First off, how did Fresnes come about?
Well, for some times I had ideas of riffs running through my head. Curious to see how it would sounds like if I put them in shape, I picked up my old guitar that I had not touched for many years and started playing and recording stuff. As I was quite happy with the result, I thought it might be interesting to compose an entire album. Fresnes was born.
What do you look for in Black Metal or underground music as a whole? What Black Metal bands have influenced this project?
I listen to all kinds of dark music from cold wave to death metal, from neofolk to Power Electronics. Regarding Black Metal, I consider that a good song is characterized both by the quality of its melodies and the icy atmosphere that must emerge from it.
It's hard for me to say which bands influenced my music. On the other hand, if one would ask me to list the groups which are part of my personal pantheon and which deeply marked me I would quote Burzum, Absurd, Temnozor, Veles, Abruptum, Darkthrone, Graveland. Classics.
French Black Metal has an extremely rich history. Do you see yourself as part of that lineage? Which French bands do you hold in high regard past or present?
France has indeed produced excellent bands and I have a lot listened to such bands as Seigneur Voland, Kristallnacht, Blessed in Sin,Vlad Tepes and Ad Hominem for example but I must say that I do not feel particularly part of a specific lineage. If I had to name two current french bands that offer the most interesting music today in my opinion I would say Peste Noire and Diapsiquir (which is not really black metal anymore but whose last album is a masterpiece)
There are references to the works of Lord Byron, Stefan George, and Nietzsche throughout Chant Nocturne, how have their words impacted you? Does literature play an important role in your life?
Indeed, literature plays a very important role in my personal life and I am a fairly big reader. That's why I wanted to draw from the work of my favorite authors some elements to build the aesthetic world of Fresnes. Regarding the authors you mention, I appreciate Byron for his passionate, excessive and his contrasting psychology, both diurnal and nocturnal, which led him to lead a life of debauchery but also to die in Greece to defend a noble cause. I love Stefan George for the beauty of his mythological poems and his both symbolist and classical style. Nietzsche, finally, also had a decisive influence as evidenced by the title of the album that is taken from “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” or that of the introductory track "Aurore", named after the famous work written by the German philosopher in Venice “the city of the thousand profound solitudes”, which is a very important city for me. Actually, I read quite a lot of his poems during the writing process of Chant Nocturne.
This band is based out of Paris. What is this city like and do your surroundings feed into the music at all?
Paris looks like any contemporary European capital city. Perhaps it is distinguished by its dirt, though. The city is mainly populated by a cosmopolitan liberal bourgeoisie that coexists in its margins with a poor and not always benevolent immigrant population, which can sometimes give rise to some frictions to say the less. Rents are excessively expensive and public services are in a lamentable state (surely the most awful metro in the world for example). Every day, the city seems to sink deeper into the dirt and laxity. In short, Paris is only a shadow of what it was in the past and the recent fire of Notre Dame symbolizes perfectly, in my opinion, the state of advanced decadence of the old "City of Light". Anyway, to answer your question, I do not think that this context had the slightest influence on Fresnes' music. It has only influence on my mood.
Your songs are centered around powerful and memorable riffs, which stands in contrast to a lot of the raw black metal in vogue today. Was this a conscious decision?
I've always liked the "raw" and "lo-fi" side of traditional black metal, that punk and rough-form spirit which is part of it’s identity. But for me, the melodic dimension is nevertheless essential. A good black metal song is one that makes you want to make a trolly grin and clawing your fingers so you looks like some sort of possessed witch, if I may say so. And there's only one way to go about it: write epic riffs with demonic accents.
The lyrics to your songs are quite eloquent and poetic. Lines are dedicated to describing moments of silence, contemplating the grand weight of nature and mysticism. What is your relationship to nature and mysticism in a world that becomes more sterile every day? Can you give more insight into the themes explored on Chant Nocturne?
I believe that at the time of the triumph of the grossest materialism and what René Guénon called "the reign of quantity" it is vital to reconnect with the mystical dimension of human existence and to find the spiritual nourishment without which our souls perish irretrievably. Whether in art, religion or the experience of wild nature, the springing springs of the Spirit are not lacking and are as many escapes to the ugliness of postmodernity. We must know how to get out of the flow of contingences of everyday life to track the traces of beauty and nobility where they still lie. It has now become a matter of life and death. Today, man is reduced to the status of simple producer-consumer whose only horizon is to kill himself to the task to earn painfully enough money to pay his quota of futile enjoyments before dying. There is no longer a common horizon, no more ideal carrier, no more reason to live. We must oppose with all our strength this morbid enterprise of general degradation and reconnect with the fundamental vital impetus that characterizes us. Cultivating our creativity, stimulating our spirit of conquest, building and transmitting: this is the program for the years to come.
Regarding the themes explored by Fresnes, it can be said that the lyrics of the songs are indeed imbued with a certain mysticism resting, in part, on a Symbolist and poetic description of nature. I seek above all to create a special atmosphere, to plant a dreamlike setting that invites the daydream rather than deal with a specific topic in particular.
The connection between France and its identity has always been particularly strong. One immediately thinks of truly unique French symbols - Joan of Arc, Baudelaire, Notre Dame, accordion folk music, cuisine, etc. What does France mean to you? Is its identity important to you and has it shaped this project?
To tell the truth, the France, which you mention, is no more than a distant memory and is more like an idealized pictures than an actual reality. Aging country, open to the bad winds of globalization and in advanced way of territorial balkanization, I am afraid that the coming years will be hard, not to say fatal. But let’s take one by one your references. First, Joan of Arc. Today the overwhelming majority of French people are atheists (if not resolutely anticlerical) and the religion most practiced is Islam. No use to say that Saint Joan of Arc would be would be, for the less, a little bit circumspect about this state of affairs. You also mention Baudelaire. The contemporary French literature is far, very far from achieving the quality of old masters and, in any case, less and less French are reading books. In fact, illiteracy is increasing more worryingly every year and we are resolutely drifting more and more every day towards Idiocracy. Then, Notre Dame. Burnt! With, in bonus, our government that seems to want to rebuild the parts destroyed in a modern style. I think any comment would be superfluous at this point. Concerning music with the accordion, it is useless to say that nobody listens to it anymore and that, in fact, the most weak rap music dominates everywhere, even in the most remote countryside. And finally, yes, if you have money you still can eat very good French cuisine as there are still very good restaurants and chiefs. Otherwise everywhere else triumphs junk food, frozen products and, for the more snobs, international cuisine based on avocado, tofu and quinoa.
All of that is to say that I am obviously much attached to my French identity, but that I must admit that it exists more in my head and in the books I read than in real life. I would even say that it is an open question to know if what is called "France" today has anything to do with what this term has meant for centuries. Anyway, I do not think that this state of affairs had any direct influence on my music. Except perhaps through the nostalgia and the form of anger I can feel in front of the scale of the damages.
There is a triumphant and masculine quality in your music - Do any sort of heroic myths or deeds influence the songwriting process? What do you think about when composing music and writing lyrics?
Black Metal is a warlike and heroic music that must stimulate the most combative part of our being. At the time of the feminization of society, this masculine and virile dimension is eminently subversive. Today all that touches on masculinity is not only mocked, ridiculed but even sometimes outright criminalized. We all know the work of the Frankfurt School on the "authoritarian personality" and how they proposed to break the fundamental (virile) structures of the western world in the name of the “never again". Today, the conclusions of this work seems to have been largely put into practice by our governments and the results in terms of anthropological regression are catastrophic. Against this real enterprise of widespread castration men must regain their manhood and reclaim their deep nature. We all have to work on ourselves to escape this prison. This involves a healthy diet, a vigorous sporting activity, the practice of virtue and the culture of a sense of responsibility. Concerning the composition of my music, I do not know if these sociological and philosophical considerations influenced it (in any case I am happy that you had this impression listening to it) but it is clear that I like the idea that black metal can encourage its listeners to find the way of strength and will of power.
Black Metal nowadays is contentious. There is an overabundance of output and it is more accessible than ever due to the democratic nature of social media. What drives you to be involved in Black Metal in the year 2019?
Indeed, with the advent of the internet and social networks the number of groups, labels and distro has literally exploded for the worst and the best. On the one hand we are crumbling under an avalanche of groups more or less without interests on the other certain formations of quality which would have remained in the shadow yesterday reach a happy visibility today. But it is especially our relationship to the music itself and the way we consume it that has changed. No more groups discovered by chance at the turn of a flyer or on a photocopied catalog from an unknown underground label. Today everything is just a click away, dematerialized and the nostalgia for the old world is palpable in the recent revival of fanzines and cassette format. But these are trivialities and I'm not going either to spread on the worn theme of how black metal should be an elitist music and how bad it is that it has become so mainstream. These considerations are outdated today. Regarding Fresnes, as I told you earlier, I did not really ask myself questions. I had some songs in mind, I recorded them and I was lucky enough that someone liked it and was okay to release them. That is all.
What lies in the future for Fresnes?
I started to compose some new riffs but I really have nothing definitive at this stage. These are mostly experiments and it is really too early to talk about it at that point. For the moment, I am mainly focused on my second power electronics / industrial project called “Unité d’Habitation” for which we are currently working with my partner.
Final Words?
Well, I would just like to thank Slave Chandelier for supporting the project and I hope you’ll enjoy Chant Nocturne
