La Breiche
Le Mal Des Ardents

“In those times, the mal des ardents arose. An incalculable number of men and women had their bodies consumed by an invisible fire, and from everywhere the laments covered the earth.”

Ademar De Chabannes, a French monk, narrates that in the 10th century, a repulsive disease struck some peasant villages, sowing panic and collective delirium; soon rumors spread that dark forces were infecting and tormenting humans, who quickly blamed witchcraft, malevolence, and demonic vexation. The reality was much more mundane and of a much more material and organic nature: it was actually a rye parasite doing its “dirty” and indifferent work, so in that instance, the Devil was innocent; Nature had simply acted according to its rules, but still sowed panic and fueled superstition and collective hysteria, something that is still alive today, without necessarily going to the Middle Ages, but here we enter into sociology, and this is not the appropriate review.

The album in question draws inspiration from the eternal clash between the rational and the irrational, between folklore and history, truth and legend, elements that can sometimes collide violently and generate pure and tremendous chaos. Musically speaking, the names behind this project are Yan Arexis and Patrick Lafforge of Stille Volk, who have made pagan-folk their banner for at least two decades. Here the darkest and most occult Middle Ages merge with the minimal and claustrophobic ambient of our days, recreating scenarios reminiscent of the Benedictine abbey in “The Name of the Rose” (to make a popular comparison), where the cloisters, bathed by the dampness of the northern winter, instill in man a sense of fear and reverence in front of those “Invisible Forces” for which human desire seeks answers for millennia, giving names and attributes to be reassured. The first two tracks introduce us to the spirit of the times to which the work refers, the use of traditional instruments such as harmonium, hurdy-gurdies, and even simple stone scrapings (as we will see later) cut the groove to slowly introduce us into the slow descent towards fear, towards the absence of logic, where science is still embryonic and antibiotics a mirage, moving from the “Provençal” title track to the subsequent La Nef des Fous, where a hoarse and oppressive voice introduces us to what is about to be revealed, in Apotres du Chaos it seems that a fanatic moves from Gregorian chanting to a Babelic idiom typical of the possessed. Froide Lune is terrifying in its almost crawling advance, one hears wails similar to dry barks that fade into the distance, wind instruments make everything ghostly and the “cold moon” of the title seems truly above us… There it is, stones, pebbles, Enfers opens this way, we are still in the middle of Dante's forest, no Virgil awaits us to guide us, this hell is solitary, like in a totally dark room where, however, sounds reach us, guttural wails, endlessly repeated sounds, monastic choirs but hostile, confused, on the contrary, recall those told by Providence’s loner, those that devoured in broad daylight the mad Arab Al-Ahzred. In the penultimate L’Oracle du Soleil, a more reassuring voice intones a chant that becomes choral, the poor peasants struck by the illness seem to turn to the sky, lifting their gaze from the darkness to that light to which we all tend, in the background there are still verses similar to the growling of bears, thus introducing the final chapter, L'antre du Pesteux, the antechamber of the black plague phobia, seven minutes where a false calm seems to make its way, in truth the threatening growl is always present and reminds us only how naked we are at the mercy of the elements, the road that separates our solid rational convictions from the panicked madness of what we call “inanimate world” is much shorter than we can imagine. The scenario is that of the post-apocalyptic more oriented towards the “no way out” than anything else, we can call it Devil, Angra-Mainyu or simply Mother Nature, we can give demonic connotations to a storm that destroys the crop or uncovers the house, yet we remain small cogs, despite our dominance over other living species. The Middle Ages here tells of us, of how in truth we often smile at the naivety of our ancestors, forgetting that we have never changed, we are still ourselves, we are always vulnerable and convinced we have control, except to fall into the unknown for a few doubts, here, this “wondrous and terrible” work (to quote Eco), reminds us what slithers at the bottom of our certainties, if you have the time and willingness to detach from the frenzy of modernity, La Breiche will guide you to where, as the German philosopher said, “the ground of reality crumbles beneath the feet, and the dream begins…”