LUPA

There are images that mark you forever. Among mine, among the very first, is that of a gargoyle with furrowed features, mouth agape with four fangs, framed by two wolves' heads with tongues twisted like snakes. Seeing my astonishment, my father replaces the LaserDisc in the film library: “You are too young for this one.” I continue scrolling through the various covers looking for the evening's film. Yet that face continues to stare at me, petrified in its scream above a word I do not yet understand, carved in bright, bloody red letters: Dracula.

The fantastic is a shock. A shiver running down your spine, a dizziness facing the inexplicable. It strikes the gut first, before reaching the heart, before touching the intellect. Today, I am about to celebrate my thirtieth birthday. My father's prohibition was lifted long ago, but I still haven't dared to watch that film. Other stories have fueled my thirst for the strange: famous tales, forgotten legends, novels with astonishing bestiaries, films where horror and poetry intertwine, where monsters are often more human than the humans hunting them.

In my music, I pursue this same ideal: striking the senses first, provoking raw emotion before revealing deeper layers and hidden treasures. When Yanowski spoke to me about The She-Wolf, the text awakened my feelings, shaking those same buried sensations that had surfaced for the first time in front of a simple movie cover twenty years ago. Through an original and evocative instrumentation, I seek to embody the words as well as what is whispered between the lines—not to offer an explanation, but on the contrary to explore archetypes, symbols, contradictions, and chaos. For what better language to express the unspeakable than the one that communicates directly with our most universal subconscious: music.

Music composed to be performed alongside a reading of the tale La Louve by Yanowski. This story is not intended for young audiences.