Even legends have to start somewhere. Through years of bouncing around the European black metal scene, Neige was dissatisfied with the ability of the kvlt to properly express what he had to say. Between other projects, he spent his time crafting otherworldly overtures that transcended the narrow confines of traditional black metal. In 2005, he released a pair of tracks under the name Alcest, a name he had used for another project as a teenager.
But Le Secret, that first EP, sounded nothing like the scorched-earth, burnt-church trad-black of his previous band. In fact, it didn’t sound much like anything else that had been released up to that point. The 2011 rerelease, reissued upon the success of the incredible Écailles de Lune, features rerecorded versions of each track with more resources to fulfill his original vision. But even in the face of the clearer versions, this EP demonstrates that Neige’s idea of what he meant Alcest to be has been unchanged from the beginning.
When I reviewed Circus Trees’ debut EP 
In the twenty-five years since the release of 
Last year, I caught the crest of the hype-wave for Blushing as it was cresting. I listened to it on Spotify, fell in love, and upon finding that the vinyl was way out of my budget, I put them away, trying to forget about them. That is until this week, when my friend Rob included it in an order of cassette tapes from his label, 
