WL//WH Track Premiere: FEU FOLLET teases the incoming “IV” LP with “On the Switch (ft. VLIMMER)”

WL//WH Premiere Feu Follet

Surprisingly without the usual visual support of his signature comic books, Nancy-based, French Electronic composer and musician Alban Blaising AKA Feu Follet opted for a minimal approach to his fourth opus, simply titled “IV”, and instead of a charismatic fox, he puts the haunting photo of a tree on the cover.

Music-wise Feu Follet sticks to the distinctive sounds of his modular synthesizer and his dreamy, circulating guitar, albeit with a striking songwriting focus on potential guest vocalists built upon a Synthpop framework that sets the vocals into the spotlight, whilst not avoiding to investigate new subgenres like Witch-House.

WL//WH is pleased to Premiere the intoxicating and evocative thought-provoking second foretaste “On the Switch” featuring Berlin-based musician and Blackjack Illuminist Records mastermind Leonard Donat, AKA VLIMMER.

I wanted to create a somewhat surreal and magical atmosphere. Based on fairly simple sounds like a sine wave, stuff in the spirit of a “glockenspiel” made with a resonator and an electric piano like “Wurlitzer”. All this to create a kind of soundtrack for an old science fiction movie, a black and white thing, with crude special effects on fantastic creatures and taking place under the seabed. The chorus on the other hand is more epic and sounds more 80s, maybe influenced by artists like “The Psychedelics Furs” or “The Mission” for the 1st part then goes on some more post-punk and electronic then…Alban Blaising

Poetic lyrics build a mystical earthen realm of painful conflicts to set the stage for a final catastrophe at the hands of a judgement-driven Kill Switch, hovering over humankind and all his flaws with blind justice.

Hearing the instrumental for the first time, I immediately had Super 8 footage of the sun in mind. If it were a living creature or some kind of god, what would it think about us humans and our flaws, our wars, our absolute failure to live in peace? I pictured the sun as someone whose in constant doubt about humans. With the sun’s fingers (rays) on some kind of switch that allows to kill them, she/he has to decide whether to let us live or send us to death in the form of skin cancer, for example. Without the sun, there wouldn’t be any life on our planet, so we ultimately are at his/her mercy…Alexander Donat (Vlimmer)

Heavy, surreal swaying motions spin off-kilter, warped synth chimes with dragging and stumbling beats, sentient sonorous bass vibrations, and high-pitched untuned frequencies around a dramatic dual vocal interplay, stirring aching emotional angst, distant distressed echoes, and nervous celestial taunts with the mercurial whims of mellow piano key melodies and tumultuous surges of uncertain dread.

Feu Follet‘s fourth album, “IV”, is due out on July 29, 2022, CD / Cassette / Digital Download, through Berlin-based independent label Blackjack Illuminist Records.

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