Opening up invisible envelopes of space, The Fleeting Light of Love and Grief suggests a poetic metaphor of a vivid dream, like a brief uncontrollable moment of hallucination where words are futile when one is confronted with the discovery of an immaterial substance.
Formed around Lydia Wener, a multidisciplinary queer artist making her music debut, and Roy Vucino, a pillar of Montreal's punk, garage rock and experimental scene (PYPY, Red Mass), the Montréal-based duo has recently joined the up-and-coming instrumental label Popop (Anachnid, Patche, Hawa B) to release its first album which could please old fans of Dungen or Kreidler.
With an expressive naivety born out of lack of sophistication, The Fleeting Light of Love and Grief creates a humble experience, vaguely reminiscent of the neo-psychedelic bands Khruangbin or Glass Beams, to illustrate the concept of oneirophrenia. Used in psychiatric studies during the 1950s and 1960s, this out of fashion term was invented to describe a dream-like state of confusion, ranging from derealization to complete hallucinations and delusions. Also echoing the more avant-garde spirit of contemporary krautrock bands Ivan The Tolerable, Trees Speak and Vanishing Twin, the album should be appreciated, for the most part, as a pure and authentic sonic illustration of outsider art, namely art made by self-taught individuals outside the established art scene (psychiatric patients, hermits, spiritualists and children).
Inspired by the symbiotic relationship of lichen covering the forest at dawn, the music is simply used here as a therapeutic playground to study the symbolic nature of the cycle of destruction and rebirth. By playing with the integration and assimilation of opposites, symbiosis can now arise from incompatibility : fire and water, a man and a woman, the micro and the macro, mercury and sulfur, amateurism and virtuosity, mushrooms and algae, love and grief. Counting more instruments than musicians (bağlama, duduk, midi trumpet, synthesizers, shells, bells, wood block, saxophone, theremin, stylophone, etc…), some tracks may sound implausible, bizarre, disorganized, switching to different themes that are unrelated. One may not even be sure whether what one perceives is in fact reality or not. And it’s precisely inside this chaotic and nocturnal drama of lost souls that true alien art can freely give rise to the primitive and formless prima materia. Does a brain burn ? Can you travel in it ? What was the question again ? Space must be the place after all.
Born out of sorrow but shaped by a romantic encounter, the first track 'Terminal 9' is inspired by the band Air and combines electronic sounds, dream pop, krautrock and bossa nova in a playful, intuitive way. Directed and edited by Lydia Wener using an old camcorder, the clip explores the superimposition of incompatible colours, textures and movements, evoking Janie Geiser's experimental approach in her psychological short film "The Fourth Watch" (2000).
The Fleeting Light of Love and Grief represents the umpteenth project of one and the musical debut of the other, but promises to deliver a raw and genuine testimony of the love story of a man and a woman who bravely lift themselves to life. The sun rises.
Photo credit : Nicolas Morin
Album cover : Lydia Wener