La Breiche - Le Mal Des Ardents (2017)

During the 10th century, Ademar de Chabannes, a French monk, described some mysterious ailment which affected peasants in the Limousin region of France- causing spasms, convulsions, hallucinations and consuming the victims’ bodies with some invisible fire. People suspected witchcraft, possession of the devil. But these illnesses were in fact due to poisoning through by a parasite in the rye grain… Fear and terror spread throughout the country. It coupled with many Medieval fears, including famine, war, violence, death, plague, leprosy…

''Le Mal des ardents'' stems from this deep history. The history of losing one’s mind, which gives way to this nightmare that keeps growing , transforming, mutating: fear. It is the shadow which never leaves us alone. It is the restless beast which is never to be tamed.
It is the mutating virus. It thrived on the fear of fire, deep forest, witches gatherings, folklore, and always fitted in with the times!
A mad man, in his cell was scared of a woodlouse, while the cell keeper was scared of the mad man……who was the maddest of the two?

''Le Mal des ardents'' is a concept album about fears, terrors, about the balance between folklore and reason, myth and common sense, light and darkness, past and present, modernity and archaism.

This album has borrowed much: it marries minimalism, purity , fine approach and ancient instruments right through to traditional music (hurdy gurdy, shawm, polyphonies, percussions, gongs…) ; gloom and oppressive ambiance of dark ambient; the slow pace of ritual music- along with a kind of mystic designing of a sound object wavering between modernity and archaism .
This is a chaotic and mad album, which voices rise towards beauty, lifting it away from some occult mud.

''Le Mal des ardents'' takes us back to a forgotten world- a primal, ancient, wild and free world, pervaded by secret dances of sorcerers’, unfathomable forests, remote and lifeless places.

LA BREICHE dates back to the early 1990’s, at the beginning of the second wave of Black Metal, when albums were not merely albums, but manifestoes and acts.

« Here we are in this fictitious state, transforming images and feelings. We are interested in producing free and expressive music, pertaining to evocative themes, which we riddle through reason, philosophy and poetry.”

LA BREICHE actually means « the witch », and features two well-known musicians. Arexis and Lafforgue originally founded STILLE VOLK- a band best known since 1994 as one of the pioneers of Pagan Folk in Europe.
In 1991, they founded the first Pagan Black French band, called SUS SCROFA, with a first album released in…..2015 at Nomos Dei productions...
In 2000, Arexis, alias IHAN, released an experimental music album on the mythic label « Mille plateaux records » and the legendary compilation CLICKS AND CUTS, while Lafforgue took part in the HANTAOMA project. Arexis is also member of COBER ORD, which first album was released in 2015 in Mantra spenta/Phage tapes.


The duo was created in 2014 : after several offers in the US , Russia and France, they chose to work with COLD SPRING RECORDS and are now planning to be on stage in 2016.

'En ce temps-là, le Mal des Ardents s'alluma. Un nombre incalculable d'hommes et de femmes eurent le corps consumé d'un feu invisible ; de tous côtés les lamentations remplissaient la terre'' (Adémar de Chabannes, Xème siècle)
“This is the time when the Holy Fire went ablaze. Countless men and women saw their bodies being consumed by some invisible fire; moaning and wailings filled the earth.” (Ademar de Chabannes, 10th century) .