Interview sent by Brett Van Put on January 15, 2024
Answered between January 17 and February 10, 2024
Edited on February 9-10, 2024
Was supposed to be published in the February issue but I couldn’t finish it by the January 28, 2024 deadline. It was then supposed to be in the March issue, which was published on March 12, 2024, but Van Put accidentally put my answers in the wrong folder on his computer so my interview was omitted from the issue. It was then rescheduled to appear in the April issue, which was published on April 9, 2024. However, my name was misspelled and the entire last paragraph from my first answer was missing.
Published on April 9, 2024
1. Tell us about the Echoes From Forgotten Hearts release. How would you describe the creation process for this extended play?
Echoes From Forgotten Hearts has been in the making for a decade and is finally getting released properly on February 14, 2024. A lot of work has gone into making this release happen over the years, and many plans were canceled along the way.
The work on this extended play started on August 16, 2014, when I began composing and recording demos of a new song. Originally, this song was to be seven to ten minutes in length, with a gradual emotional and melodic build-up. In its early form, this song could have ended up on either a Vision Eternel extended play or a Soufferance (my black ambient band) album because it had elements of both bands. It did not fit within the context of just one band (which had been an issue for select Vision Eternel and Soufferance songs since 2007).
Later that month, on August 31, 2014, an old acquaintance named Bradley James Palko, who formerly operated the record label Dedicated Records out of Chicago, contacted me to compose the soundtrack to one of the three short films he was developing. He had booked a flight to Iceland for October 2014 and planned to film the three short subjects while there. Garry Brents and Jun Minowa were approached simultaneously to compose soundtracks for the other two short films. All three of us had previously appeared on Dedicated Records’ Various Artists compilation Great Messengers: Palms in 2010; Brents through his band Bunrage, Minowa through his project Yawning, and myself through Vision Eternel. To the best of my knowledge, Brents did not compose any music for this project before it fell through, but Minowa later let me hear a lengthy song he had composed and recorded for his soundtrack.
Palko demanded that I submit a completed soundtrack, lasting eight to twelve minutes, by December 2014. This gave me an opportunity to utilize the new song that I had begun composing two weeks prior as a starting point. The single-song version that I had originally envisioned could have worked, but as an avid fan of old movies and classic soundtracks, I wanted to offer more malleable material. The problem was that Palko was unable to provide me with any script material, scene ideas, or a basic plot; not even a title. He had no idea what any of the three films were to be about, he simply had a flight of fancy to direct movies.
This lack of knowledge prevented me from composing a film score in the traditional sense, so I opted to split up and re-arrange the single song into shorter cues and themes, all revolving around a single motif. Some pieces were shorter and repetitive, and could therefore be spliced and faded in and out at any time during the film’s post-production. Others had a longer and more emotional build-up, which could be used for important scenes. But the soundtrack as a whole sounded familiar and conceptual because all of the pieces had evolved from that single song. It had a unified and familiar sound.
I began recording the soundtrack on October 4, 2014, at my studio, Mortified Studios, then based in Saint-Hippolyte-of-Kilkenny, Quebec. By October 30, the soundtrack had been fully recorded and mixing was well underway. With everything on track, I reached out to Palko in early November to share my progress. I was very excited to let him hear the music. With only minor mixing left, I told him that my soundtrack would be completed before the end of the month, as per his request. It was then that Palko came clean and revealed that he had abandoned the short films weeks prior, instead using the funds for a personal vacation to Europe. To make matters worse, he was far from nice about it. He was insolent and told me that I was wasting his time. I was deeply hurt by this.
I was very proud of the music that I had composed and recorded, so I decided that I would turn it into a concept extended play for Vision Eternel. On November 18, 2014, I resumed work at Mortified Studios. All of the material that had been recorded in October was re-edited and re-mixed, and a good portion was re-recorded. I also composed two new songs, re-arranged half of an older one, and dropped another. By December 18, 2014, Vision Eternel’s fifth concept extended play, Echoes From Forgotten Hearts, was completed.
I then commissioned my at-the-time best friend Jeremy Roux to design the artwork for the release. Roux worked on three different designs before I was happy with the direction. I also asked ex-Vision Eternel member Adam Kennedy to master the extended play. He had previously mastered Vision Eternel’s third extended play, Abondance De Périls, in 2010, giving it a warmer and more unified sound. I wanted the same for Echoes From Forgotten Hearts. Kennedy worked on some of the material in early January 2015, but I felt that he was doing more of a re-mix job than mastering. I then decided to release Echoes From Forgotten Hearts without mastering.
Hoping to release this extended play through an established record label (as opposed to mainly releasing Vision Eternel’s past works through my own companies, Mortification Records and Abridged Pause Recordings), I began shopping the release around. Then ensued an arduous decade as a total of eleven record companies agreed to release Echoes From Forgotten Hearts, but wound up canceling it, at times only weeks before the release date.
The first record label that I approached was Broken Limbs Recordings, to which Brents’ band Cara Neir was signed. Broken Limbs Recordings agreed to release the extended play on compact cassette but later that month withdrew its offer because, as I later found out, they did not want to sign a band whose members wore fedora hats. Echoes From Forgotten Hearts was then picked up by Abandonment, which had previously released a Soufferance song on its Various Artists compilation Welcome To Our Decayed Factory. Abandonment’s involvement in releasing a compact cassette edition lasted about six months, but in the end, my release was passed over in favor of a split album by Timothy C. Holehouse and Mytrip.
I wanted some of my fans to hear the music, so on February 14, 2015, for Valentine’s Day, I quietly released a digital edition of Echoes From Forgotten Hearts via Bandcamp through Abridged Pause Recordings. However, I made it a point not to promote the release (aside from a brief social media mention) because my goal was to secure a record deal for a physical edition.
Later that year, a synchronization licensing company named Community Tree Music contacted me after discovering Echoes From Forgotten Hearts on Bandcamp. I was told that several filmmakers were eager to use my music as the soundtrack to their movies, and they were pretty insistent on signing me. I was sent some legal paperwork to fill out, but because I was busy with other projects, I put it off for a couple of weeks. By the time I reached out to them again later in the month, I had missed my chance and they were no longer interested.
Towards the end of 2015, a new record company named Feather Witch (which has since been renamed to Fiadh Productions) approached Vision Eternel as its inaugural band to sign. I was told that Echoes From Forgotten Hearts was precisely the type of music on which the label wanted to focus. I learned that Feather Witch was to be an imprint headed by the former owners of Broken Limbs Recordings and Halo Of Flies, which surprised me considering the rejection I had received the year prior. Nevertheless, Feather Witch was quite professional and determined to release Echoes From Forgotten Hearts on compact cassette.
Extensive discussions and plans were made for a new artwork design, the mastering of the audio, and a special packaging. A premiere with a major online music magazine was also booked. I then signed over the rights to the release from Abridged Pause Recordings to Feather Witch. But a couple of days later, I received a most unexpected telephone call in the middle of the night from the company’s owner, inebriated, insulting me and my music. I was shocked. I could not understand what had happened. I certainly did not deserve this treatment. From that moment on, the record label ignored me and I was forced to press for legal action just to reclaim the digital rights to my extended play. It caused me great anxiety and led me to give up trying to get Echoes From Forgotten Hearts released. I also took a hiatus from composing music and focused on researching and writing film industry biographies.
In 2017, Vision Eternel celebrated its tenth anniversary. As part of the commemoration, I re-issued the band’s entire past catalog digitally (including Echoes From Forgotten Hearts), this time distributing it to all of the major streaming and download platforms (as opposed to being limited to Bandcamp). However, I again held back on the promotion of these digital re-issues because I was waiting on another Vision Eternel release and wanted both to be promoted together. I had been working on a boxed set titled An Anthology Of Past Misfortunes, which included compact disc re-issues of the band’s entire past catalog, along with a bonus compact cassette of previously unreleased material. The boxed set was to be the highlight of the band’s tenth anniversary, while the digital re-issues acted as companions.
I was very unlucky in this endeavor as well. Every single item in the boxed set had to be re-printed or re-pressed because the company with which I had placed my order, Analogue Media Technologies, ruined them. It was a nightmare. As a result, I was forced to reduce the number of boxed sets I had planned to make and ended up putting together a mostly home-made package. In addition, the boxed set ended up getting released fourteen months late, on April 14, 2018, by which time the band’s tenth anniversary was long over and any promotion was moot.
Following An Anthology Of Past Misfortunes, I dedicated more than three years to working on Vision Eternel’s sixth concept extended play, For Farewell Of Nostalgia. That extended play was co-released in September 2020 by Somewherecold Records and Geertruida. Somewherecold Records then offered to release a double-compact disc edition of Echoes From Forgotten Hearts, which would include the previously released Extended Play Version and the previously unreleased Soundtrack Version. It was at this point that the release started to be transformed into a Deluxe Edition.
The Somewherecold Records version was also going to include a new artwork design and the songs were to be remastered. Geertruida then came on board to release the compact cassette edition. However, by mid-October, I had withdrawn Vision Eternel from Somewherecold Records’ roster due to the record company owner’s overly vocal personal beliefs. He insisted that the bands on his record label partake in his political, religious, and topical events, but I do not mix personal beliefs with music. Vision Eternel has always remained neutral and unattached.
While Geertruida’s deal stood firm, it was put on hold while I tried to secure a record label to issue the compact disc edition. A year later, Frozen Light offered to release the compact disc edition of Echoes From Forgotten Hearts. However, the record label was faltering by this time and the owner would vanish for months at a time, so I was forced to look elsewhere.
Then came Beverina Productions and Casus Belli Musica, which co-released music as a unit. Over a period of six months, plans were made for a true Deluxe Compact Disc Edition packaged in a digibook with a fifty-two-page booklet. In addition to the Extended Play Version and the Soundtrack Version, the release also added ten demos, unused takes, and alternate mixes. I worked on the liner notes, commissioned Michael Koelsch to paint a new artwork, and hired Carl Saff to re-master the release. While waiting for the artwork, war broke out between Russia and the Ukraine, and since Casus Belli Musica was in Russia and Beverina Productions in Austria, the two were no longer able to co-finance music together and my release was canceled.
A month later, I received an offer from Beverina Productions to release Echoes From Forgotten Hearts alone, but with a smaller booklet and in a digipak packaging. But there was to be a slight delay while a new pressing plant was located. Four months went by, during which the owner and I communicated frequently. However, he suddenly stopped responding. The record label has continued to be active, but I have been continuously ignored. I was never able to discover what happened.
Since things were already in motion for the compact cassette edition through Geertruida, I scoured to find a last-minute deal for the compact disc edition. For about three months, Echoes From Forgotten Hearts was scheduled to be released by Mahorka, but things came to an end when we were unable to agree on a convenient packaging. To my surprise, Frozen Light reached out to me and offered to not only put out the compact disc version but to do it as a deluxe digibook edition, picking up the format that Beverina Productions and Casus Belli Musica had abandoned.
The Deluxe Edition of Echoes From Forgotten Hearts was thus scheduled for release on February 14, 2023, via Geertruida and Frozen Light. Unfortunately, a month before the release date, the owner of Frozen Light vanished (once again) and has been unheard of since. I have no idea what happened to that release or if it even made it to the pressing plant. With the added pressure, Geertruida’s owner and I began to argue over the details of the packaging, and shortly thereafter, the compact cassette edition was also canceled. That was very hard for me because he was a good guy and we were friends.
Eight months later, I reached out to Geertruida to reconcile. We were able to work out our differences and started working on the release again. We decided to pull our resources and focus on the deluxe digital and compact cassette editions together. Instead of a booklet in a digibook, the Deluxe Compact Cassette Edition would include an eighty-page novella, recounting (in greater detail) the story that I have just described. It also includes around seventy pictures from the band archives. And so, Echoes From Forgotten Hearts is finally available starting February 14, 2024, as a deluxe boxed set edition and digitally. This marks the first time that it is being promoted because this is the first proper release of this material.
2. Do you feel your music is a form of catharsis for you?
I think that word is used far too often in the music industry. People seem to love saying it, I presume because it sounds fancy and makes it appear as if they put all sorts of emotions into their art. I have never used that term. I do not think that it applies to Vision Eternel’s works or any of the music I made with my other bands. My music is very emotional but from a different perspective.
I have always considered myself a poor actor, and by that, I mean that I do not hide or repress my emotions well. I cannot fake a smile. I am not a happy person. If I am depressed (which I most often am), it shows and I have no qualms about expressing that with others. As such, there is no emotional baggage or repressed feelings which need purging. There is also no escaping these feelings because even after they have been written and documented (most Vision Eternel releases are documentation of past heartbreaks), the events that caused those emotions remain with me forever. There is no relief from heartbreak or the loss of a loved one. Not for me. I cannot forget them. I am not a better, healthier person after my pain has been put to music. I will still be sad, lonely, and depressed afterward. The story is not over.
I am not being entirely candid with that last paragraph. The truth is that when Vision Eternel’s first extended play, Seul Dans L’obsession, was completed, I did feel that I could finally move on from the pain and heartbreak of the relationship that it was documenting. I had similar moments of hope after the completion of Un Automne En Solitude, Abondance De Périls, and The Last Great Torch Song. But what I later realized is that those emotions came back to me. The memories of the events seeped back into my consciousness. It was an ephemeral relief. And to quote a line of dialog from my favorite film, Vertigo, “There is no losing it.” So when I composed For Farewell Of Nostalgia, I knew that this was not something of which I could let go, but rather, that I was documenting something which I would live with, in nostalgia, for the rest of my life (hence its title).
In a way, that is to the benefit of Vision Eternel because not only are each extended play individual concept albums of their own but the releases are also tied together into a greater story-line concept. The story told in each new Vision Eternel extended play picks up where the last one ended in the time-line. The exception to that, so far, is Echoes From Forgotten Hearts, which acted as sort of a fork in the road after The Last Great Torch Song. The proper sequel to The Last Great Torch Song, which materialized many years later, is For Farewell Of Nostalgia. But I may explore that secondary road in the future, which Echoes From Forgotten Hearts opened up.
3. For our metal readers out there, how would you describe the “melogaze” genre and why do you think metalheads can appreciate what you’re doing?
I coined the term melogaze in September 2010, after three and a half years of struggling to find a genre to categorize Vision Eternel’s music. When I started the band in January 2007, I did not set out to play ambient music or anything like it. I did not even listen to ambient music; as far as I knew, that genre meant “keyboard music”. I come from a predominantly black metal background and ended up playing guitar-based ambient music by accident. Perhaps because of that, I approach my compositions differently from most ambient creators. I write songs that have more of a rock or metal style and structure.
I did not know then, and I still do not know now, what kind of music it is that I create with Vision Eternel. I am not being disingenuous when I say that, nor do I want to give the impression that I am paving new grounds as an experimental, abstract, or avant-garde musician. That statement is based on the feedback that I have received from fans, record labels, journalists, and niche music communities over the years. I will elaborate on this presently.
First, I would like to make an observation and criticism about the music industry. Having a genre to describe how a band sounds is an unfortunate necessity in promotion, and that is because people want to know ahead of time what they will be hearing. When a band is young, such types of labels are required to link it to an existing music scene. A new band cannot start a new genre; that simply would not be accepted by the music industry. It needs to find a place where it can tie into a potential fan base. One sees a lot of new band coverage in which journalists and press agents affix a label, comparing the younger artist to what they feel are similar bands with terms like “for fans of”. One never reads “This band sounds nothing like what you have heard before” on a hype sticker. Also, in interviews, “Which bands influence your sound?” is frequently asked. As bands get older and better established, one rarely sees press coverage comparing them to other artists. For example, one would not see Metallica’s new album promoted as “For fans of Megadeth and Slayer”. The public has accepted Metallica’s style and sound for what it is. Even for a band like Faith No More (which was often labeled by journalists as being between genres), the press does not need to compare it to other artists. Faith No More sounds like Faith No More.
From a different perspective, however, young bands are usually eager to find a niche where they can start building a fan base. There has to be a starting point. But that was difficult for Vision Eternel because the music is between genres. When Vision Eternel’s debut extended play, Seul Dans L’obsession, was released in February 2007, I had to find a label to put on it. So I started looking online to find similar bands but was clueless about the terms for which to search. I did not know how to describe the sound of my music. It was beautiful, emotional, melodic, guitar music with reverb. That is all I knew. And now that I think back on it, I did not even know the term reverb at the time. It was just a sound effect that I had discovered by accident in Cakewalk Sonar, which gave my guitar notes more sustain. So how does one describe the music which one has made, but which sounds unlike anything one has heard? The genre on which I landed from my online research was ethereal; it is that genre that was tagged in my MP3 files and used to describe the band’s sound in early press releases between 2007 and 2009.
However, critics, fans, non-fans, and music scenes had trouble accepting that. If one reads reviews of Vision Eternel’s releases, journalists usually have trouble finding a single genre to affix the band (they tend to pick and choose from a list of previously used genres). That was made clear to me over the years. The ethereal and dark wave community immediately rejected Vision Eternel because it lacked female vocals and electronic instrumentation. Someone then suggested that it was dark ambient, but, again, the lack of electronic instruments, as well as the hopeful, bright, and melodic sound of the music was an issue for those fans. Ambient and new-age societies also rebuffed Vision Eternel because it was made without the use of keyboards, synthesizers, sequencers, or samplers.
At one point, the term post-rock began being used by critics, but the fans and record labels of that scene wanted no part of it, stating that my music had no drums. Some fans were then pushing the genres of shoegaze, dream pop, and dream rock, but others were quick to point out that my music lacked vocals. The space rock fans were slightly more open-minded but never fully accepted it because it was not psychedelic enough. The term drone was also used by a couple of journalists but that too was quickly shut down because Vision Eternel’s songs are too structured. The band’s early material was often categorized as minimal, but as it progressed, the music was too layered to befit that term. Some have even called it modern classical, but fans of that genre made the point that it was not orchestral.
Other genres like emo, post-black metal, post-metal, and progressive rock, have been used as descriptors in reviews, but I do not think that anyone would agree that my music fits neatly into any one of those categories. Even experimental rock was thrown around, but that is one with which I do not agree. I have heard other terms since, like depressive rock, ambient rock, and guitar ambient, which I think come closer to what I am doing. Vision Eternel certainly has a little bit of each of these previously-mentioned genres, yet it is not any one of them. I also think that Vision Eternel fans do not care what kind of genre is being put on my music. From what I have seen, it is those who do not enjoy my music that are quick to rebuke.
The idea of coining a new genre to describe Vision Eternel’s music came as a result of the (still on-going) rejection from those music communities. I was highly influenced by Deadsy, which coined the new genre undercore because it, too, was between genres and had difficulty finding a fan base. The term melogaze is a combination of the words melodrama and shoegaze. I wanted to incorporate the melodramatic element because that is what drives Vision Eternel’s music. All of the concept extended plays are themed around love, heartbreak, depression, and the long and dreadful phase of having to move on. I later found out that the word melodrama is itself a combination of melos (Greek for music) and drame (French for drama). So in its purest sense, Vision Eternel could simply use the term melodrama as a genre.
The second half was taken from shoegaze for two reasons. For one, and although I did not listen to that type of music, shoegaze was described as an introspective and introverted genre, with which I could relate. Secondly, it sounded better than the other word combinations that I had brainstormed.
4. The video is really cool – any chance of putting together a whole storyline with videos for all the songs? If you could make your music into a feature film- who would make a great director (I was always a big fan of Atom Egoyan)?
The footage used in the music video for “Pièce No. Trois” was originally planned for a different project. My at-the-time best friend Jeremy Roux and I met up on January 10, 2012, with plans to film enough footage for a music video for Soufferance’s twelve-minute song, “The Asphalt Jungle,” from the album Memories Of A City. Soufferance was then signed to Pale Noir and the record company had asked for an original music video to include on a planned Various Artists digital video disc compilation (which was ultimately never completed).
I wanted eighty minutes of footage from which to work, but after the first night of shooting, we only had around twenty-one minutes, split into thirty-six takes (many of them doubles or of alternate angles). We had also only visited about a quarter of the locations where I wanted to shoot. I realized that Roux and I would need three to five more nights of filming, and it needed to be done shortly because I did not want a break in continuity. The footage from that first night clearly showed a snowy city in the winter. However, Roux was unwilling to dedicate that much time to the project. That was a serious issue. I was not able to book another date with him until two months later, on March 16, 2012, which was utilized to shoot video and photographic material to promote Vision Eternel’s fourth concept extended play, The Last Great Torch Song, released two days prior. The material shot that night was unrelated to the footage from January and could not be mixed.
I must back-track in the time-line for a moment. Eight days after the first shooting day in January, Soufferance was dropped from Pale Noir’s roster over a contractual disagreement. The record company felt that it was too much trouble to specify the release and song titles that it was licensing for release in our contract; Pale Noir wanted it to be an open-ended, general band contract. However, I had a previous negative experience with another record label, Quartier23, which took advantage of me and held Soufferance hostage because of a legal document that I had signed. So it was important for me and my bands that all contracts be clear of what was being licensed and released. I did not want Soufferance (or any of my bands) tied to an unending legal contract.
With Soufferance’s music video shelved, I then decided to utilize the footage for the Vision Eternel song “Sometimes In Longing Narcosis,” which opened The Last Great Torch Song. I figured that Roux and I could get away with just one more night of shooting, since this song was much shorter, around two-and-a-half minutes. But before he and I had a chance to go out and film additional footage, my external hard drive crashed on March 26, 2012, and I lost all of the master video files (along with the audio and artwork masters of The Last Great Torch Song and Soufferance’s Memories Of A City, and two promotional band photo shoots from 2011). It was a devastating incident and I still feel awful whenever I think or write of it (such as right now). Some of the material was later recovered, but most is forever lost.
On May 21, 2012, two months after the hard drive crash, I managed to recover twenty of the thirty-six shots from the January video shoot (along with most of the master audio files from Soufferance’s Memories Of A City). It took two years before the remaining sixteen shots were finally recovered, on March 14, 2014. At that time, I was not working on any Vision Eternel material so the footage remained unused. Roughly a year later, after Echoes From Forgotten Hearts was released digitally on February 14, 2015, I had the idea of editing the footage into a music video for “Pièce No. Sept.” Unfortunately, my computer was getting old and I was unable to edit high-resolution video footage. So the material was again left unused.
Two years later, in 2017, Vision Eternel was celebrating its tenth anniversary. On March 29, 2017, a fan named Vasiliy Atutov reached out asking if he could use a few Vision Eternel songs for a series of ambient videos he planned to produce. I agreed but also asked if he would be interested in editing the January 10, 2012 footage into a music video for “Pièce No. Trois”. I chose “Pièce No, Trois” instead of “Pièce No Sept” because it was shorter; I knew that the video footage was limited. Atutov was excited to make the music video, but the project somehow ended up being forgotten for four months. He finally edited it on July 22-23, 2017, and the music video later premiered on The Obelisk on August 28, 2017.
In a long-about way to answer your question, having a long-form music video for the entire Echoes From Forgotten Hearts extended play, which spans about fourteen-and-a-half minutes, would not be possible due to the lack of available footage. Had Roux been dedicated to filming the eighty minutes of footage that I originally needed, such a project would likely have been possible. That idea had never crossed my mind, but I think that it would have made an amazing conceptual piece.
I do not necessarily like overly artsy directors, so it is difficult to imagine how someone would put Vision Eternel’s music to use in film. Most of my favorite directors are deceased. My favorite director is Alfred Hitchcock and I also adore the works of Douglas Sirk, Billy Wilder, John Frankenheimer, Orson Welles, F. W. Murnau, Fritz Lang, Jean-Pierre Melville, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jacques Deray, Henri Verneuil, Alan J. Pakula, Woody Allen, and Cameron Crowe. I think that Cameron Crowe would be most appropriate since he has a background in music and also directs highly emotional melodramas. His films make use of music very well.
5. What is next for you? What other goals do you have for 2024?
So much effort was made in nurturing Echoes From Forgotten Hearts over the years that it prevented me from composing. My mind and emotions were not able to focus on songwriting, at least not for long enough periods to be creative. Now that this release is out there and people can enjoy it, I am free and eager to start working on new music.
I have been recording rough demos of new Vision Eternel songs, or parts of songs, for the last few years and I plan to continue that this year. I am hoping to start recording Vision Eternel’s seventh concept extended play later this year. I may also work on an acoustic release, something with which Vision Eternel has been experimenting since 2007 when the band had multiple members.
However, I do plan to dedicate a few months to promoting Echoes From Forgotten Hearts. There is so much to discuss about the making of this release, and I hope that it receives a decent amount of coverage. A friend also suggested that I produce a music video for “Pièce No. Sept”, which would tie in with the promotion. I think that would be neat because it is an amazing song.
Also on the horizon may be a re-mix album. These would not be other artists’ songs re-mixed by Vision Eternel, but rather an album made up of other artists’ re-mixes of Vision Eternel songs. This is something that I have been thinking about, casually, for a few months. Last April, a fan named Yasin, who produces under the name Birdz, sent me a message on Instagram to let me know that he had created a trap hip-hop type of re-mix from Vision Eternel’s song “Season In Absence”.
At first, and before hearing it, I was skeptical because hip-hop is not a genre that I find myself listening to often. I was also worried about Vision Eternel getting re-mixed without my input because I am very protective of this band. However, after hearing it, I was very impressed. I was amazed by Yasin’s work; he turned it into a really good song and I listen to it often. I have since been putting out feelers with friends to see if others would be interested in doing re-mixes. If it turns out that enough people are on board, it might turn into something.