ABOUT VISION ETERNEL

Short Biography

Vision Eternel is a Canadian-American melogaze band whose musical creations focus on emotion, heartbreak, and love. Melogaze, coined by founding band member Alexander Julien, has been described as a blend of ambient, space rock, shoegaze, ethereal, post-rock, emo, and melodrama. The band was founded in January 2007 in Edison, New Jersey, United States, and is currently based in Montreal, Canada.

Echoes From Forgotten Hearts, Vision Eternel’s latest release, was originally composed and recorded in 2014 as the soundtrack to a short film. After three months of work, news was received that the short film had been abandoned. Not wanting to leave the material unreleased, the band returned to the studio to partly re-record and fully re-mix the material, composing and recording a couple of new songs in the process and revamping the soundtrack into an extended play. Although it received limited releases over the years, Echoes From Forgotten Hearts is finally being officially released by Geertruida as a tenth-anniversary Deluxe Edition boxed set on February 14, 2024, bundled with an 80-page novella.

Vision Eternel’s releases include:

• Seul Dans L’obsession (EP, 2007)
• Un Automne En Solitude (EP, 2008)
• An Anthology Of Past Misfortunes (Compilation, 2009)
• Abondance De Périls (EP, 2010)
• The Last Great Torch Song (EP, 2012)
• Echoes From Forgotten Hearts (EP, 2015)
• An Anthology Of Past Misfortunes (Boxed Set, 2018)
• For Farewell Of Nostalgia (EP, 2020)
• Echoes From Forgotten Hearts (Deluxe Edition, 2024)

Full Biography

Vision Eternel is a Canadian-American ambient-rock band currently based in Montreal, Canada. Since 2007, the band has been crafting a style of its own, a genre which founding band member and songwriter Alexander Julien coined melogaze. Melogaze has been described as a blend of ambient, space rock, post-rock, ethereal, shoegaze, emo, and melodrama. Julien recounts emotions from past heartbreaks and failed relationships into instrumental concept albums.

Vision Eternel was founded by guitarist Alexander Julien in January 2007, while living in Edison, New Jersey, United States. Initially, the band was part of the Triskalyon collective – a group of bands with common ethics who shared band members and operated its own record label, Mortification Records. And so, Vision Eternel was immediately signed to Mortification Records, and the band’s debut extended play, Seul Dans L’obsession, was released less than a month later, on February 14, 2007. Released on compact disc and digitally, Seul Dans L’obsession was a concept extended play depicting the phases of love in a relationship; from meeting a girl and falling in love, through the troubled relationship and its break-up, to finally having to painfully move on. Because of its conceptual theme, the extended play was deliberately released on Valentine’s Day.

A music video was produced for the lead single, “Love Within Narcosis”, which was promoted exclusively on YouTube during the first half of 2007. A second single was released in the summer of 2007 for “Love Within Isolation”, which helped Vision Eternel peak on the independent Myspace charts, reaching No. 6 on the Shoegaze chart, No. 21 on the Ambient chart, and No. 52 on the Experimental chart. To this day, Seul Dans L’obsession remains Mortification Records’ best-selling and most downloaded release.

Beginning in the summer of 2007, Julien experimented with the idea of expanding the band with other members. Electric and classical guitarist Philip Altobelli, who had been a member of Triskalyon with his solo project Darklink and had also briefly played with Julien in the atmospheric black metal band Vision Lunar, was the first person to try out. Although Altobelli only remained with the band for a brief period, he introduced several innovative concepts, which Julien further developed with other members. Altobelli went on to become a classical guitar instructor.

In July 2007, Vision Eternel relocated to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, when Julien enrolled in the audio engineering college, Recording Arts Canada. Before leaving the United States, Julien recorded Vision Eternel’s second extended play, Un Automne En Solitude, though it remained unreleased until March 2008. In January 2008, Julien recruited acoustic rhythm guitarist Nidal Mourad and lead electric guitarist Adam Kennedy as Vision Eternel’s new members. Both were Recording Arts Canada school-mates. Mourad had previously been the vocalist in the Alberta metalcore band Natesment, while Kennedy was from the Ottawa, Ontario region and had dabbled in hard rock, hip hop, and electronics, performing with AK & Lord V, Gospel Of Wisdom, and Orpheus. As a trio, Vision Eternel successfully re-worked two older songs into expansive post-rock/space rock/indie rock-sounding material. However, the full-band version of Vision Eternel quickly parted ways when Mourad was motivated to launch a solo career as an acoustic singer-songwriter and disc jockey. Since leaving Vision Eternel, Mourad has performed under the name Ziko Ghost, while Kennedy established himself as a multi-instrumentalist studio engineer and producer, and has performed with Beyond The Dune Sea, 1993, Acid Cross, Owl Eyes Project, and Wake The Wolf.

Instead of abandoning Vision Eternel, Julien decided to continue the band as a solo project. On March 14, 2008, Vision Eternel’s second extended play, Un Automne En Solitude, was finally released on compact disc and digitally, again through Mortification Records. This extended play introduced Vision Eternel’s greater story-line concept – the theme of “boy meets girl, boy loses girl; boy meets girl again, boy loses girl again”, which was partly influenced by Julien’s favorite film, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. As such, each Vision Eternel release recounts another loss, another heartbreak, another piece of the greater story-line. Un Automne En Solitude featured the single “Season In Absence”, which saw two music videos produced: one produced in April 2008 by Belgian artist Niels Geybels (from the bands Koester, Mortiuri, Ashtoreth Incesti, Trancelike Void, Sequences, False Moniker, and Citadel Swamp); and another produced by Julien in March 2010.

In September 2008, Vision Eternel was signed to Abridged Pause Recordings, announcing a split 7″ vinyl with the Californian post-rock band Ethereal Beauty. Although highly promoted, the release was continuously delayed until it was eventually cancelled when Ethereal Beauty broke up in 2010, failing to record its share of songs. Vision Eternel’s material for the split was later reworked and released on the 2012 extended play The Last Great Torch Song.

On February 14, 2009, to highlight the second anniversary of the band’s debut, Japanese record label Frozen Veins Records released the compact disc compilation An Anthology Of Past Misfortunes. The Japanese-exclusive release compiled the first two extended plays (Seul Dans L’obsession and Un Automne En Solitude) along with three previously unreleased b-sides and came bundled with a poster.

Vision Eternel’s first release through Abridged Pause Recordings was unveiled on March 9, 2010, as the band’s third extended play, Abondance De Périls. The release was not only mastered by ex-band member Kennedy, but it was also released on the same date as Kennedy’s band Beyond The Dune Sea’s eponymous debut album (also signed to Abridged Pause Recordings). Although no music videos were produced for Abondance De Périls, the band and record label promoted the single “Thoughts As Naïvety”.

A follow-up to Abondance De Périls, entitled The Last Great Torch Song, was released on March 14, 2012, through Abridged Pause Recordings. Both extended plays’ cover artworks were based on an image by French photographer Marina Polak. The Last Great Torch Song also featured a series of guest musicians and collaborators, including keyboardist Garry Brents (of Cara Neir, Parabstruse, Bunrage, and many others), vocalist Eiman Nejad (of Arcanum, Mutiny, Beneath The Dead Ring, Antiquity, Unblessed, Eliminator, Brainscan, and Intifada SS), vocalist Howard Change (of Arcanum, Throne Of Mortality, Funeral Junkie, Black Albatross, Valleys Of The Living, and Uma Orla) and guitarist Alexander Fawcett (of Karmyne, Oceanus, Arboretus, Esuna, Sleepless Dreams, Good Weather For An Airstrike, and Hagakur).

Following The Last Great Torch Song, Vision Eternel was put on hold while Julien worked on other projects. In the summer of 2014, Vision Eternel was approached to compose the soundtrack to a short film. After composing and recording the soundtrack, it was discovered that the film’s writer-director-producer had absconded with the funds for the project. Instead of leaving the music unreleased, Julien partly re-recorded and fully-re-mixed the material and re-conceptualized the soundtrack into Vision Eternel’s fifth extended play, Echoes From Forgotten Hearts. Echoes From Forgotten Hearts received a limited digital release through Abridged Pause Recordings on February 14, 2015, and was promoted with the single “Pièce No. Sept”.

In celebration of Vision Eternel’s tenth anniversary in 2017, the band released a limited batch of t-shirts and stickers, some featuring Jeremy Roux’s classic 2008 band logo, others with renowned calligraphist Christophe Szpajdel’s new anniversary band logo. A music video for the single “Pièce No. Trois” (originally released on Echoes From Forgotten Hearts), co-directed by Julien and Roux and edited by Vasiliy Atutov, was released in August 2017. The band also compiled its long-anticipated boxed set, An Anthology Of Past Misfortunes, which regrouped all of Vision Eternel’s previously released and unreleased recorded material on compact discs and compact cassettes. After numerous delays, the boxed set was finally released through Abridged Pause Recordings on April 14, 2018.

Vision Eternel presented its next installment in the greater story-line through the concept extended play For Farewell Of Nostalgia. Julien began composing and recording demos for the release in 2017; the release was then recorded over seven months from April to October 2018. Unsatisfied with these original recordings, the release was put aside for a year, until Julien re-record it, entirely from scratch, over two months between October and November 2019. The final version of For Farewell Of Nostalgia was mastered by Carl Saff and the cover artwork was illustrated by pulp artist Michael Koelsch; the release also features additional paintings and photography by Rain Frances. To accompany the release, Julien wrote a short story (in place of lyrics in the booklet), which recounts the heartbreaking events that influenced the music. For Farewell Of Nostalgia was co-released through Somewherecold Records, Geertruida, and Abridged Pause Recordings on September 14, 2020.

On February 14, 2024, an expanded edition of Echoes From Forgotten Hearts will be released by Geertruida, celebrating the material’s tenth anniversary. Although packaged and promoted as a Deluxe Edition, this marks the first time the material is available properly. The release includes the 7-song EP Version, the unheard 6-song Soundtrack Version, and 10 rare studio demos, outtakes, and alternate mixes. All the material was remastered by Saff and a new cover artwork was painted by Koelsch; the release also features paintings and photography by Frances and Roux. Accompanying the boxed set is an 80-page novella containing rare pictures and a detailed recounting of the extended play’s making, from its origin as a soundtrack, through its delays, cancellations, and limited releases over the years.

Founding band member Alexander Julien has also played in Les Rocker’s (1999), The Slopin Fairy 7 (2003-2004), The Tom & Alex Project (2003), Scapegoat (2004), Throne Of Mortality (2005-2007), Projection Mina (2006-2007), Soufferance (2006-2016), Vision Solitude (2006-2010), Vision Lunar (2006-2007, 2007-2009, 2015-Present), Gallia Fornax (2007), Human Infect (2007-2008), Green Territory (2007), Lanterns Awake (2010-2011), Éphémère (2010, 2013, 2015), Citadel Swamp (2010-2016), and Murder On Redpath (2010-2011).