Echoes from Forgotten Hearts is the fifth extended play by Canadian-American ambient rock band Vision Eternel. The release was initially composed, arranged, and recorded by principal band member Alexander Julien between August–October 2014, as the score to a short film. When the writer-director-producer of the movie abandoned the project, Julien returned to Mortified Studios in Saint-Hippolyte-of-Kilkenny, Quebec, spending November–December 2014, to re-record, re-mix, and re-conceptualize the material into an extended play. The music is instrumental and blends elements from several genres and styles, including ambient, post-rock, shoegaze, drone, ethereal, post-black metal, experimental rock, and minimal.
The band tried unsuccessfully for years to secure a record deal to release Echoes from Forgotten Hearts on physical format. It was first released digitally by Abridged Pause Recordings on February 14, 2015, to tie in with the band's yearly Valentine's Day commemoration, but was only available via Bandcamp. On February 14, 2017, in celebration of Vision Eternel's tenth anniversary, Abridged Pause Recordings re-issued the extended play digitally to major music streaming and download services, and a music video was produced for the song "Pièce No. Trois," which premiered on August 28, 2017. A limited edition compact disc was eventually offered as part of Vision Eternel's An Anthology of Past Misfortunes box set, also released via Abridged Pause Recordings, on April 14, 2018.
On February 14, 2024, Geertruida issued an expanded, remastered, tenth anniversary deluxe edition with new artwork, as a double compact cassette box set and digitally. The box set edition includes an 80-page novella titled The Making of Echoes from Forgotten Hearts - A Narrative of Vision Eternel's Soundtrack, in which Julien details the making of the release, the difficulty he had getting it released, and the reasons for its delay, along with 70 images from the band archives. The cover artwork of the deluxe edition is a tribute to the theatrical poster of Charlie Chaplin's 1931 film City Lights.
Background Early attempts (January – February 2013) On March 14, 2012, Vision Eternel released its fourth extended play, The Last Great Torch Song. Exceptionally for the band at the time, it featured guest musicians on nearly every song, including Eiman Iranenejad (formerly of Mutiny Within) and Garry Brents (later of Memorrhage). Founding band member Alexander Julien speculated during and after its release that it may be the band's swan song.
Julien first announced that work had begun on the band's fifth extended play in January 2013 and that he wished to again feature guest musicians on nearly all of the seven planned songs for the release. Two songs were reported as complete, one featuring Monica Renteria (of Éphémère) and another with Valerio Orlandini (of Symbiosis and Citadel Swamp). A third was underway and the band hoped to finish the extended play by the end of the year for a February 2014 release through Julien's independent record label, Abridged Pause Recordings.
When asked about the status of the release during an interview in August 2013, Julien said he had recorded material in February 2013, but that it may not be used on the planned extended play. The material recorded in 2013 was never released.
New composition and proposed film score (August – September 2014) In mid-August 2014, Julien started composing a new song that, in its completed form, he envisioned as lasting seven to ten minutes, but was, at the time, unattached to a specific band. It incorporated elements from several of his bands, including Vision Eternel and Soufferance (a black ambient project), which was a tendency for the musician dating back to 2007, with the recording of Soufferance's song "A Memory of Past Emotions," and continued through The Last Great Torch Song.
In late August 2014, former Dedicated Records owner Bradley James Palko asked Julien to compose the score for one of three short films he planned to write, direct, and produce in Iceland. The other two movies were to be scored by Garry Brents and Jun Minowa; all three composers had contributed material to Dedicated Records' Various Artists compilation Great Messengers: Palms in 2010. Palko demanded that the composers submit their completed soundtracks by December 2014 and that their music last between eight to twelve minutes. When later interviewed by New Noise Magazine in 2024, Julien described Palko's approach as "quite unprepared and unprofessional; he had none of the scripts ready and was unable to give the slightest hint about what any of the films were to be. He did not even have a title in mind. In other words, making movies was just one of his many pipe dreams. But I only found this out later, after my soundtrack had been completed." He also told Transcending the Mundane "Palko was unable to provide me with any script material, scene ideas, or a basic plot; not even a title. He had no idea what any of the three films were to be about, he simply had a flight of fancy to direct movies."
Nevertheless, as a cinephile, Julien was eager and excited at the opportunity to work on a film score. As he had been asked to compose music on a personal level, and not through the genre or stylistic restriction of one of his bands, the musician felt free to approach the music honestly and uninhibitedly. He described his process to The Obelisk as "a completely natural songwriting approach," though he later confessed to The Spill Magazine that "If I am asked to compose music, regardless of the project, it will always sound like Vision Eternel. My music has a distinct somber and melancholic sound because that is inherent to my personality. It is who I am. There would be no difference between music for a film and music for Vision Eternel, as far as style, sound, and production."
In early September 2014, Julien began to adapt and arrange the song he had started composing the previous month as the basis for the score. However, he opted to split the lengthy composition into multiple shorter pieces as he felt constrained by the lack of knowledge about the film. He elaborated on this with New Noise Magazine, stating: "I did not want to submit a single long song because it would have been difficult to sequence it properly into a film, especially one about which I knew nothing." He also told Idioteq: "The idea of composing and recording several short pieces, or movements, that built off of each other and used an arrangement of similar notes, resulted from this dilemma. It was my method of making progress on the soundtrack without a script." As such, Julien developed a series of cues and recurring themes, all revolving around a single leitmotif, which could be spliced and faded in and out at any time during the film's post-production without losing emotional build-up. Many of the songs were intentionally short, passive, and repetitive, while others were lengthier and more melodic, intended for important scenes, which Julien justified by explaining: "When I listen to film soundtracks, I hear a lot of repetition and a single motif that plays throughout. That was my goal."
Recording and production Recording the film score (October – November 2014)
After a month of composing and arranging, Julien began recording the score on October 4, 2014, at his home studio, Mortified Studios, in Saint-Hippolyte-of-Kilkenny, Quebec. The session lasted four weeks, until October 30, 2014, resulting in a fourteen-minute score divided into six songs. The music was instrumental and accomplished using only electric guitars, electric bass guitars, and an eBow. In the novella that accompanies Echoes from Forgotten Hearts' deluxe edition, The Making of Echoes from Forgotten Hearts - A Narrative of Vision Eternel's Soundtrack, Julien confided that he was influenced by Clint Mansell and his Moon score and soundtrack during the development of his score.
Around this time, Julien decided the music would be released as Vision Eternel instead of under his name. He told Idioteq: "I think that while this soundtrack was coming together, it already sounded like a Vision Eternel release," and The Spill Magazine: "I felt that the music most closely resembled what Vision Eternel was doing at that point." On October 31, 2014, Vision Eternel broke months of silence to announce via its Facebook page that it had a new extended play forthcoming for release in early 2015.
Julien began editing and mixing the music in October but planned to spend all of November 2014 mixing the material to his satisfaction. After nearly three months of work on the music, he contacted Palko to give him a progress update in November 2014. As told to Transcending the Mundane during an interview: "I was very excited to let him hear the music. With only minor mixing left, I told him that my soundtrack would be completed before the end of the month, as per his request. It was then that Palko revealed that he had abandoned the short films weeks prior. To make matters worse, he was far from nice about it and told me that I was wasting his time. I was deeply hurt by this." Julien later discovered that Palko had used the film's funds to finance a personal vacation to Europe. The composer also shared with New Noise Magazine that he was disappointed when Palko embarked on a smear campaign against Vision Eternel in early 2015 when Echoes from Forgotten Hearts was first released.
Reworking into an extended play (November – December 2014) Unwilling to let his music go to waste, Julien returned to Mortified Studios to rework the score into a concept extended play. The second session spanned from November 18 to December 18, 2014, during which all of the material was re-edited and re-mixed, and a good portion of the songs were also re-recorded. Two new songs were composed, half of another was re-written, and one was dropped, which Julien felt was "too passive once the release was to be ingested not as a soundtrack but as an extended play." The sequencing of the tracks was also changed.
When asked about his process as a producer during an interview with Idioteq, Julien said: "I do not consider myself a producer. I simply took on the role of engineer, mixer, and producer by default because I needed to stay within budget and be self-sufficient in my solo projects, and while recording at my home studios." He also revealed that recording music is a stress factor and a chore for him because it distracts and takes the joy away from performing the songs. He also confided that he is "a bit of a perfectionist during recording, I often need multiple takes before I am happy with the final version of a song."
Julien explained that the soundtrack and extended play went through seven preview sessions, used to showcase the latest recordings and mixes. In each version, minor and major changes were made, including different guitar or bass guitar tracks on songs, new mixes, or track sequencing, until Julien was satisfied with the presentation of the material. The seventh preview version was released as Echoes from Forgotten Hearts; the first preview version was later included in the deluxe edition as the soundtrack version.
Post-production (December 2014 – January 2015; December 2021)