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Line Up:
Iskandar Hasnawi - Vocals, various instruments
Sebastien Roland - Vocals, various instruments
Renaud Tschirner - Vocals, various instruments
Esterie Remond - Solo Soprano
David Kempf - Solo Violin, Solo Viola
Streams:
Laceration
Stasis
Recent News:
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ELEND (France)
Elend's purpose came into being at the beginning of the 90s, an "Office de Tenebres", composed from a prayer of darkness. A prayer that in the Roman-Catholic liturgy is originally a cycle of 3 masses. These were called the "Lecons de Tenebres" and performed during the last 3 holy days before Easter. The third part of the prayer is the darkest and the most desperate. Every one of the first three ELEND albums was one of these masses and the whole cycle led to a descent of extreme immense Elend (which the name comes from). The first album was dedicated to despair, the second much influenced by wilderness and power and the third by death.
Five years after the end of the 3 part Mass cycle, which peaked with "The Umbersun" in the depths of extreme darkness, 2003 the album "Winds Devouring Men" appeared. "Wind Devouring Men" broke the boundaries of the previous concepts for the first time.
Lyrically "Winds devouring men" is based on a French poem describing an Odyssey (homecoming), combining personal themes with references to the classical poem and its variable new versions.
Musically ELEND have further developed without denying their roots. Bombastic sounds meet industrial noises and melodic strings. As well as leaning towards post romantic and "musique concrete" (arising from the later music style like industrial). With "Winds devouring men" ELEND present a piece able to evoke varying moods.
In 2004 ELEND released "Sunwar the dead" - the second part of the 5-album cycle started with "Winds Devouring Men". Lyrically, it continues the long epic prose poem begun on "Winds Devouring Men".
Whereas "Winds Devouring Men" was a slow, relatively calm and intimist album, "Sunwar the Dead" is a furious, dark and fast effort where the 2 composers combine their talent for large and dense orchestration with the most extreme experiments of XXth century's serious music, thus drawing inspiration on techniques invented by K. Penderecki (sonorism), K. Stockhausen and I. Xenakis (serious electronic music), P. Henry (musique concrète), P. Eötvös (impressionism and percussive tones work).
"Sunwar the Dead" sees the core trio recording with a complete classical ensemble and female choir of 50 musicians for the first time, taking the much admired production of "WDM" to a further accomplishment and bringing the sound of the ensemble to a new dimension in terms of liveliness, clarity, complexity and power.
Discography:
Winds Devouring Men (2003)
Sunwar The Dead (2004)
A World In Their Screams (2007)
Search for these items in our online shop!
Website: www.elend-music.org
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