Alcest, Spiritual Instinct

Alcest, Spiritual Instinct

January 29, 2020 by John Fisher

Kobe and his daughter Gianna died on Sunday. I was driving to Squaw Valley when Adam, then Dustin, Primo, my brother, Nick G and Sean all texted me within a 5 minute span. I was a couple minutes from the epic view of Emerald Bay in Tahoe. At first, the emotions didn’t hit me. I was responding via voice recognition to the texts, not sure what to say at first. Once the back and forth from those initial texts slowed a bit, I had some time to myself on the drive. I started tearing up as I approached Squaw, and for some reason it took about 20 minutes before the full emotions came after it was confirmed that his 13 year old daughter, Gianna, was also with him on the way to her basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy, a game that Kobe was going to coach. On my first gondola ride to the top around 12:45 pm, I was the only one standing, holding my snowboard in a full gondola of seated skiers. I asked whoever was listening, “Did you hear the news?” Only one or two people had heard, and I assume most had probably been skiing all day, oblivious to our never-ending news feeds. I had decided in the parking lot that I was going to snowboard for Kobe that day, and there was one distinct run that day down “Mountain Run” that I think Kobe would have been proud. It was 3.2 miles to the bottom and I pushed it hard. At the tail end of the day, I ordered a veggie burger and a Pabst from The Chalet at the base of Squaw, and as I waited for my burger, I finally checked my news feed. Tears were impossible to fight back. Kobe meant a lot to so many people. It seemed that in retirement, Kobe was approaching a sort of enlightened mental state, still fiercely competitive in his endeavors of storytelling and publishing…his warm embrace of fatherhood to 4 girls, his mentoring of younger NBA players, building the Body Armor sports drink into a formidable rival to Gatorade, and of course his embrace of Lebron James in LA, all done with a big smile on his face. Mamba was a killer on the court and a monk off the court in retirement, and he had so much to offer us outside of basketball. He even won an Oscar! Kobe was about to lead one of the most admirable post NBA lives. The one thing that may serve as a silver lining for me…In this time of divisiveness, we came together to mourn his tragic death. Kobe attacked life and I am going to think about him a lot in my remaining years. I never knew him, but I am going to try to live a life that Kobe would be proud of. RIP Black Mamba. RIP Gianna.

Alcest’s new album is really good. Neige was one of the first musicians I discovered when I finally accepted the genre of shoegaze/blackgaze with Deafheaven’s Sunbather. Alcest is approachable and pleasant. This album is no exception, however, lacks some of the fire and edge I look for. Without a doubt though, Alcest continues to release quality music. The album is written in French with 6 songs totaling about 40 minutes. It can serve as great background music and is great to listen to while snowboarding.

I guess 2020 is off to a sad start, but I think it is important to find the positive in tragedy. Next month I’ll continue to write about death, as my pick for February is Purple Mountains’ self-titled album, which was released less than a month before the lead singer-songwriter committed suicide.