Victor Hugo (politician, writer) used to conduct séances to communicate with his drowned daughter. He claimed that during these sessions he spoke to the ocean, the moon, Plato, Galileo and Jesus among others. One of the messages he received was that the afterlife is a return to earth in four different stages depending on how good you were during life; a stone/pebble, a plant, animal/insect and when you lived your life in a good way as a human. This concept of reincarnation, not unfamiliar to several East Asian religions served as a concept for Mathieu Ruhlmann his latest work Fourteen Worms For Victor Hugo, the shortest path from pebble to god.
In the seven parts we have on these album Ruhlmann seems to follow these different stages going from the lowest form to the highest form. It could be compared with evolutionary theories where we start with no life and end with humans (if you would consider that the last step in evolution).
As instruments Ruhlmann makes use of worms and insects (don't ask, I have no clue either), a boiling kettle, singing bowl, piano, toy instruments and much more.
In the music we hear these instruments back as soundscapes and soft rumblings.
The occasional drone from the singing bowl is mixed gently with sounds that resemble pebbles moving. With eye for detail, though, in these scapes you can sometimes hear a subtle piano variation to enrich the whole piece.
Throughout the album the amount of organic sounds increases, following the evolutionary steps. This makes the music become more lively.
Eventually pieces of spoken word/whispering come in the show the human part in the music, where in the end we appear in front of god while hearing Chinese (??) music.
Fourteen Worms breathes an obscure occult air, but it's one that fits well with the ideas Victor Hugo got from his séances. A job well done. |
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