Manuel Gagneux, better known for his work with Zeal & Ardor, recently put out the latest single from his solo project Birdmask. The track, “Recovery”, is the second revealed from his new EP Tristan, due out this November 24th. Head into the article below to hear the new song, and read more about Birdmask.
Stream “Recovery” here.
This, Manuel says, is the closest music he has made to his own reality. “With Zeal & Ardor I’m acting as if I were a different person, whereas Birdmask is pretty much me and my gleeful stupidity and childish exploration. It’s closer to who I am in real life.. It doesn’t really have that societal aspect that Zeal & Ardor has. It’s just: I feel bad today so here’s my sadness, or I feel great today, here’s my glee.”
‘Recovery’ presents a tone found throughout the EP, where Manuel’s unmistakable and devastatingly emotive voice is front and centre to a backdrop of lo-fi indie and dynamic chamber pop. Throw in layered atmospherics, propped up by bluesy, soulful backing vocals and you have what makes Birdmask such an irresistible listen. Lyrically, “it celebrates the inertia of getting out of touch with someone, while trying to remain as calm as possible. So have a great recovery,” says Manuel.
Manuel began making music under the Birdmask moniker in 2011 but could never quite get it together with his musician friends to put a band together, “so I figured I could just learn producing on my own, and then, as a last resort, I figured I could make music on my own.” For several years he self-released on Bandcamp, labouring away in complete obscurity, releasing scores of singles and two albums: “You can hear the quality increase from release to release. It was my school. I couldn’t really sing at the beginning, but I had to do it until I didn’t cringe as much.“
Manuel is at pains to stress this is not a side project. Zeal & Ardor fans should not expect blast beats and crashing guitars. This is its own thing; this is his original vision. “I think I’d like to try to reach different people. And there’s a conscious effort of separating the two, just because it’s different music, at least to me. The reason I wanted to distinguish it is because it would be easy to gain an online following of people who just associate me with Zeal & Ardor and by proxy just happened to like this.”
A second EP to follow next year titled Isolde will emphasise Manuel’s happier side, but the five songs of Tristan are steeped in sadness. This is a subtle kind of sadness Manuel says, “in metal, sadness always has to be this huge thing. It’s never just a certain aspect of it – it’s the world is ending and your mom just stabbed you. It’s never heartache or ennui or anything like that. It’s misery rather than melancholy.” Birdmask offers Gagneux the chance to explore melancholy, and especially the fear brought on by the expectations people now have of him.