Artist Information
- Founded: January 2007
- Location: Montreal, Canada
- Genre: Melogaze (a blend of ambient, space rock, shoegaze, post-rock and emo)
- Current Members: Alexander Julien
- Contact: [email protected]
Vision Eternel – Echoes From Forgotten Hearts (Deluxe Edition) EPK
Artist Biography
Vision Eternel is a Canadian-American melogaze band whose musical creations focus on emotion, heartbreak, and love. Melogaze, coined by founder Alexander Julien, has been described as a blend of ambient, space rock, shoegaze, post-rock, emo, and melodrama. The band was founded in January 2007 in Edison, New Jersey, USA; it is currently based in Montreal, Canada.
Release Information
Echoes From Forgotten Hearts was originally composed and recorded by Vision Eternel in 2014 as the soundtrack to a short film. After three months of work, from August to November 2014, 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, revamping the soundtrack into an EP. By the end of December 2014, Echoes From Forgotten Hearts was completed.
The EP received discreet limited releases over the years without any promotion as the band hoped to secure a proper record deal for the material. Several offers came and went, but issues with artwork continually delayed the release. A music video for the song “Pièce No. Trois” was eventually produced in 2017, edited from footage of the band shot in 2012.
Finally, Dutch record label Geertruida (which had previously released the band’s 2020 EP, For Farewell Of Nostalgia) offered to issue an expanded edition of Echoes From Forgotten Hearts to celebrate the material’s tenth anniversary in 2024. Although packaged and promoted as a Deluxe Edition, this marks the first time the material is available properly.
The Deluxe Edition contains 23 songs. In addition to the 7-song EP Version, the release also includes the unheard 6-song Soundtrack Version, along with 10 rare studio demos, outtakes, and alternate mixes. All of the material was remastered by Carl Saff at Saff Mastering. A new cover artwork was painted by Michael Koelsch at Koelsch Studios, and the release features additional paintings and photography by Rain Frances at Rain Frances Art. Saff, Koelsch, and Frances all previously contributed to For Farewell Of Nostalgia.
The Deluxe Compact Cassette Edition is split over two colored tapes in a factory-numbered boxed set. It comes with an exclusive postcard and 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. The Deluxe Edition of Echoes From Forgotten Hearts is available on tape and digitally on February 14, 2024.
Link to Deluxe Double Cassette Boxed Set Pre-Order
Link to Digital Pre-Saves
Link to Bandcamp Pre-Order
“Echoes from Forgotten Hearts is the latest EP from Montréal-based solo artist Alexander Julien, who operates under the banner of Vision Eternel, and it comprises seven brief individual tracks numbered in French as “Pièce No. Un,” “Pièce No. Deux,” etc., of wistful guitar lines and serene dronescapes. The balance that a “Pièce No. Deux” is able to strike by sounding so broad and wide open and yet only being 1:47 is striking, and it makes the release flow together all the more as a work on a single emotional thematic, and while it all only winds up being 14 minutes in total, Julien is able to bring that thematic to life in that time with depth and grace, so that when the relative sprawl of the 3:45 closer “Pièce No. Sept,” takes hold, one only wishes it would go on further. Hopefully it’s not long before he follows it with new material.”
-JJ Koczan, The Obelisk
