Here we stand at the dawn of an event of interdimensional magnitude, quasi acausal should we say… For the second issue of V.I.T.R.I.O.L is about to be released. Spawned in 2017, this magazine strives for weaving Extreme Metal and Magic, the one pointing towards the Left Side. The first issue was proposing interviews of bands such as Nightbringer, Thy Darkened Shade or Saturnian Mist, plus some musings over various currents such as Chaos Magic or Satanism.
For this second opus, Alcide recruited Napharion, leader of the bands ARYOS and MARKAB PROJECT, who composed the CD music featured with the magazine. As I consider he did not shed enough blood already, I myself decided to recruit him in order to interrogate his partner in astral crime, the quite frantic Alcide, who seems to be unstoppable for he is already shooting a video clip to achieve this strange webbing.
Melmothia: Hi Alcide and thanks for granting us some of your time. Before funding the aesthetically refined V.I.T.R.I.O.L magazine, you had created a fanzine (unreadable as far as a far-sighted like me is concerned), named REAL LIFE EVIL DREAM, which was already digging the ideologies and mystics underlying Metal and especially Black Metal. After these few years getting rid of the deadwood, what kind of conclusion would you draw as far as Esotericism and Metal are concerned? Which degree of sincerity do you confer to its activists?
Alcide: It’s almost 30° in here, so I’ll just open myself a Witch Beer (favorite beer of mine based on nettles), I shall put some 80s heavy metal on vinyl and here we go: Hails to Thee, Eris’ disciples suffering within matter, the snail mail took three years to pass through the astral gates, but it was worth it. Real Life Evil Dream had nothing to do with the occult in the first place, it was not until the end of the third issue, as I had been awakened to certain things, that I decided to establish a link between the two zines throughout an ACHERONTAS interview, mainly dealing with magic and a sigil editing that was challenging copyright laws a tad too much…
As for metal and esotericism, I already answered in a previous interview some months ago but some currents find their origin within Metal such as Dragon Rouge or the 218 (of which the rumor has it that it was based essentially on second-hand documents which were stolen from Dragon Rouge by the way, but what the hell, It’s an old tradition after all to do such a thing) as well as others which are much more underground, or if we think about some well-known metal musicians who were or are part of various Thelema related groups… But we are talking about an era I did not live actually… I was too busy being fascinated by ABSU’s Proscriptor’s interviews, or reading the lyrics worthy of a grimoire of MORBID ANGEL on the Formulas Fatal To The Flesh album, and a lot of goetic seals that I caught a glimpse of here and there were already starting to engrave into my mind.
As for the actual time period, well it was with the rise of ‘orthodox’ Black Metal or ‘Theistic satanism’ that then progressively all the bands started to make themselves pass for all-powerful magicians in their lyrics, artwork and interviews… Until today where you have the impression that literally everybody is into the occult, including all those Postcore bands with their fashionistas hoods that some labels would like to sell as Black Metal…
Except that, when you really investigate into the matter, you soon understand that it just amounts to the reading of books or pdfs, nicely decorated altars and sometimes a lot of chaotic visions acquired under the influence of drugs… Of course, because magic requires TIME, DEDICATION and WILL… But it seems that there is still a real and cyclical renewal of interest for magic in general, and a small minority who really practices what it preaches. Those are the people I interview of course, even if at times I really wonder about their LHP practices that amount to some sort of counter initiation or to what I would call ‘suicide by magic’… But maybe that’s my infamous RHP background that is leading me to profess such outrageous words…
Actually, the rise of zines such as THE SINISTER FLAME, ABOMINATIO DESOLATIONIS or BARDO METHODOLOGY are the living proof of a renewal of interest towards esotericism and a will to up the ante. Besides, as far as my publication is concerned, I THINK I will focus less and less on LHP and Satanism per se (two paradigms that have been bastardized a lot to an increasingly confusing result) for interviews based on the esoteric on a global scale…
Melmothia: Where does the name V.I.T.R.I.O.L come from (even if I already have an educated guess…)?
Alcide: I was looking for a powerful name and that simply originates from the research I did to understand what the hell the ABSU guy was talking about in his interviews… Of course, you got that I slightly altered the original meaning (Tenebrae instead of Terrae) even if the symbolism is a no brainer.
Napharion: in the first issue, your propaganda was stating that They are 7 and 7 they are, 7 esoteric exchanges, with 7 champions of sonic Chaos and Luciferian Gnosis (including one Black Sheep)… How come this profusion of 7 and that black sheep’s presence?
Alcide: Well, I just got that from one of the many magical currents that inspired me back in the day. Do your own research… As for the black sheep, it’s a reference to Jimmy Screamerclauz, the unique non metal artist from the zine. Because the esoteric references in his work are completely unconscious, which we ultimately understood while doing the live interview, which was slightly embarrassing at the moment…
Napharion: By the way, your zine is in English, why that choice (a bit frustrating for the French-speaking readers)?
Alcide: A french re-release of the first zine is currently in process, and that’s an interesting challenge. I have to struggle against my tendency to rewrite rather than simply translate… I chose English in the first place to reach more readers worldwide and because I am more used to that language ever since I have spent my time translating bands lyrics as a teenager. And finally, because I started with Anglo-Saxon esotericism well before understanding that something was happening in France as well. Damn, I even used to do most of my rituals in English so… Actually, it opened me gates kinda everywhere and even in France. So, the language issue can be passed through at times. There are zines that are written in ‘Frenglish’ and that works quite well for them…
Melmothia: When shall we get that French-speaking version?
Alcide: Well, it’s plain simple: at the moment I have translated the exact half of the first issue. It’s VERY strange to reread yourself, feels like it was written ten years ago… Some questions are naïve to a fault and others are so weird and exalted that I clearly wrote them under some influence, be it natural or not… The zine will be released in an upgraded version, and I have several Ideas to establish a link between past, present and future…
Napharion: The line-up of the first zine seemed to follow trends, almost leaving nothing to surprise for It focused on hyped bands from the esoterical Black Metal of nowadays: NIGTHBRINGER, HETROERTZEN, SERPENT NOIR, SATURNIAN MIST, ASCENSION, THY DARKENED SHADE… Was it a commercial choice of yours, in order to start the zine under good omens?
Alcide: Above all I wanted to exchange with musicians whom I know were really practising magic for a fact. And Saturnian Mist is anything but trendy. I also wanted bands linked to currents that interested me back in those days, such as Dragon Rouge or anything linked to Chaos Magic. The second issue is a bit more eclectic, with for example the BLAZE OF PERDITION interview that’s going to make a few Trve Warriors sigh, not to mention the URARV one that’s going to make some people grind their teeth… The third one, that I started during hot summer, when I listen to anything but extreme metal, will be even more open paradigm-wise. So much for me if I lose some narrow-minded satanic readers, they will find something else to read…
Napharion:Any disappointment about the answers of these ‘usual suspects’?
Alcide: The true disappointment is above all when the guy does not answer you after having promised he would. Back in the days of REAL LIFE EVIL DREAM zine we had slightly broken bad by sending 80 questions to a guy who chose to play dead after, which I can understand… But for V.I.T.R.I.O.L, you have the one who sends you extracts from his upcoming ultra-satanic cult book, only written in bold letters and probably in goat skin bound, only to disappear for six months to finally tell you that he cannot do the interview any longer and that of course he won’t tell you why… Or another band that decides to cancel the whole interview because they do not like the ‘tone’ of some questions … or another one who shakes your hand after a gig, then comes from time to time on social networks to do his promotion but of course never ever reads your messages…
That second issue was supposed to feature a massive interview, dealing with politics, philosophy, magic, literature, with Americans who lead a quite unordinary existence and who merge with esotericism in their daily existence 24/7, with all the dangers implied in some particularly wild city… But the guy was just unable to answer a written interview, while our live exchanges were extremely interesting… So much for it…
Well OK, let’s admit that in the second opus there is a definitely less interesting interview. It’s not difficult to see which one. Maybe I should have listened to various red alerts, vibes-wise, as soon as I started to exchange with the person. Whatever, I’m fine with the questions.
Speaking of that, for my former zine REAL LIFE EVIL DREAM, me and my bygone partner were so pleased with our questions that we had published them without the answers of some guy who had played dead as well… Of course, that had made us a tad infamous for that…
Melmothia: So, what is your favourite interview among all those you did, including all your zines? And which text would you advise readers to start with about the second opus?
Alcide: There was this really funny interview in my former zine (R.L.E.D) where an interviewee litterally spends all his answers insulting us (and I had travelled through half the country to settle things clear with him at a gig), the completely fucked up interview (probably establishing a record as far as the amount of questions was concerned) that we had sent to the poor CORPUS CHRISTII guy, who had played dead afterwards, which had pissed me off a lot at the time (to the extent of trying to pick up a fight at a gig, sigh…) but which is quite funny with hindsight… That’s all for the bad but funny.
As for the best, definitely the EBONYLAKE interview, which is a cult band from my teenage days and who has never got the recognition it deserved. A lot of quality vibes experienced when reading the answers, up to the point of opening a gate almost, so distant from the Ideological style and clichés of Black Metal…
As for the reader, I would advise her/him to read in the chronological order, as simple as that, to end up literally in my head, for better and worse… Which reminds me that the mundane reader without basics about esotericism will probably be at a loss… Not even mentioning the SERPENT NOIR interview in the first V.I.T.R.I.O.L, which will be completely undecipherable for those not familiar with DRAGON ROUGE paradigm… Whatever, contrary to other zines I will never explicit everything, let them do their own research…
Napharion: The first issue could be read as if one was consulting your magical diary, each interview seemingly an experiment, something that was lived for real, Implying nights of research and practices. Could you talk about this myriad of births? And the way you pursued that work in the Second issue?
Alcide: Let’s not succumb to exaggeration but indeed each interview has its own bibliography and I had to literally pierce the veil of bands’ paradigm in order to better understand them. To the extent of sometimes having to modify my own magical practice or adjust my reality in a rather radical way. I sometimes have the Impression to Impose my current obsessions to the bands, but most of them find it more interesting that the average questions they are generally asked. And even when the answers seem disappointing or during this infamous aborted interview that had required me a LOT of research, those experiences brought me things on a personal level and allowed me to learn on various topics and to discover interesting authors whom I would never ever have investigated about without the zine.
Napharion: Any anecdotes about this immersion? Normal or paranormal ones?
Alcide: We shall not unveil all details of my life, but an interview from the second zine led me to deepen some things which as a consequence drove me to a mindblowing time period, while searching for inner mechanisms and this changed my vision of reality on many aspects. I found myself in unusual places and hooking with very different persons from the ones I used to deal with. As for the ‘paranormal’ (which does not exist by the way, there is only some normal that we cannot explain yet…) It’s a little messy in my head, but if I reread my grimoire and the dream diary, I have been holding for several years now, I would find traces for sure…
When I was rereading the zine for corrections, I acknowledged that several interviews’ questions had been achieved under some trance, for I hardly recognized my usual style of questions… Actually, some months ago, I just had to watch a musical clip linked to a certain magical current to find myself during sleep literally catapulted at the midst of some past event of this very group, which was confirmed by someone who actually lived it… You read a book about out of body experiences and you achieve one out of the blue during the same night, but when you try to reflect about the underlying mechanisms and attempt to consciously reproduce what you did, it does not work anymore… That’s a part of the whole problem.
Melmothia: What you are referring to, this kind of immersion which is likely to unleash some phenomenons, seems to me quite common actually. Whereas when you just apply techniques, maybe these offerings of sweat, blood and aspirin, fundamental to any given form of creation or thorough research, are lacking… Do you come to the same conclusion? Does magic want our blood?
Alcide: As Phil Hine would have it: ‘They have traditions, we have techniques…’ and I would be like: ‘SO WHAT!?’ You know a thing or two about unwillingly shedding blood, don’t you? I did not totally stop myself, even if I thank the global incompetence of my inglorious beginnings, which probably kept me safe from various fluidic catastrophes, at least during this incarnation… It’s Chaos Magic here below: techniques are mixed with artistic creation and through research in a huge melting pot that is as messy as paradoxically coherent, but that would certainly have me locked at the insane asylum, were my rituals filmed by someone…
Rituals that you have to harbour for weeks and sometimes months before accomplishing them. Improvisation is magical maybe 1/4 of the time, the rest being mere absence of result of pure catastrophe, the latter being paradoxically very inspiring for artistic creation.
Larvaes do want our blood, as for magic I do not know, but what I know is that she already has my day-to-day dedication for sure, by constant dint of obsession, which can make a life spent into this mugglish society, and their everlasting pact with matter, even more complicated…
Melmothia: How do you use music within your magic? And where can it lead you as far as you are concerned? Finally, what is supposed to happen to readers who are going to listen to the CD at home, alone, in the dark?
Alcide: Well, you have to saturate all your senses within a ritual, and some music is particularly fitting for this. I had already gathered a list of tunes that had a valid effect on me, even before getting interested by magic, and I remembered my many trance experiences while attending a gig. See Dragon Rouge, they dig techno a lot if I am not mistaken… Obviously, I started with the ‘easiest’ way, that is excitatory trance, as linked to extreme metal, which is perfect for that. But at the cost of countless cramps, as well as the ruin of my sleeping cycle back in the days. Not having the magical opportunity to have money without working, I had to turn towards more meditative music and today I maintain a balance between both, especially since I have my own occultum and the pleasure to live in the countryside…
The clip/teaser that we shot by using the CD music is here for the same reason. The rituals have been recorded in the rawest way, and it seems the music has been composed just the same… We will see what kind of effect it will have on the listeners. The whole thing is completely unprofessional, but sincere as it can be, and we will obviously do better next time.
in a nutshell, the zine is a kind of magical diary and the CD is Its musical twin. It is only lacking some incense, which will probably happen sooner or later, even if It’s a bit of a cliché nowadays…
Napharion: Chaos Magic, ultimately barely present within BM, has started to be part of the movement. Discreetly dealt with by Behemoth back in the days, claimed by Aryos (sorry for the self-advertisement), Saturnian Mist and a few others. You state that Chaos Magic is for you ‘a marvellous magical method’. Can you develop?
Alcide: in his esoterical books, the ARCKANUM guy thanks Phil Hine and Peter J. Carroll, which had pleasantly surprised me. BATHORY LEGION mentions Hakim Bey in a recent interview… It was already here but nobody was making a fuss about it. Karlsson was writing articles in CHAOS INTERNATIONAL, if I am not mistaken. And several old esoterical groups such as TEMPLE OF THE VAMPIRE for example, have probably used and abused Chaos Magic while making it pass for some arcane tradition, as most used to do as well back in their era… ‘All magic is Chaos Magic’ as KING SATAN would have It…
Resistance against this style of magic can be met in some French magical groups where you are repeated ad nauseam that it’s just ‘Golden Dawn for dummies’, or that Chaotes are people who pretend to reinvent the wheel by Impersonating the ‘former masters’. Which is not false technically, except that I strongly advise beginners to start with recent books and then go back to older ones. What’s more, Chaos Magic books are essentially here to explain the fundamental mechanisms behind magic, without the whole garment and of the inevitable dogma found in the old books that are slightly limited by the common thoughts of their era and aeon. Those who criticize Chaos and want to perceive it as just another magical system, tend to forget that It is mainly the heir of psychedelic revolution, and that it aims at banging your reality big time. Discordianism, Dice Man, Squat and anarchic magic…
Besides It is paradoxically the magic that stands the best as a counter-culture while also being the one that is the most permeable to systemic phagocyting, through personal development (and some authors have already got the message, haven’t they?). There is also that ‘fast and efficient’ reputation that makes its popularity, even if you soon understand that’s it’s not the case at all and that you’d rather need some experience behind.
So basically, to me, Chaos is much more than just another magical path, for it also influences the whole exoteric aspect of my life, but then It becomes difficult to explain that with words for I have no hindsight and I do not want that ‘chaote’ turns into just another label…
Melmothia: Are your resolution not to become prisoner of a current, as well as your affinities with Chaos Magic, only coming from your desire to collect efficient techniques or also a fever for not keeping your butt on the same chair for long? is V.I.T.R.I.O.L’s creation akin to that very same hunger for knowing and experimenting? Do you always seem to rush after shooting stars, screaming all along the way?
Alcide: Limiting chaos Magic to a list of techniques is a typical prejudice in some traditional currents, even if with Chaos, you work straight over the magical enemy number one, that is the Psychic Censor, that can still pester you even when you KNOW that your magic works. Hence the difficulty of finding something that works twice… Being ‘born into It’ through one’s family helps a lot as I witnessed for some persons but it’s not my case, I really started from scratch.
As for my difficulties with keeping in the same paradigm for long, I see you have read me quite well. It might be a quality as much as a flaw, as Orryelle reminds it in the Chaos Magic documentary on YouTube… A paradigm shift cannot be really apprehended unless you got one head-on, unless you suffered from it, before being able to get out of it, so that you might understand the underlying mechanisms and being able to reproduce them. That fever you mention might simply originates from the failure to find a path or a current that you trust enough to completely adhere to it, because you are very cautious about the other people being part of it or just careful about the egregore behind it. Basically, even the Illuminates of Thanateros is but another pyramidal structure.
But after all, it took me almost ten years to find my place within Martial Arts/Self-defence, and I still cannot guarantee that I am not ultimately going to learn another style one day… Hunger for experimentation can basically eat you as well, and estrange you from your surroundings and entourage, been there done that… And indeed, at times you really feel like you are just screaming in vain while chasing stars (sigh) but some time periods of emptiness and a lack of inspiration can be useful sometimes. ‘Sleep on it’ as they say, at times you just need to obsess over something but finally let it go, so that you go back into the fold later, in a more serene way.
Does it mean my conception and practice of magic have become more serene along the years? Not that much … but I am working on it. When you start to understand the untrodden capacities of the brainin order to open gates, leading a ‘normal’ life becomes more and more complicated, especially in this mugglish society where you cannot live by night to sleep by day, hence a certain feverishness of mine… Some are afraid for magic to explode, as far as I am concerned it’s never ever explosive enough…
Melmothia: Chaos Magic aside, what are the currents and systems which you favor? And which ones repel you and why?
Alcide: I reject nothing, I found myself on the verge of New Age (which, by the way, is much more dangerous than satanism) so who am I to blame? I favor anything linked to witchery and good old Goetia, at least at the moment. It’s difficult to answer that considering I have no hindsight when it comes to magic… I do not make any big difference between LHP and RHP anymore: labels, just labels…
Napharion: You said somewhere that you regretted the lack of content inspired by ONA within Black Metal, don’t you think that considering the amount of mentally unbalanced people into BM, and the lack of maturity of some listeners, that the injection of that kind of Ideology would equal playing with fire?
Alcide: ONA has a lot of fascinating concepts and others that just make you sigh. If you take the fascist folklore aside, it becomes even more interesting. What would annoy me more is that many concepts of ONA are supposed to be rebellious but are actually fitting with the system: obsession with arising above others, glorification of predation, etc. I have heard that some ONA currents had totally got out of the racialist madness. Well, it’s not really the impression I have by reading some things but maybe I should just investigate out of the extreme metal sphere. Basically, it could be possible to achieve something really interesting with all that by removing the most dogmatic aspects.
As for the ‘fragile’ people, it’s funny you should say that because someone was telling me recently that BM was essentially composed of fragile and hyper-sensitive people who were playing the tough guys because they were originally fed up with being mistaken for women as soon as they turned their backs… And so, they end up mistaking this role-playing game for their true personality, adding violence to the whole mix, and turning their intrinsic basket case-ry into some kind of twisted romanticism, when it’s actually almost always the psychological consequence of some ingrained family traumas… Black Metal became politicized from its very beginnings and easily rehabilitated by various extremes for it’s basically based on hatred, nostalgia, fantasies…
Admittedly, a very small number of people sure CHOSE to lead an extreme way of life based over hardcore magical practices, but that’s essentially a minority who again, CHOSE (or was chosen), far from the ones who just followed their urges and just reacted to their social surroundings… You have fought against basically everybody, you have declared war to society and even cosmos, but have you ever tried to fight against yourself?
Melmothia: I will pursue on that question by contradicting Napharion: do you think there might be an esoteric current which is not soluble into the oven-ready cover and the usual infernal package? To put it differently: which ingredient is missing, for, according to you, to make truly magical or mystical things happen within BM scene?
Alcide: Well, by the way, all currents are doomed to decay with time passing, as well as bands by the way… Everything should have an expiration date, as a good old Temporary Autonomous Zone… And besides, the problem is not so much the currents in themselves than the individuals behind… Humans all too humans. As for BM It would require above all people to be able to accept CHANGE, to perceive beyond the aesthetics and dogma, but it’s difficult, and almost Impossible to recreate magic that had manifested itself in Scandinavia at the beginning of the nineties, ending into some Charles Manson-esque quagmire as usual… It’s all about aeonics again, and, of course, there were some forces behind the whole she-bang… Nowadays some keep the old flame alive at their own scale, but in a society where appearances prevail, this is a tough task and some are a bit too obsessed by their desire to turn fantasized past into just another dogma, at the risk of waxing grotesque at times.
What would be required is something I witnessed first hand: events happening far from the madding crowd (which is more and more difficult), with selected people, which would mix concerts and magical rituals, performed by practitioners who know what they are doing. Some sort of Black Metal Temporary Autonomous Zone in a nutshell, where all consumer concept would be erased. I don’t think I am the only one who understood that considering the rise of some events here and there. But again, the whole thing is about not getting caught by the matrix. « When you try to bring people a free spirituality, watch out for the police raid » as someone used to say…
Melmothia: What you say seems rather coherent to me. Let’s just go back to what you intend by ‘forces behind’. Do you think that activists of the Black Metal scene who resorted to crime were ‘under the influence’?
You can wonder as well for many historical figures in general anyway, whether it was about the intervention of some egregores having gained autonomy or arcane forces… As for some Black metal individuals, I was more thinking about some good old larvae, or demons baited by various auric holes… Just by rereading some old zines of the nineties, you can only guess about the special dark treatment that some practitioners were applying to famous deities, to such an extent that to my mind you are dealing with something completely other than the original energy…
People had far less hindsight back then, they were wilder and paradoxically more fragile because of that whole role-playing game aspect (forcing yourself to appear darker and tougher than you really were…) and also, I guess, their general disdain or mere lack of knowledge about the most basic protections when it comes to magic…
Well, obviously a minority of them were working seriously and definitely opened some concrete gates… It should be reminded that Black Metal has a lot to do with counter initiation, as much as with the Great Work in reverse as it is developd into 218 books…
OK I grant you there is more and more light within Black Metal spirituality those days, alongside, better sound, better aesthetics, more and more technique… But just have a look at the Erica Frevel interview I did and just read her little book: figure out what it could imply as long as its magic works… Very few are those who would endeavour to follow her on that path, given what it encompasses: among other things to literally break men and gods’ laws…
Melmothia: I know you’ve been already asked that question but here we go again for I know you just cannot get enough of that one: who are V.I.T.R.I.O.L readers?
Alcide: Well, having started to send the parcels I can tell you for a fact that with my network is clearly expanding beyond the Metal sphere, which is pleasant, for I intend to expand a lot the interviewees’ pedigree, and maybe even the collaborators’ one. Pass the word on…
Napharion: You stay the grandmaster of the whole thing alongside your Babalon, but could the zine team expand?
Alcide: Thanks for reminding me how much I was delving into clichés just three years ago, and thus that I have evolved a bit eversince… She is doing everything zine-wise indeed. We were even supposed to add one of her musical projects to the zine’s CD but it did not ultimately happen. As for the expansion, we mused a lot over it when we shot the clip in…. Improper conditions to say the least. We would have rather been surrounded by a full team during this process…
Melmothia: The clip is beautiful by the way, and I guess it’s your girlfriend who should be congratulated. But why, with this kind of aesthetic, is It always about people moving in slow motion by a campfire?
Alcide: Hey, I still provided all the Ideas based on visions I had in a place where I dwell for various reasons…. The clip’s symbolism is quite obvious for whoever knows the basics of a ritual. I originally wanted something more ‘modern’ and psychedelic but first we did not have the means to do that and secondly it would have been off topic with the zine content, and even more with the CD’s music. But considering how the next publication is faring so far: nothing is true everything is possible… OK I agree that the zine’s aesthetics is typical of its era, just because of the artists whom I worked with (including one of whom I will never tell enough about how much it was a nightmare to work with…)
That’s the whole issue now: a high skilled artist soon becomes just another brand within the metal sphere and obsolete even faster when he starts to work with literally everybody, and I have several obvious examples of that phenomenon in mind, just for France actually. I won’t fall into name-dropping, when the irony is that there is a sincere will behind… Well, that could be worse: I could have used a drone, which must be the hypest thing at the moment as far as clips are concerned.
Melmothia: How do you think that the relationship between esotericism and music, especially the Metal scene, is going to evolve in the coming years? Any Idea of what is yet to come?
Alcide: Well, considering the state of metal scene at the moment, at least about the live setting… Just go back to caves ye people, the scene will get better. I just don’t know, this used to be full time insta-witch mode some months ago, and if you refer to the cyclical aeons as prophetized by Peter J. Carroll, we should soon know the lowest ebb but I am not so sure for the times they are a-changin’ and becoming more and more uncertain… Europe will, of course, fall back into Its demons of the past, and magic will be caught more and more into the grasp of politics, maybe to the extent of new witch-hunts, considering the eternal return of the three desert religions, more and more degenerate.
Well, at the moment it’s, above all, self-proclaimed witches and other white knights who hunt other witches, if you see what I am driving at… I actually live in the countryside, a bit detached from all that, I have not really suffered from confinement and the whole virus stuff, quite the contrary actually, for reasons better left unspoken.
Honestly, the fate of magic interests me much more than the fate of metal… And I do find all this uncertainty quite exciting even if I must be the only one around… Even the dumbest of the dumb must have come to the conclusion that we are arriving at the end of something nowadays, and will find himself talking about Kali Yuga at the family dinner, after his intense Wikipedia search… Sometimes what falters must be pushed, even if everybody is hurt in the process… After all, in some modern LHP currents, it is said that the man of the future is under esoterical process, a bit like in Robert Anton Wilson’s prophecies… Well bring it on, and in worst case scenario it will work during next acausal incarnation in the past, if there is no life to establish a future anymore…
Melmothia: Thanks a lot for granting me your time. See you for the French version’s release?
Alcide: Fair enough: God Bless, Satan Caress, Chaos is the Law, Hail Eris and Stuff…
VITRIOL interview (English version)
Here we stand at the dawn of an event of interdimensional magnitude, quasi acausal should we say… For the second issue of V.I.T.R.I.O.L is about to be released. Spawned in 2017, this magazine strives for weaving Extreme Metal and Magic, the one pointing towards the Left Side. The first issue was proposing interviews of bands such as Nightbringer, Thy Darkened Shade or Saturnian Mist, plus some musings over various currents such as Chaos Magic or Satanism.
For this second opus, Alcide recruited Napharion, leader of the bands ARYOS and MARKAB PROJECT, who composed the CD music featured with the magazine. As I consider he did not shed enough blood already, I myself decided to recruit him in order to interrogate his partner in astral crime, the quite frantic Alcide, who seems to be unstoppable for he is already shooting a video clip to achieve this strange webbing.
Melmothia: Hi Alcide and thanks for granting us some of your time. Before funding the aesthetically refined V.I.T.R.I.O.L magazine, you had created a fanzine (unreadable as far as a far-sighted like me is concerned), named REAL LIFE EVIL DREAM, which was already digging the ideologies and mystics underlying Metal and especially Black Metal. After these few years getting rid of the deadwood, what kind of conclusion would you draw as far as Esotericism and Metal are concerned? Which degree of sincerity do you confer to its activists?
Alcide: It’s almost 30° in here, so I’ll just open myself a Witch Beer (favorite beer of mine based on nettles), I shall put some 80s heavy metal on vinyl and here we go: Hails to Thee, Eris’ disciples suffering within matter, the snail mail took three years to pass through the astral gates, but it was worth it. Real Life Evil Dream had nothing to do with the occult in the first place, it was not until the end of the third issue, as I had been awakened to certain things, that I decided to establish a link between the two zines throughout an ACHERONTAS interview, mainly dealing with magic and a sigil editing that was challenging copyright laws a tad too much…
As for metal and esotericism, I already answered in a previous interview some months ago but some currents find their origin within Metal such as Dragon Rouge or the 218 (of which the rumor has it that it was based essentially on second-hand documents which were stolen from Dragon Rouge by the way, but what the hell, It’s an old tradition after all to do such a thing) as well as others which are much more underground, or if we think about some well-known metal musicians who were or are part of various Thelema related groups… But we are talking about an era I did not live actually… I was too busy being fascinated by ABSU’s Proscriptor’s interviews, or reading the lyrics worthy of a grimoire of MORBID ANGEL on the Formulas Fatal To The Flesh album, and a lot of goetic seals that I caught a glimpse of here and there were already starting to engrave into my mind.
As for the actual time period, well it was with the rise of ‘orthodox’ Black Metal or ‘Theistic satanism’ that then progressively all the bands started to make themselves pass for all-powerful magicians in their lyrics, artwork and interviews… Until today where you have the impression that literally everybody is into the occult, including all those Postcore bands with their fashionistas hoods that some labels would like to sell as Black Metal…
Except that, when you really investigate into the matter, you soon understand that it just amounts to the reading of books or pdfs, nicely decorated altars and sometimes a lot of chaotic visions acquired under the influence of drugs… Of course, because magic requires TIME, DEDICATION and WILL… But it seems that there is still a real and cyclical renewal of interest for magic in general, and a small minority who really practices what it preaches. Those are the people I interview of course, even if at times I really wonder about their LHP practices that amount to some sort of counter initiation or to what I would call ‘suicide by magic’… But maybe that’s my infamous RHP background that is leading me to profess such outrageous words…
Actually, the rise of zines such as THE SINISTER FLAME, ABOMINATIO DESOLATIONIS or BARDO METHODOLOGY are the living proof of a renewal of interest towards esotericism and a will to up the ante. Besides, as far as my publication is concerned, I THINK I will focus less and less on LHP and Satanism per se (two paradigms that have been bastardized a lot to an increasingly confusing result) for interviews based on the esoteric on a global scale…
Melmothia: Where does the name V.I.T.R.I.O.L come from (even if I already have an educated guess…)?
Alcide: I was looking for a powerful name and that simply originates from the research I did to understand what the hell the ABSU guy was talking about in his interviews… Of course, you got that I slightly altered the original meaning (Tenebrae instead of Terrae) even if the symbolism is a no brainer.
Napharion: in the first issue, your propaganda was stating that They are 7 and 7 they are, 7 esoteric exchanges, with 7 champions of sonic Chaos and Luciferian Gnosis (including one Black Sheep)… How come this profusion of 7 and that black sheep’s presence?
Alcide: Well, I just got that from one of the many magical currents that inspired me back in the day. Do your own research… As for the black sheep, it’s a reference to Jimmy Screamerclauz, the unique non metal artist from the zine. Because the esoteric references in his work are completely unconscious, which we ultimately understood while doing the live interview, which was slightly embarrassing at the moment…
Napharion: By the way, your zine is in English, why that choice (a bit frustrating for the French-speaking readers)?
Alcide: A french re-release of the first zine is currently in process, and that’s an interesting challenge. I have to struggle against my tendency to rewrite rather than simply translate… I chose English in the first place to reach more readers worldwide and because I am more used to that language ever since I have spent my time translating bands lyrics as a teenager. And finally, because I started with Anglo-Saxon esotericism well before understanding that something was happening in France as well. Damn, I even used to do most of my rituals in English so… Actually, it opened me gates kinda everywhere and even in France. So, the language issue can be passed through at times. There are zines that are written in ‘Frenglish’ and that works quite well for them…
Melmothia: When shall we get that French-speaking version?
Alcide: Well, it’s plain simple: at the moment I have translated the exact half of the first issue. It’s VERY strange to reread yourself, feels like it was written ten years ago… Some questions are naïve to a fault and others are so weird and exalted that I clearly wrote them under some influence, be it natural or not… The zine will be released in an upgraded version, and I have several Ideas to establish a link between past, present and future…
Napharion: The line-up of the first zine seemed to follow trends, almost leaving nothing to surprise for It focused on hyped bands from the esoterical Black Metal of nowadays: NIGTHBRINGER, HETROERTZEN, SERPENT NOIR, SATURNIAN MIST, ASCENSION, THY DARKENED SHADE… Was it a commercial choice of yours, in order to start the zine under good omens?
Alcide: Above all I wanted to exchange with musicians whom I know were really practising magic for a fact. And Saturnian Mist is anything but trendy. I also wanted bands linked to currents that interested me back in those days, such as Dragon Rouge or anything linked to Chaos Magic. The second issue is a bit more eclectic, with for example the BLAZE OF PERDITION interview that’s going to make a few Trve Warriors sigh, not to mention the URARV one that’s going to make some people grind their teeth… The third one, that I started during hot summer, when I listen to anything but extreme metal, will be even more open paradigm-wise. So much for me if I lose some narrow-minded satanic readers, they will find something else to read…
Napharion: Any disappointment about the answers of these ‘usual suspects’?
Alcide: The true disappointment is above all when the guy does not answer you after having promised he would. Back in the days of REAL LIFE EVIL DREAM zine we had slightly broken bad by sending 80 questions to a guy who chose to play dead after, which I can understand… But for V.I.T.R.I.O.L, you have the one who sends you extracts from his upcoming ultra-satanic cult book, only written in bold letters and probably in goat skin bound, only to disappear for six months to finally tell you that he cannot do the interview any longer and that of course he won’t tell you why… Or another band that decides to cancel the whole interview because they do not like the ‘tone’ of some questions … or another one who shakes your hand after a gig, then comes from time to time on social networks to do his promotion but of course never ever reads your messages…
That second issue was supposed to feature a massive interview, dealing with politics, philosophy, magic, literature, with Americans who lead a quite unordinary existence and who merge with esotericism in their daily existence 24/7, with all the dangers implied in some particularly wild city… But the guy was just unable to answer a written interview, while our live exchanges were extremely interesting… So much for it…
Well OK, let’s admit that in the second opus there is a definitely less interesting interview. It’s not difficult to see which one. Maybe I should have listened to various red alerts, vibes-wise, as soon as I started to exchange with the person. Whatever, I’m fine with the questions.
Speaking of that, for my former zine REAL LIFE EVIL DREAM, me and my bygone partner were so pleased with our questions that we had published them without the answers of some guy who had played dead as well… Of course, that had made us a tad infamous for that…
Melmothia: So, what is your favourite interview among all those you did, including all your zines? And which text would you advise readers to start with about the second opus?
Alcide: There was this really funny interview in my former zine (R.L.E.D) where an interviewee litterally spends all his answers insulting us (and I had travelled through half the country to settle things clear with him at a gig), the completely fucked up interview (probably establishing a record as far as the amount of questions was concerned) that we had sent to the poor CORPUS CHRISTII guy, who had played dead afterwards, which had pissed me off a lot at the time (to the extent of trying to pick up a fight at a gig, sigh…) but which is quite funny with hindsight… That’s all for the bad but funny.
As for the best, definitely the EBONYLAKE interview, which is a cult band from my teenage days and who has never got the recognition it deserved. A lot of quality vibes experienced when reading the answers, up to the point of opening a gate almost, so distant from the Ideological style and clichés of Black Metal…
As for the reader, I would advise her/him to read in the chronological order, as simple as that, to end up literally in my head, for better and worse… Which reminds me that the mundane reader without basics about esotericism will probably be at a loss… Not even mentioning the SERPENT NOIR interview in the first V.I.T.R.I.O.L, which will be completely undecipherable for those not familiar with DRAGON ROUGE paradigm… Whatever, contrary to other zines I will never explicit everything, let them do their own research…
Napharion: The first issue could be read as if one was consulting your magical diary, each interview seemingly an experiment, something that was lived for real, Implying nights of research and practices. Could you talk about this myriad of births? And the way you pursued that work in the Second issue?
Alcide: Let’s not succumb to exaggeration but indeed each interview has its own bibliography and I had to literally pierce the veil of bands’ paradigm in order to better understand them. To the extent of sometimes having to modify my own magical practice or adjust my reality in a rather radical way. I sometimes have the Impression to Impose my current obsessions to the bands, but most of them find it more interesting that the average questions they are generally asked. And even when the answers seem disappointing or during this infamous aborted interview that had required me a LOT of research, those experiences brought me things on a personal level and allowed me to learn on various topics and to discover interesting authors whom I would never ever have investigated about without the zine.
Napharion: Any anecdotes about this immersion? Normal or paranormal ones?
Alcide: We shall not unveil all details of my life, but an interview from the second zine led me to deepen some things which as a consequence drove me to a mindblowing time period, while searching for inner mechanisms and this changed my vision of reality on many aspects. I found myself in unusual places and hooking with very different persons from the ones I used to deal with. As for the ‘paranormal’ (which does not exist by the way, there is only some normal that we cannot explain yet…) It’s a little messy in my head, but if I reread my grimoire and the dream diary, I have been holding for several years now, I would find traces for sure…
When I was rereading the zine for corrections, I acknowledged that several interviews’ questions had been achieved under some trance, for I hardly recognized my usual style of questions… Actually, some months ago, I just had to watch a musical clip linked to a certain magical current to find myself during sleep literally catapulted at the midst of some past event of this very group, which was confirmed by someone who actually lived it… You read a book about out of body experiences and you achieve one out of the blue during the same night, but when you try to reflect about the underlying mechanisms and attempt to consciously reproduce what you did, it does not work anymore… That’s a part of the whole problem.
Melmothia: What you are referring to, this kind of immersion which is likely to unleash some phenomenons, seems to me quite common actually. Whereas when you just apply techniques, maybe these offerings of sweat, blood and aspirin, fundamental to any given form of creation or thorough research, are lacking… Do you come to the same conclusion? Does magic want our blood?
Alcide: As Phil Hine would have it: ‘They have traditions, we have techniques…’ and I would be like: ‘SO WHAT!?’ You know a thing or two about unwillingly shedding blood, don’t you? I did not totally stop myself, even if I thank the global incompetence of my inglorious beginnings, which probably kept me safe from various fluidic catastrophes, at least during this incarnation… It’s Chaos Magic here below: techniques are mixed with artistic creation and through research in a huge melting pot that is as messy as paradoxically coherent, but that would certainly have me locked at the insane asylum, were my rituals filmed by someone…
Rituals that you have to harbour for weeks and sometimes months before accomplishing them. Improvisation is magical maybe 1/4 of the time, the rest being mere absence of result of pure catastrophe, the latter being paradoxically very inspiring for artistic creation.
Larvaes do want our blood, as for magic I do not know, but what I know is that she already has my day-to-day dedication for sure, by constant dint of obsession, which can make a life spent into this mugglish society, and their everlasting pact with matter, even more complicated…
Melmothia: How do you use music within your magic? And where can it lead you as far as you are concerned? Finally, what is supposed to happen to readers who are going to listen to the CD at home, alone, in the dark?
Alcide: Well, you have to saturate all your senses within a ritual, and some music is particularly fitting for this. I had already gathered a list of tunes that had a valid effect on me, even before getting interested by magic, and I remembered my many trance experiences while attending a gig. See Dragon Rouge, they dig techno a lot if I am not mistaken… Obviously, I started with the ‘easiest’ way, that is excitatory trance, as linked to extreme metal, which is perfect for that. But at the cost of countless cramps, as well as the ruin of my sleeping cycle back in the days. Not having the magical opportunity to have money without working, I had to turn towards more meditative music and today I maintain a balance between both, especially since I have my own occultum and the pleasure to live in the countryside…
The clip/teaser that we shot by using the CD music is here for the same reason. The rituals have been recorded in the rawest way, and it seems the music has been composed just the same… We will see what kind of effect it will have on the listeners. The whole thing is completely unprofessional, but sincere as it can be, and we will obviously do better next time.
in a nutshell, the zine is a kind of magical diary and the CD is Its musical twin. It is only lacking some incense, which will probably happen sooner or later, even if It’s a bit of a cliché nowadays…
Napharion: Chaos Magic, ultimately barely present within BM, has started to be part of the movement. Discreetly dealt with by Behemoth back in the days, claimed by Aryos (sorry for the self-advertisement), Saturnian Mist and a few others. You state that Chaos Magic is for you ‘a marvellous magical method’. Can you develop?
Alcide: in his esoterical books, the ARCKANUM guy thanks Phil Hine and Peter J. Carroll, which had pleasantly surprised me. BATHORY LEGION mentions Hakim Bey in a recent interview… It was already here but nobody was making a fuss about it. Karlsson was writing articles in CHAOS INTERNATIONAL, if I am not mistaken. And several old esoterical groups such as TEMPLE OF THE VAMPIRE for example, have probably used and abused Chaos Magic while making it pass for some arcane tradition, as most used to do as well back in their era… ‘All magic is Chaos Magic’ as KING SATAN would have It…
Resistance against this style of magic can be met in some French magical groups where you are repeated ad nauseam that it’s just ‘Golden Dawn for dummies’, or that Chaotes are people who pretend to reinvent the wheel by Impersonating the ‘former masters’. Which is not false technically, except that I strongly advise beginners to start with recent books and then go back to older ones. What’s more, Chaos Magic books are essentially here to explain the fundamental mechanisms behind magic, without the whole garment and of the inevitable dogma found in the old books that are slightly limited by the common thoughts of their era and aeon. Those who criticize Chaos and want to perceive it as just another magical system, tend to forget that It is mainly the heir of psychedelic revolution, and that it aims at banging your reality big time. Discordianism, Dice Man, Squat and anarchic magic…
Besides It is paradoxically the magic that stands the best as a counter-culture while also being the one that is the most permeable to systemic phagocyting, through personal development (and some authors have already got the message, haven’t they?). There is also that ‘fast and efficient’ reputation that makes its popularity, even if you soon understand that’s it’s not the case at all and that you’d rather need some experience behind.
So basically, to me, Chaos is much more than just another magical path, for it also influences the whole exoteric aspect of my life, but then It becomes difficult to explain that with words for I have no hindsight and I do not want that ‘chaote’ turns into just another label…
Melmothia: Are your resolution not to become prisoner of a current, as well as your affinities with Chaos Magic, only coming from your desire to collect efficient techniques or also a fever for not keeping your butt on the same chair for long? is V.I.T.R.I.O.L’s creation akin to that very same hunger for knowing and experimenting? Do you always seem to rush after shooting stars, screaming all along the way?
Alcide: Limiting chaos Magic to a list of techniques is a typical prejudice in some traditional currents, even if with Chaos, you work straight over the magical enemy number one, that is the Psychic Censor, that can still pester you even when you KNOW that your magic works. Hence the difficulty of finding something that works twice… Being ‘born into It’ through one’s family helps a lot as I witnessed for some persons but it’s not my case, I really started from scratch.
As for my difficulties with keeping in the same paradigm for long, I see you have read me quite well. It might be a quality as much as a flaw, as Orryelle reminds it in the Chaos Magic documentary on YouTube… A paradigm shift cannot be really apprehended unless you got one head-on, unless you suffered from it, before being able to get out of it, so that you might understand the underlying mechanisms and being able to reproduce them. That fever you mention might simply originates from the failure to find a path or a current that you trust enough to completely adhere to it, because you are very cautious about the other people being part of it or just careful about the egregore behind it. Basically, even the Illuminates of Thanateros is but another pyramidal structure.
But after all, it took me almost ten years to find my place within Martial Arts/Self-defence, and I still cannot guarantee that I am not ultimately going to learn another style one day… Hunger for experimentation can basically eat you as well, and estrange you from your surroundings and entourage, been there done that… And indeed, at times you really feel like you are just screaming in vain while chasing stars (sigh) but some time periods of emptiness and a lack of inspiration can be useful sometimes. ‘Sleep on it’ as they say, at times you just need to obsess over something but finally let it go, so that you go back into the fold later, in a more serene way.
Does it mean my conception and practice of magic have become more serene along the years? Not that much … but I am working on it. When you start to understand the untrodden capacities of the brainin order to open gates, leading a ‘normal’ life becomes more and more complicated, especially in this mugglish society where you cannot live by night to sleep by day, hence a certain feverishness of mine… Some are afraid for magic to explode, as far as I am concerned it’s never ever explosive enough…
Melmothia: Chaos Magic aside, what are the currents and systems which you favor? And which ones repel you and why?
Alcide: I reject nothing, I found myself on the verge of New Age (which, by the way, is much more dangerous than satanism) so who am I to blame? I favor anything linked to witchery and good old Goetia, at least at the moment. It’s difficult to answer that considering I have no hindsight when it comes to magic… I do not make any big difference between LHP and RHP anymore: labels, just labels…
Napharion: You said somewhere that you regretted the lack of content inspired by ONA within Black Metal, don’t you think that considering the amount of mentally unbalanced people into BM, and the lack of maturity of some listeners, that the injection of that kind of Ideology would equal playing with fire?
Alcide: ONA has a lot of fascinating concepts and others that just make you sigh. If you take the fascist folklore aside, it becomes even more interesting. What would annoy me more is that many concepts of ONA are supposed to be rebellious but are actually fitting with the system: obsession with arising above others, glorification of predation, etc. I have heard that some ONA currents had totally got out of the racialist madness. Well, it’s not really the impression I have by reading some things but maybe I should just investigate out of the extreme metal sphere. Basically, it could be possible to achieve something really interesting with all that by removing the most dogmatic aspects.
As for the ‘fragile’ people, it’s funny you should say that because someone was telling me recently that BM was essentially composed of fragile and hyper-sensitive people who were playing the tough guys because they were originally fed up with being mistaken for women as soon as they turned their backs… And so, they end up mistaking this role-playing game for their true personality, adding violence to the whole mix, and turning their intrinsic basket case-ry into some kind of twisted romanticism, when it’s actually almost always the psychological consequence of some ingrained family traumas… Black Metal became politicized from its very beginnings and easily rehabilitated by various extremes for it’s basically based on hatred, nostalgia, fantasies…
Admittedly, a very small number of people sure CHOSE to lead an extreme way of life based over hardcore magical practices, but that’s essentially a minority who again, CHOSE (or was chosen), far from the ones who just followed their urges and just reacted to their social surroundings… You have fought against basically everybody, you have declared war to society and even cosmos, but have you ever tried to fight against yourself?
Melmothia: I will pursue on that question by contradicting Napharion: do you think there might be an esoteric current which is not soluble into the oven-ready cover and the usual infernal package? To put it differently: which ingredient is missing, for, according to you, to make truly magical or mystical things happen within BM scene?
Alcide: Well, by the way, all currents are doomed to decay with time passing, as well as bands by the way… Everything should have an expiration date, as a good old Temporary Autonomous Zone… And besides, the problem is not so much the currents in themselves than the individuals behind… Humans all too humans. As for BM It would require above all people to be able to accept CHANGE, to perceive beyond the aesthetics and dogma, but it’s difficult, and almost Impossible to recreate magic that had manifested itself in Scandinavia at the beginning of the nineties, ending into some Charles Manson-esque quagmire as usual… It’s all about aeonics again, and, of course, there were some forces behind the whole she-bang… Nowadays some keep the old flame alive at their own scale, but in a society where appearances prevail, this is a tough task and some are a bit too obsessed by their desire to turn fantasized past into just another dogma, at the risk of waxing grotesque at times.
What would be required is something I witnessed first hand: events happening far from the madding crowd (which is more and more difficult), with selected people, which would mix concerts and magical rituals, performed by practitioners who know what they are doing. Some sort of Black Metal Temporary Autonomous Zone in a nutshell, where all consumer concept would be erased. I don’t think I am the only one who understood that considering the rise of some events here and there. But again, the whole thing is about not getting caught by the matrix. « When you try to bring people a free spirituality, watch out for the police raid » as someone used to say…
Melmothia: What you say seems rather coherent to me. Let’s just go back to what you intend by ‘forces behind’. Do you think that activists of the Black Metal scene who resorted to crime were ‘under the influence’?
You can wonder as well for many historical figures in general anyway, whether it was about the intervention of some egregores having gained autonomy or arcane forces… As for some Black metal individuals, I was more thinking about some good old larvae, or demons baited by various auric holes… Just by rereading some old zines of the nineties, you can only guess about the special dark treatment that some practitioners were applying to famous deities, to such an extent that to my mind you are dealing with something completely other than the original energy…
People had far less hindsight back then, they were wilder and paradoxically more fragile because of that whole role-playing game aspect (forcing yourself to appear darker and tougher than you really were…) and also, I guess, their general disdain or mere lack of knowledge about the most basic protections when it comes to magic…
Well, obviously a minority of them were working seriously and definitely opened some concrete gates… It should be reminded that Black Metal has a lot to do with counter initiation, as much as with the Great Work in reverse as it is developd into 218 books…
OK I grant you there is more and more light within Black Metal spirituality those days, alongside, better sound, better aesthetics, more and more technique… But just have a look at the Erica Frevel interview I did and just read her little book: figure out what it could imply as long as its magic works… Very few are those who would endeavour to follow her on that path, given what it encompasses: among other things to literally break men and gods’ laws…
Melmothia: I know you’ve been already asked that question but here we go again for I know you just cannot get enough of that one: who are V.I.T.R.I.O.L readers?
Alcide: Well, having started to send the parcels I can tell you for a fact that with my network is clearly expanding beyond the Metal sphere, which is pleasant, for I intend to expand a lot the interviewees’ pedigree, and maybe even the collaborators’ one. Pass the word on…
Napharion: You stay the grandmaster of the whole thing alongside your Babalon, but could the zine team expand?
Alcide: Thanks for reminding me how much I was delving into clichés just three years ago, and thus that I have evolved a bit eversince… She is doing everything zine-wise indeed. We were even supposed to add one of her musical projects to the zine’s CD but it did not ultimately happen. As for the expansion, we mused a lot over it when we shot the clip in…. Improper conditions to say the least. We would have rather been surrounded by a full team during this process…
Melmothia: The clip is beautiful by the way, and I guess it’s your girlfriend who should be congratulated. But why, with this kind of aesthetic, is It always about people moving in slow motion by a campfire?
Alcide: Hey, I still provided all the Ideas based on visions I had in a place where I dwell for various reasons…. The clip’s symbolism is quite obvious for whoever knows the basics of a ritual. I originally wanted something more ‘modern’ and psychedelic but first we did not have the means to do that and secondly it would have been off topic with the zine content, and even more with the CD’s music. But considering how the next publication is faring so far: nothing is true everything is possible… OK I agree that the zine’s aesthetics is typical of its era, just because of the artists whom I worked with (including one of whom I will never tell enough about how much it was a nightmare to work with…)
That’s the whole issue now: a high skilled artist soon becomes just another brand within the metal sphere and obsolete even faster when he starts to work with literally everybody, and I have several obvious examples of that phenomenon in mind, just for France actually. I won’t fall into name-dropping, when the irony is that there is a sincere will behind… Well, that could be worse: I could have used a drone, which must be the hypest thing at the moment as far as clips are concerned.
Melmothia: How do you think that the relationship between esotericism and music, especially the Metal scene, is going to evolve in the coming years? Any Idea of what is yet to come?
Alcide: Well, considering the state of metal scene at the moment, at least about the live setting… Just go back to caves ye people, the scene will get better. I just don’t know, this used to be full time insta-witch mode some months ago, and if you refer to the cyclical aeons as prophetized by Peter J. Carroll, we should soon know the lowest ebb but I am not so sure for the times they are a-changin’ and becoming more and more uncertain… Europe will, of course, fall back into Its demons of the past, and magic will be caught more and more into the grasp of politics, maybe to the extent of new witch-hunts, considering the eternal return of the three desert religions, more and more degenerate.
Well, at the moment it’s, above all, self-proclaimed witches and other white knights who hunt other witches, if you see what I am driving at… I actually live in the countryside, a bit detached from all that, I have not really suffered from confinement and the whole virus stuff, quite the contrary actually, for reasons better left unspoken.
Honestly, the fate of magic interests me much more than the fate of metal… And I do find all this uncertainty quite exciting even if I must be the only one around… Even the dumbest of the dumb must have come to the conclusion that we are arriving at the end of something nowadays, and will find himself talking about Kali Yuga at the family dinner, after his intense Wikipedia search… Sometimes what falters must be pushed, even if everybody is hurt in the process… After all, in some modern LHP currents, it is said that the man of the future is under esoterical process, a bit like in Robert Anton Wilson’s prophecies… Well bring it on, and in worst case scenario it will work during next acausal incarnation in the past, if there is no life to establish a future anymore…
Melmothia: Thanks a lot for granting me your time. See you for the French version’s release?
Alcide: Fair enough: God Bless, Satan Caress, Chaos is the Law, Hail Eris and Stuff…
Read VITRIOL l’entrevue in French.