Hexvessel, Aluk Todolo, ruò tán... Promoting the event, the promoter Sanit Mils said, ‘You won’t be able to explain this concert to someone who wasn't there.’ We were there. We’ll try all the same to bear witness to this ritual evening at Petit Bain, on the banks of the Seine and beneath the light of an almost full moon. The facts will be exaggerated, distorted, and already the memories are fading, but, with time, there will be enough material to craft a tale that circulates amongst the initiated and will eventually take on a life of its own. The images are in black and white, as requested.
RUÒ TÁN
It all began with ruò tán, a rare ritual/noise/ambient project whose sporadic appearances are like indecipherable omens. Whispers circulate about this shaman, originally from Nanjing and now living in Paris, who is also behind the highly recommended label WV Sorcerer Productions (featuring other beautiful, mystical acts such as Sum of R, Sophia Djebel Rose, Mai Mai Mai, otay:onii, Inselberg...)... He rarely appears, and only at special events such as the Nuits Dark Ritual or the L’Homme Sauvage festival. When he does, in the dim light, he is surrounded by ghosts hiding in the thick smoke billowing from an army of incense sticks. As if to gather the participants for the ceremony to come, he makes his way through the crowd before taking to the stage.
Here we go for a non-stop set, a drone/noise incantation rich in organic elements that plunges us into a world of modern machinery and ancient percussion. The vocals are merely another layer added to the various textures of a sound that is also a mist, at times mutating into possessed growls. Repetition induces a trance and sets the tone for the evening. There will be no breaks during this often obscure ceremony, full of primal threats and cryptic secrets. The artist embodies all this, with his make-up and his sometimes theatrical stage presence, turning his live show into a fascinating immersive performance. ruò tán takes his time, both because his creations are built over time, and because he seizes and confiscates it, stripping it of its meaning, blurring reference points and eras. This music was akin to an invocation; what we heard was the expression of spirits hidden in the shadows and summoned for the duration of an evening.
ALUK TODOLO
A ritual follows rules, unchanging elements that define the ceremony. Forget the random playlist that fills the gap between two gigs, sharing “a mishmash of rock and metal tracks”: a synth pad lurks in the shadows. On stage, the trio’s iconic light bulb dangles long before the musicians arrive. A light bulb is a lovely thing; it should make for some nice lighting effects! A bit overexcited, two odd blokes shout out some daft stuff: “Ah, Luc? – Yeah? How’re you getting on with your to-do list?” They shout it once, twice, three times, just to make sure everyone in the room, even the biggest dum-dum like themselves, has got the message. For God’s sake, metalheads, learn either to control yourselves, or to make funny jokes, or not to repeat them, or, if you do repeat them, repeat them like 37 times, so it gets creepy and incantatory and fits the theme!
Enough of the nonsense, here we go. Once again, no breaks, and a set that feels like a single, living piece taking on a life of its own, defying expectations, sometimes even giving the impression that the band doesn’t know in advance where they’re heading. We just go with the flow. With hypnotic guitar loops and free-flowing drums, the rhythms go off in all directions, completely unpredictable. There’s dark rock, a sense of the occult straight out of the 70s, a touch of black metal, quite a bit of jazz in that deconstructive style, a bit of krautrock, a touch of Magma-style Zeuhl madness but darker...
In the centre, the light bulb flickers. Beneath it, incense, as always. Ultimately, the light bulb is pretty, but if you don’t switch on any other lights and you shroud everything in smoke, it’s still hard to see. Little by little, the scene brightens. The bulb is connected to the guitar; its light flickers and dances to the music. Aluk Todolo recorded their first album in a cave. Here we’re on a barge, but we try to lose ourselves in the moment and tune out the cringe-worthy jokes from the clueless blokes at the bar. Fortunately, we’re helped along by this new, surreal, hypnotic trance. Over the course of some twenty years on “the path of the ancestors” (a possible translation of Aluk Todolo), the trio has itself forged a reputation of cult project, and it is indeed a cult that we’re talking about here—something with codes that are opaque to the uninitiated and which demands a certain devotion to open up new perspectives for us. Next time, we’ll bring the toga.
HEXVESSEL
To be honest, after Hexvessel’s last visit to Paris in late 2024 (live report), we were worried we wouldn’t see them again any time soon given the rather poor turnout. Tonight, things are looking better, though it’s clear that the late start (the band doesn’t kick off until after 10 pm) has put some people off. The hooded figures take their places on stage, without fanfare. Hexvessel doesn’t hold back when it comes to setting the mood: their expressions are sullen, their make-up macabre, their eyes closed or fixed on the floor... except for that devil Ville Hakonen on bass; you can tell he’s dying to dance like a madman and conjure up some shady stuff in the dark. Whilst he steals the show, grimacing under his hood and striking funny poses, his mates pretend not to notice him. You can almost picture the memo given to the musicians: “Right, we’re super dark, we’re keeping our hoods up, we look like we’re in deep mourning... but there’s Ville going to do his thing, so don’t look at him too much or we’ll burst out laughing and it’ll end up as a conga line with T-shirts twirling above our heads”.
Hexvessel has evolved considerably since their earlier, more upbeat folk days wearing shirts. Master of ceremonies Mat McNerney begins to recite in a voice that’s a tiny bit too deep. With such a solemn and mysterious stage presence, it’s hard to tell whether it’s just an act or if he’s not quite on form. He just needs a few minutes to warm up his vocal cords: the next day, he’ll post a photo on his Instagram of a miracle cure that French shamans (and pharmacists) pass around under the table, which is said to have saved his life and is called ‘lysopaine’... Later, his voice will be that of a wolf, a spectre, flawless. The concert feels as much like a wake as it does a cold, dark night by the fireside, swapping dark secrets and old stories. These stories come from Polar Veil and Nocturne, a magnificent diptych that saw Hexvessel move away from his psychedelic folk legends to embrace his heavier, more mystical roots, somewhere between doom and black metal.
McNerney breaks the ice. He chats with the audience and introduces tracks such as A Dark & Graceful Wilderness, inspired by a Finnish poem that he doesn’t dare to sing in Finnish, leaving this perilous task to Kimmo Helén. He then lingers on A Cabin in Montana, a track about Ted Kaczynski, known by the nickname Unabomber, a mathematician who became a hermit and then an eco-terrorist, surviving alone in the wild. Hexvessel’s music is not merely gloomy: it breathes and conveys a love of the great outdoors, ancient forests, the tundra at night, the Arctic Circle... In a new address, McNerney expresses his happiness and gratitude at being here, in Paris, to play his music. In these difficult and uncertain times (we recall how, with his post-punk projects Grave Pleasures and Scorpion Milk, he sings of the apocalypse unfolding), he tells us he doesn’t know what the future holds for live music, that he doesn’t know if we’ll ever meet again... . but that if we were never to cross paths again, then he wishes us a wonderful life, urging us to make the most of this unique evening.
So that’s what we do: we savour every moment of that uniquely solemn atmosphere, the grace of those ghostly laments, those poetic evocations that pass by far too quickly, like a dream we wish could last a little longer. Sanit Mils was right: if you weren’t there, you can’t really know what you missed on this evening that pulled out all the stops with three unique and mystical projects. We’ve tried to tell you about Hexvessel. Will you get the chance to see them? To see them again? Only time will tell.
