Early January. ангст.’s drummer Dmitry Petrenko opened Instagram and messaged a French screamo band he’d been sitting with for a while. He wanted to tell L’Idylle he liked their music. That was the whole intent. No collaboration in mind, no split, just a note from one band to another.What came out of that message is “мизерикорд // отрава“, a two-track international split out via dead dogs barking. Three bands, two countries: ангст. and Misericorde from St. Petersburg, and L’Idylle from Rouen.
“At first, we never even considered doing a collaboration with anyone,” ангст. say. “It all happened quite spontaneously.”
Dima had been following L’Idylle for a while, eventually messaged them, the conversation moved, and at some point he floated the idea of a split. The original plan was three tracks. L’Idylle didn’t have a spare song to give. “After some time, he suggested an alternative in the form of a collaborative track, and they agreed. We also sent them our demo, they liked it, and from there everything just took off.”
The track itself, “отрава“, almost didn’t survive its own writing. “The original idea behind the song, its foundation, and even the way it sounded on the pre-demo were completely different, including the thoughts, meanings, and emotions behind it,” the band say. “But, as often happens during the creative process, ‘Poison’ eventually turned into a different track altogether, probably a more aggressive one, in the vein of early post-hardcore bands.”
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Recording it between cities involved no studio time on either end. Dima cut the drums on a voice recorder at the rehearsal space. Gleb (guitar and vocals) and Vitya (bass) tracked their parts at home. They put together a rough demo, then made a video using that demo with notes inside the video flagging exactly who should scream where. That file went to Rouen. Ideas got exchanged, parts got written, and members of Север, the St. Petersburg screamo band, came in to help write and translate L’Idylle’s parts.
The translation work is what gives the song its shape. From the L’Idylle side, Toby explained the choice to keep their lyrics in French. “We wanted to say what we had to say without erasing or stomping on Angst need to express themselves. We choose to do it in French more than anything cause that’s our mother tongue and we wanted to prove that coexistence can happen between two languages in the same song that doesn’t even share the same alphabet.” The translator on both ends was Andreï from Север, who L’Idylle had met at a show weeks before. “Once again all that is thanks to the great work and pen of Andreï from Severs (Screamo from St Petersburg) and his talent.”
Toby on how the connection started: “I’ve connected with Dima from Angst via Instagram he was very friendly and we very quickly starting to talk about Russian Screamo. Their scene is very on it’s own just like the French one in many ways but maybe even more. I’ve always loved Russians culture (wether it’s litterature, the arts, the music) and was kin on discovering new screamo band. So when Dima asked us to feat on the song it was a no brainer for me.” L’Idylle had released their debut EP “Pardon pour mon absence, je suis allé mourir à l’abri des regards” via No Funeral Records weeks before, so they didn’t have material for a full split.
The Misericorde side of the record, the track “мизерикорд“, came together through a much older relationship. “We’ve known the guys from Misericorde for a long time,” ангст. say. “The idea of doing a split release with them had been on our minds for quite a while, because we feel that we’re very similar in spirit. We’ve been following them closely and, if memory serves us right, we haven’t missed a single one of their shows in Saint Petersburg.”
The actual greenlight came in a bar. “We’ve shared drinks and crossed paths at concerts many times, hanging out together whenever we could. Then, after one of Misericorde’s shows in Saint Petersburg, we went to a bar with the guys and, over a glass of unfiltered lager, decided to pitch the idea to Anton (Misericorde’s guitarist/vocalist). We showed him a demo of our track, and they agreed. We’re incredibly grateful to the guys for that.”
If you want a sense of the room this split came out of, ангст. lay it out plainly. “It definitely feels like screamo, emo, hardcore, blackgaze, and other heavier styles of music are experiencing a revival on the Russian scene right now. Among our friends, there are plenty of enthusiasts organizing one festival after another, and we’ve witnessed highly successful debuts from new bands with our own eyes. Shows keep getting more crowded, and more and more beer keeps flowing. That makes us really happy.”
Shows happen at venues like Ласточка, Сердце, Рассвет, and Fish Fabrique. Bands they’d point you toward: побег, север, палисад, veresk, состояние птиц, EORA, забыл повзрослеть, таймыр, что дальше?, причал, аня носова, køl’ja, tul’pa, pale hands. The label running this release also gets a direct shout: “Thanks to these guys, we were able to release our collaborative record. The label also actively supports exciting releases from new bands and continues to promote fresh material from veteran acts.”
For L’Idylle, the split is also a political document. “One of our goal was to bring a scene or at least put a modest spotlight on it,” Toby says. “Russian people are very bad represented in French media nowadays. They all take about the government while masking the very fact that there are people living in this country. People with feeling, with hopes dreams tears and aspirations. Doing a split is I guess our way to show our solidarity and helping to have a platforms for those bands and those people to be heard.”
He pushes the language point further. “Without a doubt there’s nowadays an egemony of the English language in screamo. To us, screamo is about the tears you shed wether it’s of anger of despair of hope or of joy. Someone that cry is someone that have to be listened to, no matter what country they are from, as long as their cries is a chance to make Hate and the war lords back off just a little.”
There’s something the screamo scene has been doing for thirty years that this record makes literal. Splits, not solo albums, are the form. You could argue the scene has produced as many splits as it has full-lengths, possibly more. Two tracks, three bands, a hand-off between cities, a shared sleeve. The format is older than any of these bands and it’s still doing real work. It runs on people knowing each other. On someone messaging someone on Instagram. On a translator who lives down the road from one band and crosses paths with another at a show. On a bar after a gig where a demo gets played on someone’s phone.
The split is the scene’s way of writing its address book into the record itself, and “мизерикорд // отрава” is that ethic at full volume.
ангст. and Misericorde land the same point with their closing line. “Despite all the pain, indifference, and hatred happening in the world and around us, we wanted to show that music, genuine feelings, and emotions bring us together. The world demands steel, but we choose to remain alive and vulnerable. Bare emotions need neither a visa nor anyone’s approval.”
Toby closes from the other end. “Listen to songs you don’t understand, listen to how other part of the world feels. We are all but one. If we all cry together, if we all collectively express our rage towards the capitalist oligarchic piece of shit that runs the world that make money out of human exploitation and wars, our cries while be loud enough to blow up the ears and put them to their knees, or a least, our cries could be the score to their walk to the gallows. Against all oppression, against all hierarchy, against everything that bring suffering, through the pain we alll skramz as one.”
Credits: Misericorde’s “мизерикорд” was recorded by Evgeny Karnakov and Ivan Morin, mixed and mastered by Dmitry Petrenko, with story by Ilyukha Usachyov (OTHER PEOPLE’S STORIES by Ilyukha Usachyov). The ангст. / L’Idylle track “отрава” was recorded by Andrey Voronin, mixed and mastered by Kirill Luzhin, with additional vocals by Thibaut Infray and Louis Requier (L’Idylle). Artwork by Vlada Bessonova and Ilyukha Usachyov. Out via dead dogs barking.
L’Idylle are also playing The End of Impact Fest, where the festival’s own write-up describes the four-piece from Rouen as a band that “carved its place in the new wave of French skramz in a chaotic, scorched, and deeply heartfelt way,” “playing every single set as if it were the last of their lives,” turning “a tiny spark into a raging fire, always on the verge of burning the whole room down.”
Next Monday on IDIOTEQ: a full feature on The End of Impact Fest, plus a separate multi-artist piece for fans of post-hardcore and independent music. Two pieces, same day, both worth the visit.
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