Franck Vigroux will release his Totem LP on May 24th via the Berlin-based label Aesthetical. Conceptually focused on ancient culture’s use of emblematic objects to depict mythical/spiritual truths, the composer’s upcoming ten track LP depicts an “envisioned mythology.” Employing deep structural tension, searing industrial textures, and driving rhythms, Vigroux’s aural worlds are vividly realized.
The multi-instrumentalist has been active since the early 2000s having worked with musicians like Mika Vainio, Ensemble Ars Nova, and Reinhold Friedl, to name a few. In addition, Vigroux is known for his trans-disciplinary audiovisual performances collaborating with artists like Antoine Schmitt and Kurt D’haeseleer. In the spirit of that, Totem is reportedly also an A/V project with news of the release accompanied by this brilliant teaser animated by the French claymation specialist, Lyonel Kouro.
Below, you can watch the Totem video teaser as well as listen to the album track “Capaupire.” The intriguingly monikered track might be a possible nod to Samuel Beckett’s novella Cap au pire. The title, which translates as “cape of the worst” was given the name Worstward Ho in English, and the savagely droll “meta” work turns Charles Kingsley’s Westward Ho! upside down while presenting the Western cultural tradition as one tending towards the “worst.”
While Vigroux’s “Capaupire” definitely doesn’t “tend towards the worst,” its stark, charged atmosphere might serve as a warning that our current trajectory is reaching dire conditions. Rippling arpeggios of analog melody run thru the track, while perfectly sculpted percussion lights up the space in bursts of rhythm. Creating the kind of spellbinding atmosphere that might have your hair standing on end, Vigroux occasionally rips the tension apart with obliterating blasts of white-hot noise.
