Peste Noire - Peste Noire (2013)

Peste Noire - Peste Noire (2013)







INFO:

Peste Noire is a medieval black metal band from Avignon, France, formed by La sale Famine de Valfunde in 2000. Famine has been the main member and creative force behind this band since its inception, and, to date, all songs (lyrics, music and solos) were written by Famine except for “La Césarienne“‘s music (on ”Folkfuck Folie”) written by ex-member Neige, as well as some interludes on “Ballade cuntre lo Anemi francor” written by Audrey Sylvain. Peste Noire has always rejected the exposure of their music on the internet. There has never been any official PN website, nor any official PN myspace page. Some “fan pages” currently exist (/pestenoire, /pestenoiremetal etc.) but they are in no way official as they go against Famine’s vision of BM.

Peste Noire was born in the mind of one La sale Famine de Valfunde who wrote all songs (except one), solos, lyrics, concepts for Peste Noire since its creation. The other members aren’t/have never been involved in the song-writing process but are/were always used as session musicians (Neige included) playing the music written by Famine. Famine is therefore very reluctant to see people associating Peste Noire with Neige and his multiple bands or side-projects (Alcest…). In a 2006 interview for the English magazine Zero Tolerance (n°14) after he had just formed a whole line-up fit for concerts, Famine stated : « The only things I will never share [in Peste Noire] are the concept and the surrounding universe (musical, aesthetic and textual), which have grown and matured in my brain only ». The different artworks were also chosen by and built around the ideas of one La sale Famine de Valfunde. He certainly has a vision of black metal that is exclusively his own, and the material resulting from his vision definitely has its own identity within the genre.

Peste Noire offers a music which is in turn epic and melodic, sometimes more turbulent and aggressive, passionate and sorrowful and at times even openly sardonic. It always retains some degree of insanity and is generally raw, filthy and evocative of the atmosphere developed in France d’oïl in the Middle Ages. The band is sometimes referred to as P.N. or K.P.N (« Kommando Peste Noire ») and its musical mission is to search for enlightenment not in churches but rather in sewers or reaching what is « high » through what is « low », making gold out of mud.


One of PN’s leitmotifs is that of satanism as is common for bands in the black metal genre but PN certainly can’t be reduced to that. (Famine himself said “P.N. is . . . indeed an extension of my inner self but not only. Above all else, P.N. is an extension of the Devil, its representation BY me. BECAUSE Satan enters into me, or BECAUSE He touches me from the outside, because in both cases I am brimful of Him . . . . Satan is the cause of my music, I am His means.” (Zero Tolerance zine; 2006))

Even if Famine’s music is characteristized by anarchic disdain and/or aristocratic sarcasm (Famine acknowledged the underlying influence of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and François Rabelais in Peste Noire’s music), giving it its distinctive voice, Famine’s vision of black metal is also based on nationalism and Peste Noire is proud of French cultural heritage, especially medieval France. Famine took some lyrics written in Old French from medieval French writers such as François Villon (for the song “Ballade cuntre les anemis de la France”), Christine de Pisan (for the song “Dueil Angoisseus”) and Guillaume de Machaut (for “Amour ne m’amoit ne je li”) and from modern writers, such as Charles Baudelaire (“Le mort joyeux” and “Spleen”), Paul Verlaine (“Soleils couchants”), Tristan Corbière (“Paysage mauvais”), and Robert Brasillach (“Psaume IV”). They have been suspected of being a national-socialist band but Famine said they were French nationalists: “I am a nationalist, not a socialist… My two nations are : France d’Oïl (i.e Northern medieval France where langues d’oïl were spoken) and Hell.” (Zero Tolerance zine; 2006). On Ballade cuntre lo Anemi francor’s digipack, Famine also stated that “Peste Noire is a nationalistic satanic band from France, not from Germany. Peste Noire reject any links with nazi imperialism, which is essentially an enemy of French culture for which PN fight. Let it be understood one day…”

Famine further explained why Peste Noire’s concept is based on nationalism when he stated that “black metal is the musical memory of our bloodthirsty ancestors of blood, it is the marriage of Tradition, of old racial patrimony with fanaticism, with the rage and the rashness of a youth now lost. It is a CHTHONIC religion: a cult of the EARTH and a return to it, therefore a nationalism; a cult of what is BELOW the earth: Hell — the adjective “chthonic” applies to the Infernal gods as well. BM is a fundamentalism, a music with integrity (from latin integer, complete) which helps me to remain complete in a dying world, amidst a people in decay, unworthy of its blood. It is the apology of the dark european past. It is a psychosis which helps us to flee a reality we cannot tolerate anymore.” (Zero Tolerance zine; 2006)

Peste Noire, which is Famine’s band, has always rejected the exposure of their music on the internet. There has never been any official P.N. website, nor any official P.N. myspace page. Several “fan myspace pages” currently exist (myspace.com/pestenoire, myspace.com/pestenoiremetal and others) but they are in no way official as they go against Famine’s vision of BM. In August 2009, Famine stated in Diabolical Conquest webzine :
“The Internet is what has drawn black metal to the masses, a new age where everything is accessible to all types of fools at any time of the day, a new era where misanthropes gather at online communities wanting to make as many friends as possible. The occult, underground and elitist movement which the BLACK LEGIONS embodied is no longer possible: some idiot will inevitably put demo tapes on the Internet… […] ON BEHALF OF MY BAND, I DEMAND THAT ALL INDIVIDUALS WHO CREATED PESTE NOIRE MYSPACE PAGES DELETE THESE PAGES IMMEDIATELY; MY MUSIC IS NOT MEANT TO BE LISTENED TO ON A FUCKING COMPUTER.”


BANDMEMBERS:

La Sale Famine de Valfunde Guitars, Vocals, Bass, Lyrics
Ardraos Drums, Accordion

TRACKLIST:

1. Le retour De La Peste
2. Démonarque
3. La Bêche Et L'Epée - Contre L'Usurier
4. Niquez Vos Villes
5. Le Clebs Noir - De Pontgibaud
6. Ode
7. La Blonde
8. Moins Trente - Degrés Celsius

Genre: Black
Subgenre: Black Metal
Bitrate: 192 k
Size: 64.49 MB