AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MERFOLK — “CASTAWAYS”

(written by Islander)

More than seven years having passed since the Montréal-based progressive death metal band Augury released their last album Illusive Golden Age, which itself was released a lengthy nine years after the one before it (Fragmentary Evidence). But although we can happily disclose that Augury are recording their fourth album and are half-way there, their leader Patrick Loisel has continued to make music on his own in recent years through his intriguing solo project Merfolk, which divulged the Demersal demo in late 2022 and released the debut full-length Sundaland this past May.

Sundaland is obviously an entirely personal creation, one in which Loisel wrote everything, performed every instrument, engineered and mixed every sound, and directed all the visuals. Those instruments included not only conventional metal accoutrement (though a fretless bass is not entirely conventional) but also classical instruments such as violin, cello, double bass, and piano.

It’s also worth giving you the following statement regarding the album’s inspiration, before we share with you a new video for the album track “Castaways“:

Merfolk channels the spirit of Emperor, Mayhem, Hollenthon, Mercyful Fate, and a trove of obscure ’70s experimental sounds, forging a unique blend of post-black metal, classical instrumentation, and narrative-rich, sociological lyricism. The songwriting draws from ancient migratory myths and uncanny architectural echoes across the Pacific, all filtered through the artist’s wildly eclectic life, one that began with a childhood literature award and later included the care of over 300 tarantulas.

The newest offering, Sundaland, is named after a submerged continent in Southeast Asia and explores the mythic aftermath of a prehistoric flood. From the haunting warnings of floating entrail-ghosts (Krasue) to the desperate offerings to misunderstood sea monsters, the album weaves a narrative that’s as unsettling as it is cinematic.

While you continue trying to wrap your head around all that, let’s further complicate the process with a statement we received about “Castaways” and the video we’re about to premiere:

The album’s flagship single, “Castaways,” is a melancholic, ambient piece born from emotional turmoil. Its music video is a surreal spectacle of psychedelic practical effects, reminiscent of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Filmed in near-total darkness with handmade puppets and props, some collapsing mid-shoot, the video captures the eerie beauty of survivors scavenging sunken ruins and encountering a newly revealed civilization.

The video is a kaleidoscopic creation, an elaborate and constantly changing amalgam of sights both supernatural and natural that create a chilling, surrealistic narrative of ancient sub-surface destruction and strange discovery. (We do get to see Patrick Loisel‘s hands dancing across frets, but they look supernatural too.)

All of this visual accompaniment is entirely fitting, because the song “Castaways” is itself kaleidoscopic, surreal, elaborate, and destructive, an arcane stylistic amalgam that interweaves elements of black metal, technical death metal, psychedelia, and more.

The song does have an introductory ambient phase that does indeed sound mysterious, cosmic, and futuristic — but that just makes the music’s sudden eruption of sounds all the more startling. And it does erupt — in a thrilling surge of fast-darting, high-churning, and hard-jolting fretwork, backed by humongous low-frequency undulations and drums that batter and blast.

As this kaleidoscope turns, Loisel sings in soaring but also eerie tones, as well as in deeper expressions of gloom — and he also growls like an abyss-dwelling monster. The low end feels like magma shaking far below the earth’s crust, and in the stratosphere strange whistling tones frolic.

The music heavily heaves and throbs, creates moments of ominous tension, darts about in sounds of malign dementia, and seems to shiver and scream in tormented high frequencies. Meanwhile, the drumming is perpetually in flux, as if the rest of the song needed more to keep a listener off-balance. As if the song still weren’t sufficiently un-balancing, it ends with a sprightly piano melody just as Loisel seems to pass out on-screen.

It’s a thoroughly dazzling song, and more than a little disturbing too, but you’ll find that many of its musical motifs recur, and when they do you may realize they got lodged in your head. Or, at least that’s our guess. See and hear for yourselves:

Sundaland was mastered by Alain Londero in Laval. The album booklet is the work of Patrick Loisel and Jean-Rémi Marceau. To find the album, and for more info about Merfolk and Patrick‘s activities, check the links below. Below, you’ll also find a full Bandcamp stream of the album, with a reminder that tomorrow is a Bandcamp Friday.

MERFOLK MUSIC AND MERCH:
https://artists.landr.com/990591564626
https://www.melogy.ca/merfolk
https://merfolk.bandcamp.com/

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