Track By Track: Reptile Reptiles – All Things Return to One

Reptile Reptiles_photo©JulienBourgeois-HD01daguerreotype

Music

Across the brooding soundscapes of ‘All Things Return To One’, the debut album by French duo Reptile Reptiles, ambient echoes ascend like trails of mist and cloudfall, coalescing with the badlands strum and twang of minimalist doom metal and existentialist delta blues.

The album’s raw, atmospheric soundworld is duly narrated by renowned Indigenous actor Gary Farmer, who throughout the album voices prophetic meditations on nature, myth, ritual and the passage from life to death. Together, this forms a record with an intoxicating, cinematic aura. Defined by haunting ambient firmaments and bristling guitar figures, ‘ATRTO’ seems to hold entire frontiers within its grasp; the sound of deserted prairies, arid dust bowls, the land beyond – and the ghosts that inhabit them.

Reptile Reptiles are electronic musician Alexandre Bazin and multi-hyphenate artist Clément Beauvais (composer, director, writer, photographer). With releases on Important Records & Umor Rex, Bazin is also a documentary producer for legendary sound art institution GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales), while Beauvais is an award-winning writer and director of documentaries as well as artful adverts for the likes of Dior and Givenchy. Farmer, meanwhile, is a cult actor with a distinguished career in TV and independent film. More recently, Farmer has starred in Kelly Reichardt’s 2019 film First Cow, Taika Waititi’s series Reservation Dogs and Nathan Fielder’s series The Curse. But perhaps his most iconic role lies with his performance in Jim Jarmusch’s 1995 film Dead Man.

Dead Man is a lodestar for Reptile Reptiles and the record. The film is a soporific, monochromatic acid western that lulls you into the hallucinatory journey of the protagonist – a hapless fugitive called William Blake, played by Johnny Depp – as if transporting you directly into the character’s lysergic visions and dreams. Farmer’s character, given the name Nobody, believes Depp’s character is the reincarnation of the famed English poet. Iggy Pop also turns up in a dress. It’s a special film, like Maya Deren spliced with John Ford, with added peyote.

Like the film, ‘All Things Return To One’ is a metaphysical mood piece that traverses territories both elemental and psychological. Encompassing experimental electronics, environmental sound, prose poetry and Indigenous philosophy, ‘All Things Return To One’ is an immersive proposition, infused with vivid electronic bricolage, resonant greyscale blues, psychedelic mirages and cycle of life First Nations wisdom.

Evoking Dylan Carlson riffing in the open air of some desolate American landscape with Lawrence English at the controls, Bruce Langhorne’s melancholic score for Peter Fonda’s 1971 film The Hired Hand or even the next soundtrack to Red Dead Redemption if arranged by Stephen O’Malley, ‘All Things Return To One’ is a record you need to hear. It’ll transport you to wide open plains and deeply introspective states of mind, an album both revisionist and contemporary, for the contemplative cowboy in all of us.

Following the release of the album, we asked the Reptiles responsible – Alexandre Bazin and Clément Beauvais – to supply us with a guide to it all. Read on for a succinct track by track pathway through the album’s hinterlands, provided mostly by Bazin but with a couple of thoughtful contributions from Beauvais, including reflections on influential works by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto and titanic American abstract painter Mark Rothko. Also included throughout are a selection of lyrics from the album and images from the art booklet created for the album’s vinyl edition, with photography by [Clément] Beauvais.

Dive in below but firstly, here’s an introduction to the album from Clément:

The rhythm of the record unfolds between atmospheric guitar riffs and deep, telluric ambient synths. I was drawn to the idea of a narrative emerging at the border of two distinct territories, and yet allowing them to converse. Gary’s voice guides the listener to that edge and then steps aside, leaving space for a more introspective journey. It becomes the sonic voyage of a soul returning to the land of soul. Each track acts as a stage in this homecoming, slowly mapping the terrain of memory and transformation.

Reptile Reptiles – All Things Return To One DIGI ARTWORK

1. Beneath The Black Ocean

To my ear and in my way of understanding music, there is absolutely no synaesthesia between sound and colour. I’m only interested in the tension within sound. A sound should be an organic, living entity — a kind of living space for the listener’s mind. (Alexandre Bazin)

While writing the verse of ‘Beneath the Black Ocean’, I had in mind [Hiroshi] Sugimoto’s North Pacific Ocean photograph, as well as the meditative intensity of [Mark] Rothko’s paintings. Most of the track carries this tension of a threshold. (Clément Beauvais)

[Pictured below are works cited by Clément including ‘Lake Superior, Cascade River’ and ‘North Pacific Ocean, Stinson Beach’ by Hiroshi Sugimoto, plus ‘Orange & Yellow’ and ‘Untitled (Green on Blue)’ by Mark Rothko]