It’s a little bit weird to say that 10 Years ago I was just starting to record the very first album “Lovelorn”. At that time I didn’t know that Lyncelia will become my prinicpal project, my goal, my life and that 10 years later we’ll be here more living than before.

I always keep few memories from recording session, maybe all the energy put on concentration erase my memories. I remember that these sessions were specials, it was the first recording made on my own in my studio just before quitting my room to a new appartment with more place. I discovered my style and my sound, all had to be done.

Equipped with my Lâg Arkane Gtr, my bass, my Virus TI and few Vst Instruments, I started these sessions to record the album “Lovelorn” making a first step for Lyncelia.

All the tracks were recorded in few days, first the drums and the Synths, then the Guitars, the bass and the voice. For the instruments, all goes very well but for the vocals it was quite harder. I wasn’t used to sing and I was searching for my voice. I had much headaches, disappointment and doubt when I recorded these vocals. I was depressed and angry to didn’t manage to perform what I had in my head. By the way, I was forced to do with that, to accept it and it forged my vocals style that, I hope, nobody can make it the same.

It also was my very experience on designing a cover album. I made it with a picture I took of a real Blue Rose my mother had. It was the perfect thing for this album and fitted so well on my music. I learnt the basis of cover design such as resolution, BCYM colors, cover size and more on Photoshop.

I’m still proud of this album even if I hear lots of defaults on it (both on the songs or on the sound) but I did the best I can at this time and I still had much pleasure to play these songs on stage.

For this last post, I had to end on our latest releases. First of all, I want to thank you for your support et to read this series of article every months to celebrate our 10th anniversary.

Today I will talk about “Self-Mystery Girl” and “The Beauty of Doubt”.

I start with “Self-Mystery Girl”, it’s a song I started to write in november 2013 (I was working on completing “Unbound Pleasure”). I found the principal lead on bass. I transposed it quickly for guitars cause it’s a melodic lead that must be on the foreground.

The song comes easily and was the first post Forsaken Innocence song written and completed in 2014. I still feel a little strange when I see that there is 3 or 4 years between the writing and the releasing.

For this song I wanted to came back on my coldwave roots, that’s why I choose a clean fender sound with Flanger effects (for more detail on sound of this song, I wrote an article here).

For the video, I had in mind a black/White video, exactly the contrast of the previous videos in colors. As this song has a new wave feel, we wore tie and black shirt to outlined this detail. Of course Isabelle our model add the feminine side, sexy and sensual that fits this song and what about are the lyrics of the new songs. After forsaking Innocence and hope, Lyncelia assume her sensuality and seduction.

About “The Beauty of Doubt”, the idea was to release a completely different song from “Self-Mystery Girl”.

More melancholic and darker, “The Beauty of Doubt” develop an almost Doom feeling influenced by bands like My Dying Bride and Theatre of Tragedy.

I wrote this song in May 2016, on a day I felt very lonely and missing my beloved. One of my fears is to be abandoned again, I developed this idea of missing and of doubt.

For the sound, I used my Gibson SG with overdrive pedal to have a heavier sound on this downtempo. Female voices were added at the last moment, right after the recording session.

I wanted something very strong for the end of the song. We worked on these voices with 2 sessions, the first one to try some ideas and the second to record the final voices tracks. Amélie have the talent to make her voice fitting our music at the perfect pitch with her lyrical voice adding the tragic feel I wanted to have.

The photoshoot for the lyrics video was done in summer 2018, I wanted a very sensual image but still melancholic to translate the doubt and despair of the lyrics. Isabelle managed to translate it perfectly as close as the lyrics.

Today for this 11th article we’re coming back 3 years ago in 2015 when I did the Indochine Cover with the very first Lyncelia video.

It’s been a while I wanted to make a video and more images with Lyncelia. This is with this cover that I realized my beginning in video making to develop the Lyncelia image.

So, why an Indochine cover? Band as much loved than hated, especially in the french gothic scene. You couldn’t make a Joy Division cover as the others?

Because Indochine is a band I loved (especially their darker period in the 2000’s), they also represents the 80’s New Wave years cause they were at the same time as The Cure or Depeche Mode. And also to cover a song known by all french people to a Goth and darker song.

I had the idea of this personal cover in 2014 after working on 5 covers of Indochine for a special show for the wedding of my sister who is a huge fan of this band.

I started to work on this cover on November 2014, I slowed down the tempo to make it darker and enhanced the synthesizers. I thought I could have some difficulties to rearrange but this cover were much easy to do, I had the good ideas at the good time (and this is not like that everyday…).

I needed extra time to adapt my voice to this song, it was not easy. It’s easy to sing but I’m not used to sing in french language.

Quickly I wanted to make a video for this cover. It was a source of discord between Claudia and me about the Lyncelia aesthetic that brought us to stop our collaboration few weeks later.

The making of this video is quite cheap, I did it with what I had: a little camrecorder on a tripod, few “cool daylight” lights (on the ground or mounted on clothes dryer), a black curtain before a wall and let’s go for the shoot.

The recording took 2 days. The first day for all the guitars, bass, synths, vocals footage. But by watching the rushes, my make up for the vocal parts was too intense so I decided to redo it the next day.

Remains the edition, not easy when you don’t know where you’re going. I must learn to use the multitrack and to synchronize all tracks to select only the more effective ones.

After this step I felt we missed a female presence. I get in touch with a neighbor and this is Miss Lison that you can see in the video. We took an afternoon to shot it in the street and in my house.

This sequence, even a little too long, gives an interesting dimension to the video. Such a pity I didn’t mind to put it all along the video to be more logical.

But this is from our mistakes that we learn and this very first video gives me the envy and the experience to make others and to always want to make it better than the previous.

Since that, I learned more on video making, lighting and edition. It’s always interesting to add an artistic practice to Lyncelia and to develop farther this project.

…To be continued…

Today I will tell you the story behind the song “Lost – Anastasia”.

This is a song written in July 2013 that stayed without lyrics until an encounter that changed my life.

All began in February 2014 with a trip to Estonia.

One friend of mine wanted to see North Europe under the snow and she asked me to come with her. I accepted this proposal that allowed me to come out from my daily routine and discover another country, another culture. I didn’t thought it will change my life like that.

First of all, I was upset from the Tallinn atmosphere, we knew we were in the center of old East Russian Block. It should not be easy every day to live here, the revenues are low, cost too but not all. I felt a great melancholia coming from this town that upset me. I felt good and not stressed, the density is low and the streets feels empty for us that are used to overcrowded streets.

This is on the coming back that my life will change. To come back to Paris we must stop in Warsaw in Poland. Once we enter the plain, I saw the glance of a lovely girl with long blond hair. My heart thrilled in my chest, she was placed just at the side of my friend who gave me her ticket so I will be at the side of this beautiful mysterious blonde girl.

I didn’t know who I was, nor where I was and I didn’t dare to speak to her. I put my headphones on and listened to my Ipod, it was set on the demo song “Lost”.

This song in my ears and her subtle presence at my side made a beautiful alchemy. At last I dare to speak to her and to ask for a weird thing: to only know her name to have some inspiration for this song. It was weird but she accepted it and wrote on my notepad these few letters “Anastasia”.

Lost in the clouds with her over the skies, I started to write some lines, some descriptions and must of all what I felt during these few hours at her side. I know I will never see her again but I will never forget her. Her perfume, her visage, her glance, her presence will be carved in my memory and on this song.

At our arrival in Paris, I thank her for giving me some inspiration and I greet her for the last time, watching her leaving me for eternity.

Her life is in Poland, mine in France and during this furtive moment I had the impression to live an entire life and feel extreme intensive things. Platonic love in its purest expression.

Lost – Anastasia
Music and lyrics written by Alexis B

Unknown stranger girl – Enhanced blue eyed sea glance
Her subtle fragrance pierces my heart
______

Your youth still breathe your hope – Innocence run by dream
My free will entwined in your light blonde hair
I faint and could ever sink all my entire life
Into the blue ocean of your lovely eyes
______

Lost in the clouds with you over the skies – My blood runs cold
These last moments spent with you – Trying to hang your sweet escaping glance
______

My eyes are afar – But I could perceive you
Your presence, your intensive emotions
I must leave
______

Lost in the clouds with you over the skies
Where are you escaping? My dearest love
I will never see you once more
Let my love touch your sensitiveness
______

I see your heart glow – But I can’t love you
My life’s not here
I must leave
______

Your life awaits you so far from me
The stolen moment, crystallized
During this out of time
You had divined what I feel for you
The only one I loved
______

The only one I loved
______

Turning backward without remembering me
Disappearing afar – Just leaving your name

Anastasia

…To be continued…

Today I come back 10 years ago when I created Lyncelia on 1st September 2008 but I started to work on it few months before.

To say the truth, in 2004 I tried to form a coldwave band, I managed to find some musicians (a bassist, a drummer, a 2nd guitarist and a she-singer) but we hadn’t go through the first rehearsal. By the way we started from scratch, I had no songs to present or introduce to them, our influences weren’t clear. Some wanted to play Gothic-Rock or Deathrock, others Gothic-Metal and me Coldwave. It was promised to failure.

It was in 2007 that the envy of playing coldwave came back to the surface. After starting to play Synthesizers, I ended by writing 1 or 2 songs that comfort me in this idea and few months later I had the materials to start a new project (I had the songs “Over The Senses”, “Scorn”, “Extincted”, “Persistence of Vision”, “Clemency” and some others I didn’t keep).

At this time I was involved in a Metal band (precisely Death Metal) and Coldwave allowed me to express all I couldn’t express by Metal and the idea to create a side project seemed complementary.

At the start my sister Amélie should be the singer, but she was running out of time and she couldn’t be involved permanently in the project. So I decided to be the only singer, it was a huge challenge for me.

During my vacation in august 2008 in French Britain, I wrote a song that will change all: “Lyncelia”.

I found this name by watching a dvd where the word “Shroud” was pronounced, it means “Linceul” in French. The sounding was interesting but not the meaning, I was looking for a name with no particular meaning that could be a girl name and by mixing some girly names I came to Lyncelia.

It was quite a revelation and the start of this adventure.

I started writing lyrics to complete this song and I had a visual in my head of a blue rose, from a picture I made before. It was the starting point of Lyncelia and I created a myspace page to symbolizes this birth.

Lyncelia was born, I didn’t know where I was going to but I was very excited to develop this solo project.

When I think of it, my first idea was to realize one album, even a second and that’s all. I didn’t thought that 10 years later Lyncelia became a band, my principal project with whom I will realize 3 albums, more than 20 concerts, 4 videos and enough to make a 4th album.

I started to be pleasant by writing lyrics, songs became to sound good and take their shape but I had some difficulties with my voice that didn’t sound like I wanted.

I was frustrated to can’t manage to sing like I wanted (Death Metal leaves some aches lol) so I had to developed an alternative way to sing. I had to find a personal tune and flow. It was hard work that demanded me lots of strength and introspection but I wanted to achieve it.

Then few months later, by myspace, I received a proposal: A first concert in Paris. But it’s another story (to read HERE)…

…To be continued…

Today we celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Lyncelia.

Cause we can’t make it without you, we want to say a big THANK YOU to all of you for your support since 2008.

Thank you for making Lyncelia real and part of the Gothic scene, listened throughout the world. This Anniversary is yours!

Today I talk about ons of my favourite song (even if I love each song).

It was one of the first song I wrote for this second album. After some compositions that I don’t keep, I came to a moment of light with the writing of “Linxya”. This song, written in 2009 before the recording of “Lovelorn”, was the starting point for this second album.

This one should be better than the previous and I felt that it will be more desperate announcing the worst period of my life to come.

This song is nervous, first of all by the sound a little bit aggressive et by its strong and desperate lyrics.

The lyrics are about accepting our fate and to stop trying to escape it. I use the myth of Andromeda (one of my favourite) who accepted to be sacrificed in the sea to save her people. The song enlighten the fear of what will arrive with the envy to be saved from these torments and then to accept the disillusion and to dive in the floods to be released and free.

I wrote these lyrics in a black period of my life, I was angry before all the disillusion around me, I wanted to change all my life but nothing changed and I accepted it. I transferred all this sickness in this album being a catharsis that allowed me to crystallised all these anguishes in music.

Linxya 

Music and lyrics written by Alexis B.

Towards my destiny? Joining divine beauty
Chains circle my hands; Stretched from each side
Staring afar, the void; Wind caressing my eyes
My regard got lost; In the deep blue sea
______

Save me
Don’t let me sink
______

I wait your soul
Rise your eyes to me
______

My sacrificed soul; Abandon to the flood
Filling me with coldness; With insistent wavering
Complete my destiny; The only means to forget
My turned down glance; Saddened
______

Bless me
So let me sink
______

I’m close to dive
______

Let me drown in the waves
I must die for loving you
Let me drown in the waves
I must die for your love
______

I wait your soul
Rise your eyes to me
______

Let me drown in the waves
I must die for loving you
Let me drown in the waves
Let me drown in the waves

…Ato be continued…

As you know, in september we will celebrate our 10th anniversary. To celebrate this event and thank you for your support, we will publish a free digital best of from our 3 albums.

As this best of is yours, we need your help for the tracklist. We need 9 songs and we will include 2 or 3 songs per album you choose.

Survey end on 3rd August.

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After enlightened the first album “Lovelorn” during the last months, we come to “Assigned, for Disillusion” released in 2013.

I start with the most appreciate song from this album, “Unveiled Illusion” composed in summer 2010.

My intention was to write a danceable songs with New Wave influences, cause at this time we missed this kind of song to balance with the more doomy songs of the album. After being at a concert of friends Malaise Rouge where they played their last song “It was by Love” that was danceable and New Wave, I noticed that excepted “Diamonds” we hadn’t a song like that and we needed one.

I started by the first synthesizers notes played on my Virus TI and the riffs that follow. Then I programmed a 4 to the dancefloor new wave drum beat. The tempo was set and I start to work on the guitars. I wanted this song being strong, so the rhythm guitars is based on power chords and the bass had to be focused on the drum beat.

At the beginning, all the guitars was to be clean but finally I choose to get the lead one with distortion to have more dynamics, more power with a slashing sound taking over the instrumentation.

The lyrics (written in january 2012) are about being surrounded by seduction, swirling and dancing. Once the illusion is unveiled, want to be in her arms, stop the time to belong to her and letting all fears being dampen down by her presence.

Unveiled Illusion

Music and lyrics written by Alexis B.

So sweet shape – Spinning around me
Through this night – To wasting dawn
You touched my dreams – Surrounded by your perfume
Inebriated by your glance
Tangled in this veil – veil of illusion
Deafened by this electric presence
So poisonous
______

Evaporating in my memories
Numb by this vision
I follow you
Blinded by your sharpened beauty
Drifting to the tenderness
Of your trembling hands
Drowned in your kiss
______

Take me in your arms
Tight me to oblivion
Let me feel your love
Forever

Take me in your arms
Dampen down my fear
Make me swirling
Forever
______

So slashing beauty – Lacerate my life
Please love me this night
Plant your bitterness – Under my skin
Burn my entire life
And bring me to you
______

Take me in your arms
Tight me to oblivion
Let me feel your love
Forever

Take me in your arms
Dampen down my fear
Make me swirling
Forever

January 2012

…To be continued…

For this 6th article, I come back on our cover of “Sorry Angel” (2011) from the french singer Serge Gainsbourg.

At the beginning it was a proposal from our rehearsal studio, they wanted to celebrate the 20 years of Gainsbourg’s death by releasing a tribute.

We talked about the project with Claudia (Bass player at this time), she were very enthusiastic and we choose to participate. Claudia chose the song “Sorry Angel” cause the lyrics and musique could fits with our musical style.

The exercise was interesting to make a cover on a limited run, respecting the original but being 100% Lyncelia.

It was really complicated to sing in French, I’m not used to and the intonations are very different from English. I worked hard to get my voice fits in every words and pronounciation. Even today I prefer to sing in English.

Claudia add really lots of feeling on bass, it’s clear that I couldn’t do it the same. Almost a jazzy feel on bass all over my ColdWave Guitars.

It was an intense experience that allows us to make something different and to play it on stage with bands from other style. We represented with pride the Gothic Music at their sides.