Fans of obscure curiosities, get your black capes out of their closet: Chroniques de Vampires, Vourdalaks et autres Non-Morts is originally a self-published collection of short stories written by Nazteratom on the vampire myth. What interests us today is the soundtrack, signed by Sona Nyl at the end of 2023 and re-released in ultra-limited physical format (visit bandcamp) with an additional track. This mix of dark ambient and synthwave is already catching our eye, with its artwork by Lorenzo Bis that is full a love for old-school, colourful horror and EC Comics. So much for the intriguing cross-media aspect.
As far as the music is concerned, this is indeed a soundtrack: the tracks are short and work perfectly as illustration or accompaniment. Sona Nyl, aka El Prêtro Maniaco (or Ludovic Leprêtre during the day, when he has to fill out administrative paperwork) brings out his synthesizers and his love of opaque, mysterious atmospheres. The album opener, the misty Ruelle, is an invitation to wander through a dark, urban universe where the synthetic textures inevitably lend a futuristic aura, but which also drips with nostalgia for the fearsome minimalism of the compositions of John Carpenter and other illustrious patrons of the genre that Sona Nyl vampirizes with relish.
The collection of short stories that inspired the music also drew on a variety of timelines, mixing the classical with the modern. From Tolstoy's Vourdalaks, which inspired both Mario Bava's Black Sabbath and, very recently, the french director Adrien Beau in an excellent film that brilliantly blended macabre poetry and black humour, to the contemporary vampires who fill the streets of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, there's no shortage of inspiration when it comes to beings that seize our vital breath to achieve immortality. The worlds Sona Nyl brings to life reflect this variety.
We're not going to reinvent ourselves: for us, it's when music is draped in the thickest darkness that we're most seduced. The hypnotic, menacing heaviness of Mirage, the cold, ominous melodies of Jeux d'Enfants and Sombre Résurrection whose notes pierce the night like canines opening a vein, the more mystical, ritualistic scope of Devenir un Dieu and the spectral choirs that haunt Nous Sommes une Légende are all moments whose sinister flavour and theatricality we appreciate.
While we thought that the album's crepuscular conclusion on its first release, Quand le monde s'agenouillerera devant toi, made an ideal end to the set with its funereal mood of nocturnal grandiloquence and menace, Sona Nyl surprises us with EchoBis, the bonus track. The finale is a danceable synthwave assault, with a few guitars grafted onto the bass lines: it's surprising, refreshing, and evokes a less esoteric approach to vampires, more straightforward (John Carpenter, we're thinking of you, again and again). Not only do these Chronicles of Vampires, Vourdalaks and Other Undead provide an ideal accompaniment to our nocturnal wanderings, whether under the dim lights of street lamps in a city full of dark corners or in the mists of deserted countryside, they also make us want to go and read the short stories they illustrate. Brought back to life in the middle of summer by its reissue, this album was well worth stepping out of our vaults to suck in its fluids!
