WL//WH Premiere: KØCAZE Explores Grief and Nostalgia in “Cîmes et Souvenirs” (Official Music Video)

photo by ©GillesDewalque

Based in Liège, Belgium, KØCAZE is the result of an unexpected collision between two creatively opposite artists, vocalist and pianist Elsa Verhoeven and self-taught guitarist Olivier Jacqmin, with radically different approaches to making music. Where Elsa leans on classical training and theory, Olivier moves by instinct and is unbound by convention. Their contrasting forces merge in tension and harmony, crafting haunting compositions that feel both intimate and immense.

First emerged in 2020 with a debut EP in full-band format. Now, they return transformed. Freshly affiliated with Los Angeles-based imprint Dune Altar, their second release, “D’Or et de Sang”, produced by Ben Chisholm (Chelsea Wolfe, BloodMoon) and mastered by Alan Douches, dives deeper into a Dark Pop and Neoclassical aesthetic, stripping back the layers to a stark but emotionally rich core of guitar, piano, samples, and voice. Sung entirely in French, these new songs linger in the liminal—balancing on the knife’s edge between beauty and sorrow, strength and vulnerability.

WL//WH is pleased to premiere the Official Music Video, directed by Eléonore Coyette (Lokah Productions), for “Cîmes et Souvenirs / Peaks and Memories”, the first excerpt lifted from the “D’Or et de Sang” EP.

“Cîmes et Souvenirs” single artwork

Their songs echo the influence of artists like Soap & Skin, Maud the Moth, Emma Ruth Rundle, Dead Can Dance, and Zola Jesus, yet KØCAZE’s sound remains distinctly their own. They create music that feels like entering another dimension—one where language, mood, and sound coalesce into something elemental.

“Cîmes et Souvenirs” is a stark and moving meditation on grief, memory, and belonging, built on sparse piano, ambient textures, and an emotionally raw vocal performance. It’s a quietly intense piece that sets the tone for the rest of the record.

An ethereal and uncanny choral canopy cloaks a visceral and solemn aura, drawing emphasis and intensity from the abysses of impenetrable darkness and gashes of blinding light seamlessly interpenetrating each other, with powerful evocative transport, built by a fiery concoction of droning guitar textures, sparse, muted clopping beats, dire, tinkling piano keys and shivering, poignant orchestral swathes, to rise and fall alongside deeply haunted trembling vocal layers, releasing fear before rising into vulnerable pain-filled cries against sweeping spasms of tumultuous emotional instrumentation.

“D’Or et de Sang” EP artwork

The Official Music Video by Eléonore Coyette (Lokah Productions) creates a ghostly, metaphysical realm around KØCAZE using an imaginative blend of blurry trace overlays and transformative lights and shadows. As the couple looks out of a window at the barren winter forest, Elsa Verhoeven’s expression is solemn. Still, Olivier Jacqmin’s face remains out of focus, to create a feeling of isolation and loneliness. Later on, scenes show their hands outstretched atop each other, but not touching, to bring forth a mysterious sense of hope and resolution, despite the dusty haunting darkness.

KØCAZE‘s debut EP “D’Or et de Sang” is coming soon via Dune Altar.

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