Alexander Julien, composer, producer, and the driving force behind Vision Eternel, Vision Lunar, and Soufferance, died on May 14, 2025, at the age of 37. His partner of twelve years, Rain Frances, notified friends, collaborators, and publications of his passing, fulfilling a request included in Julien’s will. “He experienced a lot of anguish in his short 37 years and was often overcome by it,” she wrote. “He translated this pain beautifully into his music.”
Julien’s musical identity was shaped by a desire to document emotion through structure. “Vision Eternel started while I was still living in Edison, New Jersey,” he once explained. The first songs, composed in a period of isolation and depression, were attempts to capture intimate emotional states. “I simply let my emotions take over and allowed my fingers to move on their own,” he said, recalling the origin of the band’s debut EP, Seul Dans L’obsession.
Each Vision Eternel release served as a chapter in an ongoing conceptual narrative—an unfolding cycle of love, loss, and memory. His work rejected genre boundaries. Julien coined the term melogaze to describe his sound: part melodrama, part shoegaze, rooted in guitar rather than synthesizers or drums. “People tend to label my music ‘guitar ambient,’” he noted, but drew deeper influence from black metal, midwest emo, and classic film scores. “Vision Eternel certainly has a little bit of each of those genres, yet it is not any one of them.”
Over the years, Julien struggled to categorize the emotional weight of his work, frequently misunderstood by genre purists and left adrift by shifting scenes. But he remained focused on the internal purpose of his music. “I’m principally a guitarist,” he once said, “but I only began playing bass by necessity.” For him, tools were secondary to atmosphere. “I do not use any digital instruments like keyboards, samplers, sequencers or synthesizers. Vision Eternel is a rock-based band.”
His most celebrated release, For Farewell Of Nostalgia, was first drafted in 2018 but scrapped due to Julien’s dissatisfaction with the production. He isolated himself in his studio for the 2019 re-recording, refusing to engage with music outside his own work. “I wanted to make sure that all of the songs flowed well together this time,” he said. Visual cues like Frank Sinatra’s In The Wee Small Hours album cover and paintings of his grandparents’ cottage were placed beside his computer. The recording session was marked by a rigorous emotional consistency. “All of the songs sounded like they belonged together because they all had the same level of emotions.”
The EP, mastered by Carl Saff, was released in 2020 and quickly became a touchstone for Julien’s approach to musical narrative. “It is a documentation of how something so brief can hurt for so long and stay with you for the rest of your life,” he explained. Its four tracks—Moments of Rain, Absence, Intimacy, and Nostalgia—each contained sub-sections tied directly to a short story he wrote. The physical edition included that story in lieu of lyrics, “to create an old-fashioned type of listening experience.”
Julien’s work ethic extended to his reissues, most notably Echoes From Forgotten Hearts, re-released in 2024 as a Deluxe Edition after a decade of false starts and failed label deals. “Echoes From Forgotten Hearts has had a turbulent journey,” he admitted. “It frequently seemed as if it was destined not to be released.” What had begun as a film score turned into an emotionally resonant suite of repeating motifs and cinematic structures. Julien was hands-on with every detail of the packaging, artwork, and supplementary booklet. “Part of making a deluxe edition includes finding ways to make a release worthwhile and impressive to the public and for the fans.”
Rain Frances, his long-time partner and visual collaborator, played a key role in the artwork of these releases, contributing covers and illustrations. In a personal tribute, she described the complexity of their shared life: “Our relationship had its ups and downs, but overall, I truly loved him and I know that he deeply loved me.” She recounted days of grief, self-blame, insomnia, and coping mechanisms—alongside cherished memories of board games, radio shows, and anniversary celebrations. “He struggled with his emotions, most of the time stuck in heartbreaking nostalgia. But he was smart, and very resourceful. He taught me so much.”
Julien’s relationship with the modern world was uneasy. “He often pondered that he just didn’t belong in this modern world,” Rain recalled. “He liked life at a slower pace.” He filled his time creating Wikipedia pages for overlooked artists and actors, watching noir films, and meticulously crafting musical tributes to his memories and heartbreaks. “His album For Farewell Of Nostalgia was written for me and dedicated to me,” Rain wrote. “Each of the four songs spelled my name.”
In his final years, Julien remained committed to the craft. He expressed interest in a remix album and hinted at early demos for a future concept EP. But much of his focus remained on promoting For Farewell Of Nostalgia, viewing it as the culmination of years of work and artistic self-discipline. “There will be another Vision Eternel concept extended play,” he said, “but not before several years.”
Rain’s final words sum up a life lived at the margins of musical genre and emotional endurance: “Alex was misunderstood by many, admittedly by me on several occasions. But he had a heart of gold. I am blessed to have had him in my life for twelve years. I do wish it could have been longer, but understand and accept why it couldn’t have been.”
Julien’s website, visioneternel.com, remains as an archive of his work. His music, like the man himself, exists in a space of careful contradiction—methodical yet emotional, nostalgic but never static.
