On the early morning of my 23rd birthday, January 15th 2011, I received an email from Marco, head of Quartier23, about a compilation he was putting together, based on the seven luminaries. He wanted it out for March 23rd of 2011. He wanted the inclusion of Soufferance on it. My time limit was 5 minutes, so right away I was limited to what I usually do with this band. As I had previously done a bass only cover of the Burzum song two months prior, I decided I would focus on guitar this time. I picked up the B.C. Rich, and it was tuned in some odd thing. It was originally tuned in Drop B, but the low B string was broken. So I tuned it in some open tuning with the other 5 strings. Somewhere between standard tuning and open D/A. I have no clue how it was even tuned, all I knew was that it sounded good. I recorded some short intro, and then added the eBow leads on it. For the second part, I had originally composed something very bass heavy, with some inaudible guitar. I sent this first version to Marc Hoyland, who is also on the same label with his band, because I valued his opinion greatly. He told me a few things I should change, and I trusted him. I scrapped the entire second part, which I really wasn’t happy with anyway.

Download Link (Soufferance Planetary, First Version)

I retuned the guitar to some more open D/A thing, and did this melodic build up. My goal was to make it sound like a Swans song. I don’t know if I succeeded, but the second version sounded great! Marc Hoyland approved and I sat on the song for a couple days before finally sending it in to Marco. The thing that was bothering me was that it sounded too similar to a Vision Éternel song. I hadn’t composed anything for Vision Éternel in a bit, and I think it started seeping through in Soufferance. I wanted to keep both bands separated, but I think by now, they are going to be connected.

The song was going to be exclusively released on the Quartier23 compilation “Septem: The Seven Luminaries”. But after the fall out with the label in late April 2011, I took my song out of the compilation. The compilation was eventually released on June 21st. I named it “Fully Hollow (aka. 29.530589)” because its a dedication to the moon.

Download Link (Fully Hollow (aka. 29.530589), Second Version)

This song ended up being released under the name of “Sometimes in Absolute Togetherness” on the fourth Vision Éternel album “The Last Great Torch Song“. By this time I had added an extended outro, to finish the album in the same manner as all previous Vision Éternel albums. It also featured a spoken word by Howard Change. I always felt like this was the best song I had ever written. The two Soufferance versions were released on the digital reissue of “Bonjour Tristesse” in 2013.