(Vide’s unusual new album Aux enfants des ruines was released by the Antiq label in late February of this year, and it may have flown beneath the radar of many listeners who would appreciate it. But Comrade Aleks has done his best to elevate it through the following interview with its French solo creator.)
French multi-instrumentalist Hylgaryss’ solo project, Vide, remained in the shadow of another, slightly more atmospheric black metal duo, Sainte Obyana du Froid. But the balance may change, as Vide has returned after a four-year hiatus, and the project has not only slowed down but also become less extreme and more atmospheric.
One of the key features defining the sound of the new full-length Aux enfants des ruines is the use of actual recordings of a children’s choir, performing parts reminiscent of Gregorian chants. In fact, the opportunity to use a children’s choir recording largely guided Vide, and while some of the release is framed by a flurry of familiar black metal misanthropy with a depressive edge, the main storyline of Aux enfants des ruines is almost a spiritual mass, a call to the outcasts, to the “children of ruins,” as the artist calls them.
An atheist, Hylgaryss sought to give the album an “ultra-religious atmosphere, steeped in Christian mysticism.” The album’s entire atmosphere revolves around children: the visuals, the sound, the lyrics, the sheer purity of the voices brings something unusually tender to the raw and melancholic black metal. So there were more than enough reasons to take a deeper view in Vide’s work with Hylgaryss himself.
Hi Hylgaryss! Accept my congratulations on the release of Aux enfants des ruines! An outstanding work by the way! Normally it’s good to support the release with an interview scheduled at the same day, but the album was released a month ago, and… does it really matter if we organize it a month later? Do you rely on promotion you do on your own?
Hello. Thank you for your words. No, clearly it does not matter at all if it comes out later compared to the album release. I also took some time to answer the questions; there have been quite a few upheavals in my life and my music has unfortunately taken a back seat, but I will soon finally come up for air and be able to devote the time I want to it.
I do not really rely on my own promotion. Personally, I stay away from social media and I do not handle promotion, probably wrongly. I really should get into it but I have a mental block about it. I always feel like I am prostituting myself, so I rely on people to talk about my work, on interviews, on labels. I am probably wrong and an album like this one, which is really personal, has in my eyes gone far too unnoticed. I am deeply affected by it, I feel its release as a failure, especially just a few months after the release of my project SAINTE OBYANA DU FROID which received a lot of attention. VIDE is completely anonymous and I am disheartened by it.
You released three Vide EPs in 2022, and then – staying quite prolific – you switched to other projects and bands. What made you return to Vide? What does this project offer you that you can’t do in other projects?
I needed to do VIDE alongside my main project LE PROCHAIN HIVER. I needed to compose, and these three EPs came very quickly one after another. Then I had a deal with ANTIQ for the album, and it took me a huge amount of time to complete it. I worked like crazy, and once everything was finally finished, ANTIQ postponed the release several times for more than a year and a half. That is why it took so long; the album was already finished long before its official release.
I created VIDE alongside LPH because I needed to make a more atmospheric black metal, more underground, more raw at first, then it eventually became a completely different kind of black metal as the EPs progressed. The first one is extreme, probably the most raw thing I have done in that sense, with that sound full of fuzz; it is my favorite EP. Then little by little the tempo slowed down. Even though there are still heavy black metal parts, more mid-tempo sections appeared with atmospheres closer to doom or dark ambient wrapped in black metal. Then came the album, and there I pushed everything as far as I could in this style, with this children’s choir and this final track that is purely vocal, clearly influenced by Gregorian chants.
Most of Antiq Records’ albums have stories behind them, and I bet that Aux enfants des ruines isn’t an exception. Can you shed some light on it?
The album could be seen as a mass from a sect-like group. At the beginning of the album I spit my hatred of the world in dark and hateful lyrics, then there is the mass where I invite the children of the ruins to join me in what could be a church, a refuge. This message is delivered like a call to those who do not see the world like ordinary people. In the lyrics it is said the suicides, the forgotten, the castaways, the children of the moon.
Everything is of course exaggerated, we are talking about black metal, the words must be as extreme as the music. But I really tried to give an ultra-religious atmosphere to this album. I am an extreme atheist, but I am also in love with Christian art, with the music, with that mysticism you can feel when an organ plays in a cathedral. Christian art is incredible, it has inspired me for more than thirty years in what I do musically, whether it is black metal or something else. I had managed to distance myself from it thanks to LPH, and that is also why I created VIDE, to dive back into it completely.
One of Aux enfants des ruines’ features is the children’s choir; it adds some haunted atmosphere to the songs. How does it interact with the plot?
The presence of the children’s choir was an opportunity and I jumped on it without hesitation. I immediately understood that I had something incredible in my hands and that mixing it with my black metal felt completely natural, it was meant to be. It is probably the first and last time I will have this chance and I could not miss it. However, it was a long and difficult process; you do not work with children the same way you do with adults, everything is harder, especially concentration.
The whole aura of the record is linked to children; the visuals, the sound, the lyrics, and the purity of the voices brings something extremely gentle to a raw and melancholic black metal. The result is beyond what I imagined at the beginning, and even now I am sometimes moved when I listen to this album again, when I see how much time it took me to compose, to record, to get it produced. Almost four years.
This album is the most personal one I have composed and created. The child on the cover is my great-grandmother; the one in the booklet with that angelic smile is my mother. This album is a part of me, and it makes it even sadder to see it remain almost invisible. One of my lines sums up the album well: “I could have been a light in the night, I am only a suffocated candle”.
Is there any conceptual connection between Aux enfants des ruines and Vide’s EPs from 2022?
The lyrics are quite similar, there is always this hatred of the world, this incomprehension of it. I look at people, I listen to them, and I still do not understand them. Musically I think it is the logical continuation. The album contains atmospheres from the three EPs, more refined, more melancholic as well. On one side there is this extreme hatred and on the other this purity and fragility of the voices. I had already done that on the EPs with Gregorian chants, but here it is taken much further.
How long did you actually work on this material? Do you think it’s better to fix the album at the moment as soon as possible or to return to it and polish it from time to time before it’s ready to be released?
As I said earlier, I worked on it for almost two years, both on composition and then on recording the choir which took place over several months. Then I took time for the mixing. I wanted to do everything myself, which is not my job at all, I actually hate it. I also spent several weeks finishing the mix, testing sounds. I record guitars clean and then I can test dozens of amps afterward, which allows me to choose the sound I want, but at the same time it lets me change things months after recording and start over from scratch in terms of sound, and that is a trap.
I am always unsatisfied. It is extremely time consuming to test and retest, whereas with a saturated sound from the start there are fewer possibilities. It is all the more ironic because for many years I used to record with a raw sound without reworking it. But now I believe the sound gives the sensitivity to an album, and I pay more attention to it.
How much of modern France is in Vide? Is it encapsulated in the story in itself? Or is it a projection of the current world through your artistic perception?
It is a completely self-contained story. The lyrics are what I feel toward the world, but in an exaggerated way, as is often in black metal. Once again there is a real part of me in this album, an extremely personal part. For example in one track I say that it is late and NETA has still not come back. This is directly linked to a band I played in when I was fifteen, where the singer talked about suicide and screamed that a friend named NETA had gone to see if the devil existed and that she would tell us. There is always this connection that only I can fully understand. This album is like a session with a therapist. I said everything, I expressed everything, even if not everything is understandable. It is above all an album for myself.
You recorded all instruments and vocals on your own, yet the choir parts were performed by some kids, right? Can you tell how you were able to organize it?
I have a daughter who was in primary school, and I ran a singing workshop for her school over several months. I took the opportunity to record the children’s voices. No one knows that it ended up on a black metal record ahahahah. There was no way I would talk about the kind of music I make with the parents or the children. I am completely anonymous and it is just fine that way. That is also why I say I will probably never be able to do it again. The next album will only feature my daughter’s voice, layered multiple times, but it will only be her.
VIDE will become even more this ultra-personal project that represents a big part of who I am. I will start working on it as soon as I finish the new LE PROCHAIN HIVER album. It is fully composed, but I am working on a split with a project I am a fan of, which will probably come out before the album. Everything is still uncertain. I have too often done several things at once and it does not work well, so now I will prioritize what I need to do and try not to lose myself in all of it. I have so many things I want and even need to bring to life.
The artwork complements the concept, yet it’s not best choice for merch. Did you think to print some shirts with this design for Vide’s most devoted followers? Or did the album itself become the only physical manifestation of Vide?
No, I have nothing else planned, no shirts and so on. The cover was difficult to find. I was looking for something that would move me, then my grandparents passed away and in an old box I found this photo of my great-grandmother and I fell in love with it. I can completely understand that people might not like this cover, it is not black metal at all, but it represents this album one hundred percent, and I could not find anything better.
You released an album of Sainte Obyana du Froid in 2025, and there were new albums from Black Fortress and Le Prochain Hiver in 2023. What other projects are you currently working on? What releases can we expect from you this year?
Everything is unclear. There will probably be something for the thirty years of DARK SANCTUARY, but Arkdae is handling that; DS is his project. As for my personal projects, I hope there will be that split for LPH I mentioned, maybe the album at the end of the year, we will see, probably something small with BLACK FORTRESS, and I think that will be all.
I really want to focus on LPH before moving on to other things. For now there will be no continuation for SAINTE OBYANA or VIDE. Maybe I will do a very raw black EP. I also have an I’M RUINS album recorded with the singer of ANGUIS DEI and ARKHA SVA that has never been released. It is recorded, only the mixing remains. We will see if I do it or not. I also have some black jazz ideas, maybe I will make an EP just for fun. Black metal is purely my pleasure, I am extremely selfish about it. Music is above all for me, it is a way to release my demons and not go insane.
Thanks for the interview Hylgaryss! Much appreciated! Well, did we skip something important regarding Vide and Aux enfants des ruines?
I really hope this album will resonate with people and I am glad I could talk a bit about the purpose behind it. Thank you for this opportunity, it was a pleasure, and once again sorry for taking so long to answer.
https://antiqofficial.bandcamp.com/album/aux-enfants-des-ruines