narrative frame or the music?
The music was recorded first; I penned the short story during the post-production. But the short story, and the extended play, are based on events that occurred prior to the composing and recording of the music. This goes back several years, partly due to difficulty composing and finding my direction; partly because For Farewell Of Nostalgia was recorded twice.
I had made several attempts to compose new material between October 2015 and February 2017 but my heart was not into it. The material lacked direction and substance. I began composing and recording better-developed demos in the spring of 2017 but I was forced to put that aside in order to finish compiling the boxed set An anthology Of Past Misfortunes. Once that was released in April 2018, I could go forward, without hindrance, composing and recording new music. From April to October 2018 I recorded For Farewell Of Nostalgia. But I was not happy with it. There were a number of things that I felt were wrong with the release. Some things were unacceptable, like crackling, distortion and humming in the recordings. I attempted to re-record a lot of it, only to find out that some of it was caused by my studio equipment. Just as I began fixing that problem, an uncontrollable fret buzz plagued the main guitar with which I was recording.
Some of the other problems that I had with the first version of For Farewell Of Nostalgia had to do with personal preferences. For example, I did not feel that the songs flowed well together; they each sounded too different. I also had difficulty mixing because I was using too many layered tracks and effects. These original recordings, which I later started referring to as pre-production versions, were a lot darker, harsher and abrasive, not only in sound but in nature; I had a different perspective and approach when I was recording them. It was a very difficult decision to make, because I had garnered record label interest, but I put the release aside, for what ended up being a whole year, while I regrouped.
Throughout the spring and summer of 2019, I upgraded my gear and studio equipment. In early October 2019 I started re-recording For Farewell Of Nostalgia; by mid-November I was done tracking. Minor mixing and editing lasted until late December while I wrote the short story. In early January, Carl Saff mastered the extended play. I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with him and it really made a big difference. I was impressed by his work with Castevet (CSTVT, the Chicago emo band) and he was the first person that I approached once I finished the recording in November 2019.
It was a well-contained recording session because this time around, I wanted the songs to sound like they belonged together and I knew where I was going. All of the songs were re-recorded in a consistent mind-frame and mood. It helped tremendously that the sequencing was already planned by this point. That allowed me to properly end and start each song in a way that it was complementary to each next piece. I was mindful of how editing one song may alter the others, which is not possible (or would require additional editing at a later time) if the sequencing is done during the mastering stage. The sequencing of the songs is really important when I approach a concept release.
I was very proud of the new version. The songs greatly improved the second time around, especially once I added textual guitar leads; the pre-production versions did not have leads. Nearly everything that appears on the released version of For Farewell Of Nostalgia was recorded during the 2019 session, with the exception of a couple of backing tracks on one song, which I kept from the 2018 session because I felt that the emotions were stronger on the original recording.
Something so personal is still somehow also vague – there aren’t lyrics or verses or choruses, etc. – but the story is expressed in emotional and evocative terms. How do you feel about putting something like this out and opening it up to the interpretations of others?
There are no vocals on this release but I consider the short story that accompanies For Farewell Of Nostalgia to be of equal value to lyrics. The extended song titles are, in-sort, the chapters to the short story. This is only available with the physical editions of the extended play however, because I felt that it should be read, like lyrics, in an old-fashioned setting: putting on a record, admiring the sleeve art and reading through every part of the concept while listening. It is an event; a presentation; an experience.
One of my ambitions with For Farewell Of Nostalgia was to present something different to the ambient community; to face them with a release that embarks an alternate pathway: a profound approach of focus. I do not want Vision Eternel to be diminished to background music while listeners perform other tasks. From the visual presentation of the cover art and deluxe packaging, to the conceptual delivery within the sequencing and production, the extended song titles and the short story, For Farewell Of Nostalgia was my way of documenting and sharing my most personal sentiments.
The short story, appropriately titled For Farewell Of Nostalgia, recounts events that inspired the extended play. It is a narrative of how I was emotionally devastated after falling in love too fast, and the aftermath of this heartbreak. Falling in love-at-first-sight, the intimacy of it all, and the stifling wound when the realization hits that it is not reciprocal. It is about learning to befriend absence and loneliness and living with constant sentiments of nostalgia and melancholia.
I do not want to appear closed-mouthed about the short story; it is simply that I do not want to give too much of it away. I very much want people to read it and interpret it for themselves. That is part of the experience.
Tell me about the artwork and the direction that ended up taking.
I absolutely adore the illustration that graces For Farewell Of Nostalgia’s cover. I feel that it is the first real artwork that I have had for Vision Eternel. On the first three releases (Seul Dans L’obsession, Un Automne En Solitude and An Anthology Of Past Misfortunes [the compilation, not the boxed set]), the artwork was simply my own photography. The photographs were not particularly good and I do not consider myself a photographer by any means. I liked the colours within but the subject matters were rather bland. You might say that this style is typical of ambient album artworks today, but at the time, they were simply used because I had no alternative… I wanted to handle every aspect of Vision Eternel myself, including the artwork, and that resulted with ordinary covert arts.
For Abondance De Périls and The Last Great Torch Song, my friend and former room-mate Marina Polak provided a photograph for the artwork. I had attempted to take photographs for Abondance De Périls myself but they were sub-par, even by the standards of my own photographic competence. Marina, who was a terrific photographer and studied art and photography at the university, offered to contribute one of her own. The moment that I saw the picture, I fell in love with it; it represented Vision Eternel perfectly. The photograph is credited to her name but she did not actually take the picture. She had found the negative in a garbage bin in the streets of Poland during one of her visits in the mid-2000s. From what I understand, the person who owns a photograph’s negative is the legal owner.
The artwork for Echoes From Forgotten Hearts was done on the rush by my friend Jeremy Roux. This one was more in line with the band’s early artworks: it was extremely bland and without direction. It was nondescript. It faded into the background next to other ambient albums on a web-page. But that is what I was going for at the time; it was what I asked Jeremy to come up with. He is actually a terrific graphic designer and he was responsible for all of the early visual material used by Abridged Pause Recordings and also designed Vision Eternel’s first logo in 2008.
The artwork from An Anthology Of Past Misfortunes (the boxed set) was on the opposite end of the spectrum: it was vivid and eye-catching. It was constructed partly from original abstract paintings by Rain Frances and partly from a cardinal bird craft art done by my late grand-mother Pierrette Bourdon. She was a craft artist and the bird artwork was actually her last piece of art before she passed away in 2012.
The approach to For Farewell Of Nostalgia’s artwork was completely different. It was very well planned out. When I re-recorded the extended play in 2019, I wanted to contain my mood and atmosphere so that the entire release would sound whole. That was very important for me and for a concept album; you do not want the songs to sound like they were recorded or mixed at different times. I brought out one of my favourite albums: Frank Sinatra’s In The Wee Small Hours. I put the vinyl sleeve next to my computer so that I would always have it there to inspire me. I also limited myself to solely watching Frank Sinatra’s films during those two months. He is an incredible actor and most people do not seem to remember (or know about) that aspect of his career. I am not a fan of his musicals (nor of the musical film genre as a whole), but his dramatic films are amongst my favourite films. When it came time to decide on the artwork, it seemed like an obvious choice; pay homage to Frank Sinatra’s In The Wee Small Hours. Tom Waits had done it with his second album The Heart Of Saturday Night, so I figured that I could too.
I then went to the extent of combining several photo shoots from over the years (some done with Jeremy Roux, others with Rain Frances) into an original collage mockup that represented Montreal and paid tribute to Frank Sinatra. It also took several new photo shoots until I was happy with my pose; I wanted the angle of my body and my facial expression to be just right. This was not a parody like a “Weird Al” Yankovic album cover (and I mean that respectfully); it was a legitimate homage to something that I felt had become part of me, that helped me get through so many of those lonely, depressed nights that led me to write and record this music.
It was also important for me to incorporate things into the artwork that represented me, that made it a little different from Frank Sinatra’s original, and that tied into the concept of the release. I smoke a pipe (and not cigarettes like Frank Sinatra did) so that was put into the image. Other details that perhaps only a hat fanatic may notice are the subtle differences in shape and style of my fedora. Frank Sinatra had a skinnier face so he wore narrow-brimmed hats; I have a round face so wide-brimmed hats suit me better. My hat also has a ribbon edge binding, while Frank Sinatra’s was a raw edge cut. I wore an overcoat and scarf for the photo shoot, while Frank Sinatra wore a suit and tie. Several Montreal landmarks were also put into the background: the Montreal Harbour Bridge, Windsor Station, the Saint Lawrence River, the Sailors’ Memorial Clock Tower on Victoria Pier. There were many more iconic Montreal structures that I originally wanted to include in the background but it became too busy, too removed from Frank Sinatra’s minimalist artwork. The background on my release is very descriptive; it clearly represents Montreal, whereas Frank Sinatra’s cover made him the sole focus with a nondescript street scene behind him.
It took a long time to find the right person to paint it. I finally landed on American illustrator Michael Koelsch because he had illustrated two cover artworks for The Criterion Collection. In 2000 he illustrated the DVD cover (later re-used for the Blu-ray edition) for The Blob; and in 2001 he illustrated the DVD cover for My Man Godfrey (this one was unfortunately not re-used for the Blu-ray edition). Pulp art design has made a considerable comeback in film posters and in paperbacks but it was really difficult finding someone who was able to work it into an album cover art. Luckily, Michael happened to be a big fan of Frank Sinatra and knew In The Wee Small Hours well, so he was able to incorporate the sadness of both albums (Frank Sinatra’s and Vision Eternel’s) into the new painting. He had also worked on several notable music album artworks during his career so he understood what I wanted and where I was coming from.
I then approached Rain Frances to paint two abstract paintings to use in the physical editions of the extended play. One of them, which happened to have already been painted in 2019, was used for the short story booklet. The other painting, which was painted especially for the release, was used on the bonus compact cassette Lost Misfortunes: A Selection Of Demos And Rarities (Part Two). Rain had painted the artwork for the first tape in that series (included in the An Anthology Of Past Misfortunes boxed set) so it made sense that I approach her for this sequel.
I was aiming for an eye-catching presentation with the artwork of For Farewell Of Nostalgia and I could not be happier with the results. I wanted it to represent who I am and how I see the world. I did not want people to look at my release and think “Hey, this looks like a nice peaceful album”, in the manner in which so many album covers remain descriptive of their genres. This is Vision Eternel’s first extended play to be released and distributed by established record labels (meaning not my own imprints), so it will be seen and heard by mostly newcomers to my music. I want these new listeners to be intrigued by it, and to approach it from a different perspective than they are used to.
Where do you go from here?
Over the years, I have slowed down my rate of releasing music considerably. I have always been a firm believer of quality over quantity; my approach to composing music for Vision Eternel has evolved in such a way that I could no longer rush out a new extended play each year.
On Vision Eternel’s first two extended plays, 2007’s Seul Dans L’obsession and 2008’s Un Automne En Solitude, the compositions and arrangements were minimalistic; short songs that sounded sad but remained hopeful. The production was also minimal and straightforward: very bright and focused on treble.
In 2009, I changed my setup while composing Abondance De Périls. The new setup helped provide a warmer, more accessible sound, which was emphasised, and greatly improved, during the mastering by Adam Kennedy. This was the first time that a Vision Eternel release was mastered. The same setup was used to compose and record the songs that ended up on The Last Great Torch Song.
Up until this point, the songs were still minimalistic but The Last Great Torch Song marked the beginning of a change. It welcomed several guest appearances by my close friends: Garry Brents on keyboard, Alexander Fawcett on guitar and bass and Howard Change and Eiman Iraninejad on vocals. I was unsure of Vision Eternel’s future at that point so I was treating The Last Great Torch Song as a potential swansong. I had hoped to incorporate many more guests on the release but many were not able to provide their contributions in time for the mastering deadline.
The Last Great Torch Song’s closer Sometimes In Absolute Togetherness was the real turning point. The song had originally been composed and recorded as a Soufferance song, but it always felt to me like it had far too much of Vision Eternel’s style to be a true Soufferance song. I was torn but I ultimately used it on a Vision Eternel release; that was my first of many steps letting go of the strict guidelines that I had set for Vision Eternel. Soufferance was much darker, more self-destructive; it had longer songs and experimented with more instruments and vocals. Vision Eternel by contrast was straight-forward guitar-based music; optimistic and hopeful (I always hoped that the girl would come back).
Things changed further with Echoes From Forgotten Hearts in 2014/2015 and that is because that release was not recorded, nor approached, as Vision Eternel. I had been contacted to compose the soundtrack to a short film. I therefore approached the songwriting as myself, without the restrictions that I normally placed to conform the music within what is expected of a certain band. It was a completely natural songwriting approach. When the short film fell through, I was unwilling to let this music be unheard because I was really proud of it. So I partly re-recorded, re-edited, re-mixed and re-conceptualized the soundtrack into an extended play. I released it under the Vision Eternel banner because that was the project closest to my heart and I felt that the music sounded most like Vision Eternel did at that point.
Having broken so many barriers along the way, and considering that Vision Eternel had become my principal band, I was now free to compose music that was entirely natural to me. I no longer felt the pressure to sort songs into what each band was supposed to sound like. Vision Eternel’s new material was simply going to incorporate the best of what I once brought to each of my ambient bands (Vision Eternel, Soufferance, Citadel Swamp and Éphémère).
But in a realistic sense, since Vision Eternel was always my pet project, the new material will not be alien in comparison to the older works; it is simply a natural progression, placing less restrictions on myself over the years. I still approach Vision Eternel compositions with the same emotions, the same themes; always about heartbreak. Hitchcock once said “self-plagiarism is style”, and I think that applies to Vision Eternel. But I am now incorporating additional elements, which are already familiar to folks accustomed with my other bands. From Soufferance, I brought in longer songs, the segues and movements, the lengthy emotional build ups and the hypnotic, repetitive codas (think of Swans in the mid-1990s). From Vision Lunar and Éphémère, I brought in guitar leads; that was something that I was not utilizing often in my ambient projects. And from Citadel Swamp, I brought in the way that I layer and mix several instruments together; finding ways of making leads flow over rhythm tracks.
The music took a long time to be polished and I spent nearly three years working and re-working the songs that ended up on For Farewell Of Nostalgia. With that in perspective, I plan to heavily promote this release for the next couple of years. I am also actively looking for a record label to release For Farewell Of Nostalgia on vinyl format with an exclusive bonus track.
I am also in discussion with Somewherecold Records about the possibility of re-releasing Vision Eternel’s 2015 soundtrack/extended play Echoes From Forgotten Hearts as a double-disc edition. It would feature a remastering of the extended play version as well as the never-released soundtrack version. There are several notable differences between the two versions.
