#spiritualinstinct

[tragedykery]

alcest have plenty of songs that dont get heavier ^^ especially considering the whole shelter album ww

ah that makes sense, ty! I only know a handful of their songs so it makes sense I haven’t stumbled upon any other calm ones of theirs sjfkfksj

[gothboobs]

thank you

🫡

[chord-of-souls]

Alcest’s Neige on his otherworldly childhood experiences

“I can’t describe it with words; it’s very astral. I think the dictionary doesn’t have enough words. I was seeing (these visions) and I didn’t know what I was seeing – a different world with different shapes and different colours – and to compare it I like to use the example of when people have a near-death experience and go away from their body, (except) I was conscious during these visions.”

“I think we all have these visions as children. I don’t believe in heaven, more intermediate dimensions – a different world. Closer to Buddhism. The universe is infinite, not only in terms of planets and stars, but also in terms of other dimensions. (We are limited by our perceptions) so we look for the infinity in terms of distance. “We all have the flashes I had as a child, and as a child we have a much more pure and fresh vision of these things but I think we can lose them as we get older. We lose our innocence and enchantment about the things that happen to us. There is a change as we get older.”

“I don’t know if I ever really want to experience (the visions again). I don’t know if what I have had is enough.”

“The screams [in my music] are not my human side, but more the frustration I have of just being a human now and not being able to feel these things again and not being able to reach this world again. (It’s something ) I can’t express well with gentle singing – they are the voice of the human condition and frustration.”

Source: https://echoesanddust.com/2012/01/interview-alcest/

Q: So, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but it seems that in a lot of the interviews you've given over time that the trigger or impetus for a lot of your music writing, at first or at least, is a childhood experience you had, almost like a daydream.

A: Yeah, like a spiritual experience, something that I know as very nice, not like a dream or a fantasy. Like a glimpse into another dimension that I gained access to.

Q: How old were you when this happened? 

A: Four or five.

Q: Oh, wow. And you remember where you were when you saw this?

A: Yeah, I mean, it happened several times. I was in the car with my parents, or at school, or anywhere. It’s like a memory that comes back to you. A memory, but not of anything that exists on this planet or that you could see.

Q: Did you ever feel frustration towards the attempt to describe those experiences or trying to express them?

A: Of course, of course. Every day, all the time. Because I feel like I'm some kind of outsider. I didn't hear about anyone having a similar experience, and I feel like I have one foot down here in this reality and another foot in something else. So I'm always stretched between two different worlds, and it creates a lot of tension and frustration. I am a very anxious person too. I mean, I have a dark side, definitely, and I try to find a harmony between my more spiritual side and a more down-to-earth and anxious side. That’s the whole point, I guess, trying to find harmony, you know?

I've always been attracted to spiritual questions like the afterlife and the essence of what we are, are we the soul, what is the soul, if we are just humans or if the nature of the soul is actually much more than just being human. That’s what I did. The existence of God, the meaning of life, what are we doing here? And these are questions that I've been asking them myself since forever, and at the same time not being religious, because I’m not a religious person, I don't follow any fucking book and I don't listen to anyone. No one is going to tell me what to believe in. I had a chance to experience something, and that's worth all the books in the world.

When I wrote Souvenirs I was still very young, some of the songs were written when I was maybe 17 or 18, I was really, really young. And then Écailles was written in my early 20s. I moved away from the South of France and went to Paris, and I started to have like a real adult life, with adult problems and everything. And it’s difficult to have this side that is so disconnected from everything and so beautiful and pure and having to live a life, with everything that it implies, all the suffering. And because I think also I am a natural nostalgic and melancholic and anxious person, that's a part of who I am. And yet, that's where it started to appear, at least in Alcest. I was involved in darker music before that, but Écailles is the first dark Alcest album. It still has a lot of beauty, it’s still very, very dreamy, but it’s an album of longing and melancholia.

When I released Souvenirs, I didn't know…. I mean, I guess I was politically unaware, because it was a very provocative record in the end. Some people felt offended by that record because it was so uplifting and so fragile. Metal is all about being a real man who wears leather and spikes and fights warriors in the north, you know? And then I came with my springtime, happy, fragile, otherworldly stuff, using the same instruments, using blast beats, using tremolo-picked riffs. But I guess I was a little bit crazy, because now I wouldn't dare do it again. 

Source: https://machinemusic.net/2020/02/19/machine-musics-albums-of-the-decade-an-interview-with-alcest/

A: Alcest is not a fairytale; what I sing about is real. I am not the only person to have lived an extrasensory experience. For me it’s a part of reality, just one that not so many people are aware of. I think we are very limited in our perceptions as human beings, as beings of flesh. If I had not had these experiences as a child I would be maybe a nihilist or an atheist, but I had these experiences and they totally changed the way I see life.

Q: That’s true. You’re not the only person to have had an extrasensory experience.

A: For example, people who have had near-death experiences. What they describe is very similar my visions. We can’t adequately describe these experiences because they’re so beyond our ability to perceive. When these people are brought back to life what they say is ‘I can’t describe it. It was so beautiful’. It changes lives. There is a book called Life After Life by Raymond Moody; it’s a classic of esoteric literature. All these hundreds of thousands of people who have experienced this are describing the same thing.

Source: https://www.invisibleoranges.com/interview-neige-alcest-amesoeurs-old-silver-key-lantlos/

“I had some flashes and visions of a place that didn’t look anywhere close to something real. I have no idea why I had this, or where it came from. It was somewhere very magical—the most beautiful thing you could ever think about. I don’t know what to call it, I don’t know what it is. I just know it has transformed me.”

Stéphane Paut is describing his first memory. For many, that would be something from our early childhood: perhaps a trip to Disneyland, or the day we started preschool. For him, however, it's a series of divine, abstract images, which he believes emanate from a time before his own birth. “It sounds strange, but I believe in life after life and life before life,” he elaborates. “Maybe some memories weren’t erased.”

“This album [Spiritual Instinct] talks about how I try to apply my spirituality to my very ordinary human life, and how I live with my darkness,” he says. “I always feel like I have one foot here and one foot in my other world. That creates a lot of anxiety and tension, and that’s where [the] heaviness comes from.”

“I’ve always felt that I don’t really fit in in this world,” he admits. “Because of my experience, it’s like I’m too alien or too different.”

Source: https://www.stereoboard.com/content/view/225460/9

“In my childhood I had some "visions" of an unknown place, of another dimension, and since my 2005 Mini-CD Le Secret, Alcest is the musical testimony of these experiences. Recently some books about esotericism have brought me some answers about that subject. At the moment I think these visions come from a place that could be a kind of "intermediate stage." The soul would rest there between two earthly lives and for some time would be liberated of the burden of incarnation. Maybe I kept some memories of this state of consciousness. I couldn't tell precisely if these experiences were sorts of memories from this "other world" or if they were an ability, which I had as a child, to catch sight of the doors of a parallel dimension, of a hidden reality. I hope these questions will be answered one day.

“What I'm certain of is that things I perceive in these visions don't look like anything I have seen in my current life or even in my dreams. It's an indescribably beautiful place where everything-- trees, glades, and brooks-- produces a pearly light and where a faraway and celestial music floats in the air like a perfume. In such a place the spirit wanders without its mortal coil and deprived of the five senses pertaining to the body. It perceives what surrounds it in a completely different way such as I couldn't describe with words. There, one no longer feels moral and physical suffering, diseases, anguish of death but only a feeling of peace and indescribable ecstasy. The place is inhabited by beings of light who are infinitely benevolent, protective and who communicate by talking directly to the soul, in a "language" beyond words. Of course, that was just a clumsy and incomplete description. To understand me fully, it's better to listen to my music.”

Source: https://pitchfork.com/features/show-no-mercy/6659-show-no-mercy/

“When I was a child, when I was very young, I would have these visions of this place and I didn’t know what it was. When I grew up, I would think back to this when people would talk about the after-life. This might sound crazy but I thought maybe I might have kept a memory of the place I was before being here. In a lot of religions there is a place like that, like in the middle. I don’t know if it was that but it seems like something very similar. Or maybe it is the future. Or another side of reality. I think we are very limited in ours senses as human beings. Animals can hear sounds we can’t, that doesn’t mean the sound doesn’t exist. So I think our sight is limited, in that sense, in what we call reality. We don’t know anything, really. That’s why the theme [of the album] is perception because we think we are in control of our bodies but our souls and perception of all that is totally different.”

Source: https://www.metalsucks.net/2012/01/19/alcests-neige-the-metalsucks-interivew/

[zemnarihah]

@wednesdaytoo tagged me to post 9 albums i've been listening to lately!! thank u<3

tagging: @musicandmasochism @synthwife @aenima1996 @spiritualinstinct @twoheaddeddog @visible-disappointment @jeffament

[liliakier]

A commission I had done a while back of Mikael for @spiritualinstinct I’m finally getting around to posting here

[fey--wolf]

found myself floating away from most of the social media around, and tumblr seems like a nice place to crash in and out once in a while.

that being said, @spiritualinstinct's Neige Pile is complete and i'm proud to finally show my entry! The amount of work and emotions that went into it, heavens. I've been repeating that it was hell of a journey so many times i sound like a broken record, but hey... it was.

haven't been so satisfied with the final result for a very long time, left with feeling compelled to draw even more Alcest, how do i ever schedule everything?

[jassumkiddos]

@spiritualinstinct :3

[spiritualinstinct]

im very curious about who owned the spiritualinstinct url in 2019... come forward

[catbarrage]

tagged by @spiritualinstinct to share my last listened to song and my last saved pic!

I tag @likeits95 , @layaboutace , @torislaymos , @leafas63c and the tumbly reading this ❤

[xanhelox]

[xsnobx]

Y después de varios años tengo casi completa la discografía de @alcestofficial una de las bandas que vino a cambiar mi vida... No sabe la maravilla que creo @neigealcest 🖤🤘🏻 #Alcest #Shogazing #shogaze #Lp #vynilcollection #Vinyl #kodama #SpiritualInstinct #shelter #ecaillesdelune #souvenirsdunautremonde #lesvoyagesdelame (en Royaume Des Fées) https://www.instagram.com/p/CU6CWBQLvQp/?utm_medium=tumblr

[nuclearblastuk]

ALCEST | UNVEIL MUSIC VIDEO FOR SECOND SINGLE, 'SAPPHIRE'

After recently revealing their first single 'Protection' and performing a genre-crossing set with Perturbator this week, French sound wizards ALCEST are ready to present the second single off their upcoming sixth studio album titled 'Spiritual Instinct'. Recorded at the French Drudenhaus Studios and written in bursts both during and after a prolonged period of touring in support of 2016’s hugely successful 'Kodama', the new album - the first via Nuclear Blast - will lead the blackgaze pioneers into dark soundscapes full of spiritual catharsis and will be released on October 25th. Today's single, 'Sapphire', is another magical creation blending shadows and light - the video was directed by Craig Murray (Mogwai, etc) and you can watch it here. Stream or download 'Sapphire' via this link: https://nblast.de/Alcest-Sapphire 

Bandleader Neige comments: "Here’s 'Sapphire', the second single from our upcoming album 'Spiritual Instinct'. This one was also written in a very spontaneous, liberating way and has this 80’s post-punk feel that could remind of The Cure, The Chameleons, or even our older side project Amesoeurs. Hope you guys enjoy it."

In case you missed the previously released music video for 'Protection', watch it here: https://youtu.be/Tn7wvu8R4Wk Pre-order your copy of 'Spiritual Instinct' here: https://nblast.de/AlcestSpiritInstinct

Pre-save the album on Spotify via this link: http://nblast.de/ALCESTpreSave  The album is now available for pre-order in the following formats: - digipak in O-card - 36 pages earbook including 2 CD + 180g LP (stone effect) (limited to 2000 copies) - 180g LP in sleeve available in the colours: black (retail) ocean green (NB mailorder + wholesale, limited to 500 copies) burgundy (NB mailorder exclusive, limited to 300 copies) polar white (Rough Trade exclusive, limited to 300 copies) royal blue (band shop exclusive, limited to 300 copies) - Boxset collector's edition including 2 CDs + 180g LP (stone effect), earbook, bonus mini LP (violet sparkle, etched) in sleeve, art prints and patch (limited to 500 copies) Digital USA exclusive vinyl colours: mint green (retail, limited to 1.700 copies) clear+blue/bone splatter (indie exclusive, limited to 300 copies) blood red (NB mailorder exclusive, limited to 500 copies)

Tours in support of the new album will soon be announced, but you can witness ALCEST at one of the following shows in 2019: 28.09.  NL        Amsterdam - Paradiso 13.10.  E          Barcelona - AMFest 18.10.  NL        Leeuwarden - Into the Void 19.10.  D         Hameln - Autumn Moon Festival 26.10.  F          Strasbourg - La Laiterie 02.11.  UK       Leeds - Damnation Festival 16.11.  D         Neunkirchen - Gloomaar Festival 06.12.  E          Madrid - Madrid is the Dark 07.12.  P          Lisbon - Under the Doom Festival 13.12.  NL        Eindhoven - Eindhoven Metal Meeting 14.12.  UK       London - Beyond The Past Festivals confirmed for 2020: 29. - 31.05.      D          Gelsenkirchen - Rock Hard Festival 06. - 08.08.      D          Schlotheim - Party.San Open Air ALCEST are: Neige - vocals, guitars, bass, synths Winterhalter - drums   Visit ALCEST online: www.alcest-music.com www.facebook.com/alcest.official www.instagram.com/alcestofficial www.nuclearblast.de/alcest

[grindpromotionrecords]

Restock! 🤘 #alcest #spiritualinstinct #nuclearblast #metal #black #blackmetal #post #shoegaze #postblackmetal #vinyl #vinylcollection #vinylgram #records #vinyloftheday #vinyligclub #grindpromotionrecords (presso Bassano del Grappa) https://www.instagram.com/p/CDSDOKZJjO4/?igshid=dp81903zw1r8

[zemnarihah]

@sibelin tagged me to shuffle my on repeat playlist and post the first 10 songs! tysm for tagging me:)

Solitude- Candlemass

Yekteniya II: Blagosloveniye- Batushka

The Leper Affinity- Opeth

Yekteniya IV: Milost' - Batushka

Talk About the Weather- Red Lorry Yellow Lorry

Yekteniya V: Svyatyy Vkhod- Batushka

Long Way Back From Hell- Danzig

Walking on Both Sides- Pink Turns Blue

Endemoniada- Fields of the Nephilim

Bewitched- Candlemass

candlemass sandwich!! also my spotify clearly has not recovered from the week i spent listening to nothing but that batushka album over and over again LMAOOO

I AM TAGGING @jeffament @spiritualinstinct @synthwife @itsnotgoingtotranslate @wednesdaytoo

[liliakier]

Neige I drew for my friend @spiritualinstinct’s bday!