BAND OF THE WEEK: Menace Ruine (includes interview)
'Nekyia' just got a little sister.
Hopefully, by now, after years of incessant praising, I might have been able to reach a few of you who might have been unaware of the constant, unwavering brilliance of Menace Ruine. One of the most genuinely unique musical entities to appear this century, the Canadian duo formed by Geneviève Beaulieu and S. de la Moth has been wrenching profound, aching beauty out of noise and nature, helping to give often stagnated genres like darkwave and neo-folk a completely new perspective. After a slightly worrying discographic silence of eight years, they returned late last year with the stunning ‘Nekyia’ album, which I rated quite high on my list of favourite albums of 2022, and every time I think of it, I get the feeling that it should have been even higher on the list, such has been my constant hold onto it ever since it was released. At the time, I called it “another one of those step forwards while maintaining every element that makes their music so unique,” and said that its best songs were “darkly evocative and deeply, almost supernaturally soothing,” and then I got really carried away and used a “droning, breeze-like guitars that come across like Darkthrone circa 1992 attempting ambient music” analogy, which I fiercely maintain, so, you know, it was a pretty special record. How about we remember it right now?
In the five months since its release, the band has been, as it is their custom, quietly but surely reminding us of how brilliant this music is by giving us regular videos of some of its most poignant songs. To be honest, I think it’s better to just let you experience them if you haven’t yet rather than wax too lyrical about it. The impact of their exquisite simplicity will speak for itself. Here:
Amazing, isn’t it? Makes you want to pack up and go walk in the woods, preferably in the Saint Alphonse Rodriguez region in Québec where the band is from, and whose surroundings inspire them so much. And it’s precisely that sumptuous nature that is now helping Menace Ruine in a very direct way to provide us with another piece that we didn’t realise was still missing from the ‘Nekyia’ world - a companion EP called ‘Ghost Heartbeats’, that was released digitally on their Bandcamp page a couple of weeks ago. It’s not exactly Menace Ruine, as the approach and sound are indeed different, but very clearly comes from the same time and space and belongs in the same creative process, as they explain on the introduction to the EP written on that same Bandcamp page. Originating during those years of apparent silence, it comes from a few drum sessions Geneviève used to play outdoors, which she started to record at one point. Apparently, this communion with nature - they delightfully describe it like this: “she brought her handy recorder and captured a few drum sessions with the birds, bees, insects and critters of all sorts to eventually craft a few little songs with them” - helped greatly in easing the vocal fatigue she was feeling in the ‘Nekyia’ sessions, and so, after those, she returned to those recordings and filled in a few blanks, but with the expected care and sensitivity to leave them close to their initial spirit. “(…) very mindful to preserve the trance inducing and ritualistic qualities at work in the original sessions, and on the condition that there would be no human voice and no words other than the narrative titles,” as it is described on their text.
The end result works indeed perfectly as a companion piece to the more full-bodied experience that was ‘Nekyia’ - in a sense, it’s as if this EP strips everything down to the bare essencial, exposing the beating heart of this music and connecting it more closely than ever with its true origin. The way it reaches your heart may be different, perhaps more subtle, but the same sense of fragile, wounded beauty is still there, the same evocative feel, the same transcendence, all make their way to you anyhow. It sort of puts its bigger sister record in a different, even more perfect kind of light, but it also stands alone as a simply gorgeous, quietly addictive piece of music in itself. And hey, it gave us a wonderful excuse to have a beautiful conversation with Geneviève (thank you!), about ‘Ghost Heartbeats’, yes, but also ‘Nekyia’, life, the universe. migratory patterns of birds and everything else. Read on below. Preferably while listening to this sublime piece of music.
“Solitude and headphones recommended,” as is wisely worded at the end of the Bandcamp description of the EP. I do second that.
It is vibrant to feel that we are part of the whole living world and to let ourselves be inspired by it!
- Geneviève Beaulieu
Since the main motivation for this conversation is your recent publication of ‘Ghost Heartbeats’, let’s start just there. From what I gather of the accompanying text, this was music that you developed very naturally during the years of Menace Ruine hiatus, right? Is this something that you have always done, playing drums outdoors, in the middle of nature and all “the little creatures”, as it is so beautifully put on that text? Or was it something specific to this period of time?
Geneviève: I began drumming a little bit after we moved here to the woods in 2014. As I became more and more interested in shamanism, I bought myself a frame drum so I could develop a practice of my own. Drumming outdoors became a regular activity. One thing led to another, and I started going outside with the specific intention of playing with Nature and all of her voices. At the end of August, birds and pollinators are very busy. I am not sure they really understood what I was doing there, playing clumsily with my drum, but they went on with their business and seemed to accept me among them. It is vibrant to feel that we are part of the whole living world and to let ourselves be inspired by it! The sound of bird wings beating close to my ears gives me chills, and all forms of communication with other animals are always a blessing. When you pay attention, there is so much going on, and you can make friends quite easily.
When did you decide that this grounding, peaceful activity of yours could also become a piece of Menace Ruine, or at least MR-adjacent, music? Was it much different to process this when compared to your usual process for Menace Ruine songs?
Geneviève: When I decided to capture a few of my outdoor drum sessions with my Zoom recorder, I did not exactly know what I would do with them, or if I would develop further in that direction and eventually record something of better quality. I recorded a dozen sessions and crafted little pieces with the more magical moments. I first thought I would eventually use them as a drum & voice solo thing, more as shamanic chants for rituals or something. Then I let this material sleep for a while, in their primitive drumming-and-nature state, until last year at the very last stage of ‘Nekyia’’s recordings, as I was struggling with the vocals. I had not sung seriously for years, and well, the voice is something you have to work out… I thought recording vocals would be fun and rather easy again, but no. It really was a big reality check. My instinctive response to that was to go back to the drum pieces and play synth when I was unable to sing. I had to keep the creativity alive, and prevent it from gettting stuck inside of me, not so far in ‘Nekyia’’s process. It was fun, not painful at all, and almost a guilty pleasure to allow myself to just play downright melodic parts inspired by the rhythms, no need for words nor voice, nor big distortion, no struggle at all. Those drum pieces turned out very differently than what I expected, but that is what they are, so let them be. This side work was a saviour to me. So yeah, quite a different process than for Menace Ruine. I usually begin with the sounds, which inspire the melodies and voice, and everything else follows. Usually drums come last, and for ‘Nekyia’ it was a real pain. But there are some exceptions of course, and several MR songs do not have drums at all.
Of course, you have also presented it as an actual companion piece to ‘Nekyia’ – what would you say is the relationship between the two pieces, what are the common things between them that make them apt for being companions?
Geneviève: They both accompanied me throughout the whole hiatus, tearing me apart each in their own direction… My previous life in the city and outdated way of doing things, useless in this new time and space; the new life here in the woods, very simple, with this insatiable need for quiet time close to nature and craving for a deeper connection to the more-than-human-world. It was a complete shift of reality/priorities. With ‘Nekyia’, I used the lyrics to express my reverence towards Mother Nature, and grief about her destruction and the one of individual animals and even entire species. It was hard to express this with words. It finally came, but it was a long process. When I hear the birds and bees in the first seconds of ‘GH’, I switch instantly to a different state of consciousness. We feel this peace and grounding energies. It is really humbling. The crickets at the end of ‘Free in Farewell’, the last song on ‘Nekyia’, is a wink to the reality around us, a breath of fresh air. We gave them the final word, and so it was an opening to something else. We can also see those ghost heartbeats as those of the animals which inspired the writing of ‘Nekyia’, and who have haunted me during the process, and will forever.
I love the percussion on it, and having read the story of its inception, it becomes apparent that that was the initial basis for the songs. Might you use this release as inspiration for forthcoming Menace Ruine songs, as a way to diversify your methods of writing and the result of the songs? Or maybe you would consider keeping this approach as a semi-separate entity that could branch out on its own? Have you thought of any of these possibilities?
Geneviève: My musical projects are like communicating vessels, and as we experiment and learn new things working on one, it slightly changes the perspective on everything we do afterwards. Nothing is ever fixed. I don’t know yet how those pieces will impact my future music, but they most likely will. I see a couple of possibilities at least. I do enjoy percussion a lot and they easily inspire melodies to me. I have worked in the past with S. drum loops in Menace Ruine as a creative basis, and it gave songs like ‘Dark Mother’ or ‘Marriage in Death’. I like to proceed this way also. It is a much lighter process than proceeding in a reverse way. It is also difficult to use acoustic percussion in Menace Ruine. I played sistrum and what I called my Kamutef, a handy instrument made of nutshells, on several songs on ‘Venus Armata’. I really wanted it, but it was so hard to mix and blend with the rest. It turned out not so bad, but they really found their right place on the ‘Venus Armata’ 2023 digital reissue. Which makes me think that this ‘Ghost Heartbeats’ formula might be necessary again in the future... I am really working on keeping things simple right now.
Would you like to talk a bit about some of the titles of the songs? They seem absolutely directly connected to their origins – for example, is the last song really something you made when thinking about the migration of the birds and is it meant to portray that feeling?
Geneviève: My only constraint was that those pieces had to be instrumental, and without words except for the titles. They ended up being quite narrative, telling us more about the songs. I find it hard to sing in French, but those titles came quite naturally in my own mother tongue. Some of them are more connected to the origins of the songs, as you suspected. The first track, for example, was recorded next to a creek nearby, a spot where I often do some little rituals and throw some things in the flow (no beer cans nor corpses, I promise) and let go of painful outdated things in my life. And similarly, the second song was recorded close to a small waterfall, in which you can witness me sleep on the digital insert of the album ;). For the other pieces, it was more the melodies that inspired the titles, or the intensity of the drums. I’ll take the last song as an example. While I was playing this slow melodic motive, I began to see birds migrating in my mind. Living close to nature, we sense the passage of time more accurately through the seasons. When I look up to the sky in fall, and see those geese leaving for the south, in their horizontal V pattern, I find them so brave and am filled with admiration! I can’t help worrying for them, and feeling sadness thinking some of them will not make it back in Spring. When the synth was recorded and I looked at the notes display on my computer screen, I realized I was playing the V design. I was painting their migratory dance with music. That just confirmed the title.
Since ‘Nekyia’ is naturally in the background of this conversation, let’s bring it in from the cold too. ☺ Now that a few months have passed since its release, what are your thoughts on that album? You’ve recently released another beautiful video, so it seems to still be very much in your thoughts. Do you remain fully satisfied with how it turned out? Have the reactions of people been good? In short, was it worth it to return to activity with Menace Ruine?
Geneviève: We are very happy about the release. Pleasantly surprised by the reactions but also the fact some people are still following us after all those silent years! We are grateful. I am now convinced that it was necessary for me to finish this album, so I can move on to something else. I hesitated so much, and the process was so painful over the years that I almost gave up plenty of times. I know now ‘Nekyia’ was for a reason, and I am proud that it is out and this painful (but transformative) process is now behind me. After the first MR cycle, closed by the release of ‘Venus Armata’, I was kind of knocked out, totally empty of my energy and feeling insecure. What have I done? What is this project exactly, Menace Ruine? Should I feel ashamed or proud of it? What good does it bring into the world? Those kind of questions, hehe. I came to think that this project had trouble with daylight and was not meant to be shared. I did not know anymore, but I felt safe being away and needed Nature more than anything else. I could have remained like this forever, but I think the fact I was able to finish the album and release it is a sign of healing, so it is positive. I feel like I am getting out of my slumber. The decision to release it by ourselves via Union Finale was the only way to do it though. Not that our experiences with previous labels were bad, but anxiety was too high this time, so we needed to do it discreetly, at our own pace, slowly but surely. Videos are a great complement I think. S. is really into it now and so talented so it will certainly become an integral part of our music.
Do you have any plans for any shows in the future?
Geneviève: If you had asked me this question only a few months ago, I would have said NO right away. There is no plan yet, but I would say it is less and less impossible.
With two incredibly evocative pieces of music like these released in the space of a few months, no fan can really complain, but the worry remains – will you keep Menace Ruine more or less active with the motivation and inspiration that you seem to have had behind these releases, or is another hiatus a possibility? As much as it seems appropriate to have Menace Ruine as a sort of benign spirit that only appears from time to time as it sees fit, I’d much rather have more music from you. ☺
Geneviève: I don’t feel another hiatus is needed at this point, nor wanted. I cannot promise anything but I am back at making music and am eager to see where inspiration will lead us.
Lastly, I hope you won’t mind me asking about Preterite. I’ve noticed that you’re at least still posting about yours and James’ music on the band’s facebook page, is there any possibility of that entity returning to life also?
Geneviève: Yes, there is.
Find Menace Ruine on Bandcamp, Facebook, Instagram and Spotify.
Listen to/purchase ‘Nekyia’
Listen to/purchase ‘Ghost Heartbeats’
Union Finale’s YouTube channel featuring all latest Menace Ruine videos