Symphonic Folktronica Break Metal: the Wonderful Chaos of Igorrr by Jimmy Carlson

Symphonic Folktronica Break Metal: the Wonderful Chaos of Igorrr

Jimmy Carlson

Some time during the summer of 2020, as I was sucking in the mind-numbing vapors of my YouTube recommended feed from my bed, I happened upon one of the strangest pieces of digital artistic expression that I had ever seen. It was the music video for “Very Noise,” a short track from a band called Igorrr. I was not prepared. As this barely cohesive tale of an amorphous, breakdancing flesh monster from outer space and his geriatric, motorcycle-riding nemesis unfolded before my eyes — and as an odd mixture of breakcore drums and thick chromatic riffage pounded my eardrums — I found myself moving from passing interest to deep fascination. After the flesh monster exploded in a giant fireball and the motorcycling hero rode off to meet its spaceship, I clicked on the link to the channel homepage, and I was done for. Over the ensuing months, I fell deeper and deeper into the Igorrr rabbit hole, turning one vapid click on a YouTube thumbnail into a passionate admiration for what I believe to be one of the most utterly creative artists to draw from the sounds and instrumentation of metal.

Igorrr is the brainchild of Gautier Serre, a French producer, multi-instrumentalist, and livestock lover who seeks to create the purest possible artistic expression through his music. His sound is a bizarre stew of genres and styles that few would consider compatible, if not for the proof of concept that he provides. He lists many disparate influences — “Meshuggah, Cannibal Corpse, Domenicco Scarlatti, Aphex Twin, Portishead, Mr Bungle, Mayhem, Taraf de Haidouks, but I forget millions of others!” (interview with La Grosse Radio, 2015) — and he is not afraid to adopt every single one in a given track. This can make for an overwhelming listen: “Houmous,” for example, features death metal drumming, sax solos, screams, bass, choir, acoustic and electric guitar, and a cash register in just its first minute and ten seconds, all set above slamming accordion riffage. The brazen eclecticism of Igorrr’s music is astounding and gripping, but also potentially alienating. I was already accustomed to the abrasive sounds of extreme metal by the time I came across Igorrr, and even I had a hard time stomaching the relentless, grinding, disturbing, and rapidly changing nature of many of their compositions. The lack of attention to accessibility, lack of lyrics (almost all Igorrr vocals are sung or screamed in gibberish), and favor towards wild genre shifts that Serre adopts can sometimes feel like a meaningless joke, a silly form of weirdness worship.

Photo Credit: Marta Bogumila Nowak

No Igorrr song pretends to have any explicit meaning, but, over time, enough listens of their songs start to reveal a pattern, a consistency within the chaos. Igorrr seems to express a consistent flavor of meaninglessness, if you will. There’s just a sort of spirit of joy mixed with despair, sublime divinity mixed with earthly filth, and above all a sort of blissful ignorance of it all. If you are listening to an Igorrr song, you will know. The sophistication of the baroque sounds, the aggression and mania of the metal elements, the illogical chaos of the electronic effects and breakbeats, and the simple, inebriated-ish, goofy feel of the gypsy music elements (not to mention the little flourishes sprinkled around from other genres) all blend together into a sound that is unmistakably Igorrr. In my opinion, Serre is somehow able to make this style work well in every song. Each one goes about it differently, but I would not say that Igorrr really has any songs that are bad, or that break its style. This level of consistency amid insane variability is reflective of an unwavering devotion to a single creative philosophy.

The beauty to Igorrr’s music is that no matter which insane direction it may take, its path is always guided by a central artistic thought. For Serre, every single element of an Igorrr song must reflect in some way what he feels and desires: “It’s spontaneous, in the sense that it’s exactly what I want to do” (interview with A L’Arrache, 2011). Igorrr songs are meant to come straight from the heart, as messed up as the heart may be, and this results in songs that can feel very expressive and enjoyable. Where many acts in the breakcore and grindcore genres, for example, push their music to the limit for the sake of extremity alone, Igorrr adopts both of these genres at once and still finds a way to make it all emotionally logical. These results come out of a deeply intrapersonal creative process. Serre is synesthetic, which in his case means that he sees colors when he hears sound. In a 2017 interview with Metal Injection, he describes how he sometimes looks at or thinks of an image, and tries “to build up all the elements to try to make this painting real.” Igorrr’s songs are literally sonic drawings. This consistent creative integrity pays off in a beautiful way. Like in good poetry, the fact that Igorrr’s music holds direct congruence with the images in Serre’s mind (at least as much congruence as sound can have with an image) gives the listener a special window into the artists internal experience that most music cannot achieve, even with lyrics.

Image: Billy Bratton

I could go on much longer about the various details that make Igorrr the coolest thing ever, but I thought it would be better to make some room for a summary of their different albums, and the gradual shifts and trends in their sound that came with each. Every release has a distinct feel and appeal, and so even as there is much stylistic overlap between them, it seems worthwhile to note their differences.

Poisson Soluble/Moisissure

Before putting out his first album, Serre released two EPs as Igorrr. In 2006, the world was introduced to the project through Poisson Soluble and in 2008, they received a second dose in the form of Moisissure. At this point in his career, Igorrr was a solo project that gave Serre a more free creative space to get away from the other groups he was in, and develop his style. These EPs are distinct from the four main Igorrr albums in two ways for me. First, the songwriting in them is more simple. Rather than throw in shifting, clashing genre schemes and complex song structures, these releases will more often (but not always) stick with one theme played on one instrument, carry it through the song, and riff on it as it goes along. Second, there is a more low fidelity feel to the production (possibly because they were self-released). The result are EPs that are more relaxed and modest in their disturbing and idiosyncratic ways. Of the two, Poisson Soluble is the more interesting, experimental feeling release, while Moisissure is, in my opinion, the most relaxed, lofi, and unambitious outing in Igorrr’s catalog.

Nostril (2010)

Nostril marked Igorrr’s first studio album release, and its first release with a record label. It garnered immediate respect for Igorrr within underground circles, especially within the breakcore genre, and the reason for that is self-evident. This album is insane. From start to finish, the songs are constantly erratic. The love of grindy, disturbing chaos that Poisson Soluble laid down is turned up to 11 here. This does not mean that the songs are less enjoyable or artistically cogent, however, it just means that Serre takes the logic of his songs further than he previously did. The instrumentation is crazy, but inspiringly well-applied. The groovy sections are consistently worthy of a nice headbang, and the emotional, melodic sections are entrancing. The transitions within and between songs are wild, but pleasing in retrospect. This album feels dirty, deranged, and free, and also establishes Igorrr’s bent for humor. I will avoid song suggestions in general in these reviews, but I just have to shout out “Tendon” as one of the weirdest songs I have ever loved.

Image: Billy Bratton

Hallelujah (2012)

Hallelujah saw Igorrr take the insane variety of Nostril in a direction that was both more and less chill. In one sense, Hallelujah feels more grounded. Most of the transitions between one part of a song and the next maintain at least one instrument and develop earlier themes, and most sections have more continuous development within them, making the whole experience more musically satisfying. This is enhanced with a greater sense of melody and dynamic movement, and a much greater emphasis on vocals as extended solo performances (this coupled with the lack of lyrics also adds to the humor at times, see “Grosse Barbe”). There is also a wonderful sense of atmosphere present here, exhibited through beautiful sampling and minute changes in background parts, which makes everything feel more special. At the same time, Hallelujah feels remarkably… unstable. Even the more melodic songs are filled with breakcore drums that are almost never constant, giving the sense that it all could come crumbling down at any time. There are also some songs that just don’t obey the trend of consistency present in the rest of the album, and instead seem to deliberately f*** with you by having some of the most ridiculous transitions in Igorrr’s discography (looking at you, smooth jazz break of “Absolute Psalm”). In general, Hallelujah is just slightly more accessible than Nostril, and can still feel like electronic chaos soup if you’re not in the mood, but if you can get used to that, it becomes clear that this is a truly special moment in Igorrr’s discography, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a match for it.

Image: Billy Bratton

Savage Sinusoid (2017)

After Hallelujah, Serre decided that he wanted to take on the challenge of making an album without a single sampled sound. According to a 2017 interview, he wanted “to be sure of the quality of the ingredients.” It was a process that took him four years. He recruited artists from far and wide to collect all the sounds he needed to sustain his no-limits style of writing, and worked meticulously with each to get the exact result he wanted (as seen in the “Cheval” music video, for example). Coupled with the increase in production quality that came with Igorrr’s switch to Metal Blade Records, this control over the sounds used in the album makes everything feel more natural and congruous: it all comes from the same source, and that matters. Along with this increase in (literal) sonic originality came an increase in the pace of the music: the moody, shifty writing style of earlier albums gave way to songs that move quickly and always feel like they are moving forward (with the notable exception of “Problème D’Émotion,” Igorrr’s best “chill” song in my opinion). This album feels more metal than Hallelujah, and it is very arguably more fun. Where Hallelujah is a hallucinogen, Savage Sinusoid is a raging stimulant. At the same time, I would say that Savage Sinusoid is an easier listen overall than either of the albums that came before it, and I would point to it as a great place to start listening to Igorrr if it weren’t for their next release.

Spirituality and Distortion (2020)

In January of 2020, when the decade was young and the hearts of the people were still full of joy, Igorrr put out their most listenable album yet in the form of Spirituality and Distortion. By this point, the band had become a global phenomenon. The release of Savage Sinusoid and the band’s move to Metal Blade Records had garnered a lot of attention, and Igorrr was booking huge international metal and electronica shows left and right. Serre’s next move, whether or not you think it had anything to do with his changing external circumstances, was to make an album that was more organized and that had a greater focus on raw enjoyability than any of his other main releases. Spirituality and Distortion has no less genre-fusing or complexity than Igorrr’s other albums, but it is slightly less likely to throw something completely unexpected at you. Instead, SaD focuses just a bit more on things like groove, harmony, and just kind of making sense. Perhaps the best example of this (I know I said I wasn’t going to give highlights, this isn’t a highlight this is an example) is “Parpaing,” a song that features, for the very first time, LYRICS! Where it might not fit in other albums, SaD is perfectly suited to a straight-up death metal song (with a straight-up death metal vocalist in the form of Cannibal Corpse legend George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher), with an electronic bridge section, which is undeniably about a guy who really, really wants to build a house out of dead people. This spirit of wholesome, comprehensible insanity pervades the whole album, and it is lovely. It is so lovely, in fact, that I often use this album to introduce people to metal! Here, the internal diversity of Igorrr’s music works more towards its broader appeal than against it, though it is undeniably still a very weird album. Start with this one if you’re interested in Igorrr but cautious.

These have been my thoughts on the wonderful, chaotic music of Gautier Serre and his project Igorrr. I hope you enjoyed if you did in fact read all the way through. I would like to finish with a little disclaimer: Igorrr is not the only wildly creative artist trying out weird combinations of electronic music, metal, classical, and or other things! Lots of other artists that I do not know nearly as well, including Pryaprisme, Ruby my Dear, breakcore artists like Venetian Snares, artists that Serre himself has collaborated with like Whourkr, and so many others are out there making wild and crazy music that I recommend for anyone interested. Igorrr will always stand out to me, however, for its feeling of humility and reality that it maintains even as it explores mind-twisting artistic extremes, and its closeness to the metal that I love.

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