"Octavio Made The Bomb" (DCTL Epilogue)

The recursive nature of the play becomes clear

Sleeve - Front:
Life

Sleeve - Back
Death

Vinyl - 'A' Side

Vinyl - 'B' Side

Lyric Sheet - Front

Lyric Sheet - Back:
Master of Puppets

Stats:

General:
Tracks: Octavio Made The Bomb (Single sided)
Released: 2011
Label: Matador Records OLE 960-7
Matrix A: OLE-963-7 A GOLDEN
Pressing Info: 2000? TBC
Inserts: Regular insert as pictured above
Variants: No variants




Notes:

Extracted From LFG Post (June 28 2011):

(This) one is "Octavio Made the Bomb" which effectively is the epilogue to DCTL. You can probably guess what it's about from the title, but the lyrics kind of help explain the motivation for us writing this whole thing in the first place. It's a one-sided 7" (the first one of those we've done) and looks really cool.

Sleeve Notes:

Front: Petrushka image by George Barbier.

From Wikipedia: Petrushka is a ballet set to music by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. The ballet tells the story of a Russian traditional puppet Petrushka, who is made of straw and with a bag of sawdust as his body, but who comes to life and develops emotions.




Back: ''The Shadow #32: The Book of Death''

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!"

"Remember Me'' (DCTL Prologue - Vivian Benson & Octavio St. Laurent)

Love was just an act for you, I was the one you poured it into...

Sleeve - Front:
Vivian Benson

Surviving so just one day I could smite evil and protect the good...

Sleeve - Back:
Octavio St. Laurent

Vinyl - 'A' Side

Vinyl - 'B' Side

Lyric Sheet

Lyric Sheet:
St Lawrence, Patron Saint of cooks

Stats:

Tracks: Remember Me (That's All I Ask) B/W What They Didn't Know
Released: 2011
Label: Matador Records OLE 962-7 
Matrix A: OLE 962-7 A GOLDEN
Matrix B: OLE 962-7 B GOLDEN
Pressing Info: 2000? TBC
Inserts: Regular insert as pictured above
Variants: No variants

Notes:

Extracted From LFG Post (June 28 2011):
As I've written on here before, this collection of records is meant to act as a prologue to David Comes to Life... to describe the characters and the setting in a bit more detail.

The Five Characters:
Right to left: Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Aether

Random Facts About The Artwork:
-David Eliade is Ian from the band $100
-Vivian Benson is our friend Kate who is also on the cover of "The Beat and the Pulse" by Austra
-Octavio St Laurant is a Beggars Banquet employee
-The town on the Byrdesdale 7" is where Ben's real life mom was born
-It's the same lightbulb on each cover (and the back cover of DTCL, and the front)
-Nick Fenstle is Josh's Dad, and every member of Josh's family appears on the cover of DCTL

Vivian Benson:

Mixtape 4 Side B liner Notes:
I've read that often authors of books and plays will put a lot of meaning and care into naming their characters. One day I was checking my email and noticed a message from one “Veronica Boisson”. That's what the female lead in our new album became. Another day I got another message from someone called “Vivian Benson” - same deal. They both kind of work out, because as you know, Veronica is a cool name, and Vivian is from an early FU song title anyways.

Vivian (From Wikipedia):
Related names: Vivien, Viviane, Vivienne, Vivianne:
The Latin name Vivianus is recorded from the 1st century. It is ultimately related to the adjective vivus "alive".

I'm the Lady in the lake, where streams of memories pool and wait. Wish me well before you move on, we'll meet again in Avalon. (Lyric)

The spelling Vivien is the French masculine form, but in English speaking countries it has long been used as a feminine form, due to its appearance as the name of the Arthurian Lady of the Lake in Tennyson's Idylls of the King of 1859  

You're The wine I am the cup; give me your time and fill me up. (Lyric) 

The Holy Grail: is a dish, plate, stone, or cup that is part of an important theme of Arthurian literature. A grail, wondrous but not explicitly holy, first appears in Perceval le Gallois, an unfinished romance by Chrétien de Troyes.

Holy Chalice & "Holy Grail" (From Wikipedia)

There is an entirely different and pervasive tradition concerning the cup of the Last Supper. In this highly muddled though better-known version, the vessel is known as Holy Grail. In this legend, the cup was used to collect and store the blood of Christ at the Crucifixion.

Although the traditions of the Holy Chalice and the Holy Grail seem irreconcilable, there is an underlying concept. Since in Catholic theology, the wine consecrated in the mass becomes the true blood of Christ, both of these seemingly conflicting traditions emphasize the vessel as a cup which holds the blood of Jesus Christ, either in sacramental or literal form.

Oral tradition, poems and bardic tales combined the stories of the Holy Chalice and the Holy Grail. A mix of fact and fiction incorporated elements around Crusaders, knights and King Arthur, as well as being blended with Celtic and German legends. In 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, combined many of the traditions in his King Arthur and the Knights (Le Morte d'Arthur).

Vivian & her 'eye glass' (WATER)

Sleeve Notes:

Eye Ball  (Trinity of Man Diagram)

• Les yeux sont le miroir de l'dme (The eyes are the mirror of the soul.)
• Challice-shaped light with two reflections - referencing some kind of trinity, a link to David & Veronica?

• As if to spoil things there's a fourth light sneaking in at at the bottom...

Octavio St Laurent:

Octavio:

Octavio might have been named after any one of several historical persons, or maybe like Vivian and Veronica he was just a name on an email. In the ongoing quest to find meaning where none is intended and for the purposes of completing this page, the following Octavio has been selected:

Augustus (23 September 63 BC – 19 August 14 AD) (From his Facebook Page)

At birth he was named Gaius Octavius after his biological father. Historians typically refer to him simply as Octavius (or Octavian) between his birth in 63 until his posthumous adoption by Julius Caesar in 44 BC.

Augustus was the founder of the Roman Empire and its first Emperor, ruling from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD. Augustus restored the outward facade of the free Republic. In reality, however, he retained his autocratic power over the Republic as a military dictator. By law, Augustus held a collection of powers granted to him for life by the Senate, including supreme military command, and those of tribune and censor. It took several years for Augustus to develop the framework within which a formally republican state could be led under his sole rule. He rejected monarchical titles, and instead called himself Princeps Civitatis ("First Citizen"). The resulting constitutional framework became known as the Principate, the first phase of the Roman Empire.

Beyond the frontiers, he secured the Empire with a buffer region of client states, and made peace with the Parthian Empire through diplomacy. He reformed the Roman system of taxation, developed networks of roads with an official courier system, established a standing army, established the Praetorian Guard, created official police and fire-fighting services for Rome, and rebuilt much of the city during his reign.

Upon his adoption by Caesar, he took Caesar's name and become Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus in accordance with Roman adoption naming standards. 

On 1 January 42 BC, the Senate posthumously recognized Julius Caesar as a divinity of the Roman state, Divus Iulius. Octavian was able to further his cause by emphasizing the fact that he was Divi filius, "Son of God".

St. Laurent: (From Wikipedia)

Saint Lawrence or Saint Laurence (also St. Lawrence, St Laurence) is a title applied to many things named after Saint Lawrence, the 3rd century Christian martyr. Its French equivalent is Saint Laurent (and typically hyphenated when used for place names).

Lawrence is one of the most widely venerated saints of the Roman Catholic Church. He is invoked by librarians, archivists, cooks, and tanners as their patron. 

He was one of the seven deacons of ancient Rome, serving under Pope Sixtus II, who were martyred during the persecution of Emperor Valerian in 258.

Deacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind... The word "deacon" is derived from the Greek word diakonos which is a standard ancient Greek word meaning "servant", "waiting-man", "minister" or "messenger".

According to lore, Lawrence was able to spirit away the chalice used during Christ's Last Supper (the "Holy Grail") to Huesca, in present-day Spain, with a letter and a supposed inventory, where it lay hidden and unregarded for centuries. When St. Augustine connects Lawrence with a chalice, it is the chalice of the Mass:

For in that Church, you see, as you have regularly been told, he performed the office of deacon; it was there that he administered the sacred chalice of Christ’s blood. 

Octavio & his empty frame (AIR)

Sleeve Notes:

The Holy Trinity:
is not is

• The glimpse of white shirt at his neck is similar to a clerical collar and combined with the black jacket gives Octavio the appearance of a priest.
• The image focus on three main objects; Octavio, the picture frame and the light, the arrangement might suggest a reference to the Holy Trinity, whereby three separate entities are combined within a central deity. 
• In this version, Octavio would be the son of 'God' as per the Wiki text above, the Holy spirit often symbolised by fire is here referenced by an electric lamp, the father by the empty frame and God by the empty space between the objects.
• Whereas David & Veronica are positioned to the right of centre, looking toward the viewers left, Octavio (and Nick Fenstle) are left of centre and look directly at the viewer as if judgement.

To be continued / updated...

"Byrdesdale Garden City" (DCTL Prologue)

Turned paradise into a factory

Sleeve - Front

Pleasure on the edge of a knife

Sleeve - Back

Vinyl - 'A' Side

Vinyl - 'B' Side

Lyric Sheet - Front

Lyric Sheet - Back
The fountain of youth

Stats:

General:
Tracks: Byrdesdale Garden City B/W Into The Light
Released: 2011
Label: Matador Records OLE 960-7
Matrix A: OLE-960-7 A GOLDEN
Matrix B: OLE 060-7 B GOLDEN
Pressing Info: 2000? TBC
Inserts: Regular insert as pictured above
Variants: No variants




Notes:

Extracted From LFG Post (June 28 2011):
As I've written on here before, this collection of records is meant to act as a prologue to David Comes to Life... to describe the characters and the setting in a bit more detail.





Byrdesdale Spa UK:

Fictional settlement available information indicates an amalgamation of UK Mill Town, Garden City, and possibly Model Village. The presence of a Spa, suggests an earlier settlement.

Extract From TV Report:Originally envisioned by its founders as a utopian garden city, Byrdesdale has since fallen on hard times. Here the seasons never change, the people shrug like weeds, the angry thud of steel-toed boots echoing through the streets...

Damian Abraham Speaking in NPR Interview:

"The first act is reflective of the way that our band tends to have an idealized, rose-colored idea of that time in England," Abraham says. "There were a huge amount of problems, but even those problems seem fascinating. It was the first rise of the working class and the real last stand, unfortunately, [before] the conservatism of the next decade."

Devil Worship

Misinterpretation:
Just as it was possible to identify references to classical elements in each of the characters in the other prologue records, three elements can be contrived out of the place name: 

Byrdes (noun misp) - warm-blooded egg-laying vertebrate animal of a class distinguished by the possession of feathers wings and a beak and typically by being able to fly. AIR
Dale (noun) - a valley especially in northern England. EARTH
Spa (noun) - a mineral spring considered to have health-giving properties. a place or resort with such a spring. WATER

Air, Earth, Water

Fire

The Factory:

Extracts from interview with Factory Worker:

How long have you worked at the light-bulb factory?
Three or four years. Or like six decades, it’s hard to keep track.









How’d you get the job?
I got the job through my friend David. After the band started I needed a job that I could work hard while I was here, and then take time off to travel with Fucked Up. Working in a factory is the perfect thing because you can plow through days on end working if you have the stamina.

Can you tell me more about the coworkers?
Imagine a lightbulb before it’s turned on. No one wants to work in a lightbulb factory — so you can imagine the paths people took to get there. Good people but not the types you’d want to get too involved in.







What’s the atmosphere like?

Hazy. Have you seen the movie The Machinist? It’s like that. It’s a real trip because lightbulbs are one of those elemental commodities that have been in production for such a long time, with the same essential design principles — the lightbulbs that were being built 100 years ago are basically the same ones being built today. Which means there hasn’t been a lot of updates in machinery at the shop either — my plant was built probably 60 or 70 years ago and there are parts of it and machines in there I really can’t think about. It’s gassy, there are sounds you hear that you can never figure out where they come from, there are chemicals everywhere. It’s a really tentative place — people act like every day is the last one there, after years of days like that. Making lightbulbs needs a lot of corrosive chemicals, so there is that too. Remnants of arsenic, mercury, you know they are there. It isn’t a healthy place. 

I had a friend who worked in a d-hook factory. She mentioned long shifts, these same sorts of older coworkers, lots of smoking. How long are your shifts?

It varies. There are lots of ways to configure your schedule. As I was saying before, while there are administrative types that keep the 9-5 thing, the deeper you get into the plant, the darker it gets, you get people who seem like their feet are cemented into the ground, you start seeing cobwebs in the creases in their clothes. If I know I’m only going to be in town for a few weeks I put my head down and work. Sometimes I do the “Da Vinci” rep, where it’s a 16-hour shift, followed by 11 hours off, followed by a 16 hour shift, 11 hours off — for as long as i can stand it, usually about 6 or 7 shifts tops. You really lose track of time obviously, but you start to oscillate through society even — taking the bus the wrong way through rush hour traffic at 5am on the way home, asleep at 5pm — you can really lose your footing if you aren’t careful, just become this unhinged lunatic floating through some strange semblance of of time. 

What are your duties?

Different things, but usually I’m fitting filled bulbs into their screw bases. It’s really boring. Top bulbs come along the line and I make sure they get placed into the right base so they can be fastened properly down the line. I get in, sit down and wait for the bulbs. I have no idea where they come from, or where they go. I know that we get a lot of the individual parts outsourced — filaments, sleeves, vitrit, those are made in Bangalore or something, and probably assembled somewhere in the plant here.

Are you able to zone out at all, or does it require constant attention?

It’s hard to say. When you think you are paying attention you wake up and it’s four hours later. It’s this Zen thing almost; you can zone out while paying attention. I just need to place the bulbs in the bases, bulbs in the bases, bulbs in the bases. I zone out paying attention to that mantra for hours and hours..






Do you like your job?

Well, to a certain extent — but it hasn’t turned me into a vampire yet. I try to arrange my shifts so they end early in the morning so that when I leave everything is already bustling and it forces me to immediately start to re-connect — get a coffee at a busy shop, get the paper in the morning. It isn’t like the plant is this giant room filled with blinding light. It’s the opposite — it’s gray, dark, dingy. You’d imagine if you didn’t know otherwise, that we were making broken lightbulbs, because that’s what the place looks like.

Extracts from interview with 'French Zine' (LFG Post Aug 28 2007):

What keeps you busy in daily life?Well, I work in a small room at the bottom of a lightbulb factory. Its my job to make sure the filaments, which are actually tiny coils, stay coiled up during the heating process. When you are affixing the coiled filaments to the base of the bulb, you're using a lot of heat because you're basically soldering them on there. I've got to take random checks to make sure the filaments are still coiled. I have to basically sit infront of this massive microscope all day watching these tiny coils go by on a converbelt, because we're making so many bulbs each day, our plant alone is putting out more than 8000 a day. It's really boring, and i've got to be in the sub-basement because at that point in the manufacturing process the filaments can't be exposed to any light, so instead of installing fixtures to keep too much light out on the ground floor, the filament-checking room is way in this creepy bottom corner, because the plant was built in 1889, just a few years after lightbulbs were invented. So basically i do that during the day and try my best to stay out of any light during the rest of the day. Its like if you watch movies at your job at the video store all day, you don't want to watch movies in your spare time, well its the same with light, honestly I just get bored of it. 

What's the role of David Eliade in Fucked Up?David is the coiled filament himself. Our job is to sit infront of giant microscopes to make sure he doesn't come unraveled. He is the electric DNA at the bottom corner of our music factory. 

Is there a connection between David Eliade and the song "David Comes to Life"?David told us that he was born with 3 strands of DNA instead of just 2. He said the third one was covered with an osmium coating, and made him the first living cyborg. When he came to life it was like he was born backwards, so we had to write the song in reverse order and upside down by having some people hold mirrors to mirrors in our practice space. Decoding the upsidedown backwards lyrics was a huge pain in the ass. David claims to be able to do all these crazy things like see gas and oxygen molecules. We sometimes think he's kind of retarded, but then also like a wierd genius. No one has ever met his father, if you know what i'm saying. Anyhow, the connection is that "David Comes to Life" is about jesus christ.

"DAVID'S TOWN" (LP)

Even the most avid collectors and fans of regionalia haven't heard thresh this fresh...

Jacket - Front

Jacket - Back

Vinyl - 'A' Side:
FU logo

Vinyl - 'B' Side:
Matador logo

Stats:

Year: 2011

Label: Matador Records OLE 958-1
Matrix A: OLE-958-1 A GOLDEN ⓤ
Matrix B: OLE-958-1 B GOLDEN ⓤ

Inserts: No insert

Variants: No (known) Variants

Pressing info: 2000 copies, Record Store Day release





Notes:

Announcement LFG Post (March 30 2011)

Anyhow, another exciting thing that's happening is we're doing another Record Store Day record. Last year if you remember, we co-ordinated it so we released a 7" with 10 different covers, all featuring a different record store on the cover. Probably entirely because of that, record stores managed to survive another year, so there's gonna be another Record Store Day this year. So we decided instead of recording any new music, why don't we just release this compilation album from 1977 we'd been sitting on since from before we were all born? We found like 750 copies of this great comp so we're gonna just use that.

FU webstore:

All the hottest bands from Byrdesdale Spa! All in one place! History is a gas dissipating into the aether, so hold onto a piece.

Pitchfork Interview Extracts (Jan 19 2011):

Pitchfork: But not only did you see the concept record through, you extended the concept to another record, the David's Town compilation made up of fictional punk bands. 

DA: If anyone can take credit for anything on this record, my big mouth can take credit for that compilation. I was talking to Tom [Breihan] at Pitchfork and he was like, "What else are you guys doing?" And I was like, "I have an idea for this compilation..." and started brainstorming it as I was talking to him. And then everyone in the band read that and was like, "I guess we have to do this comp now." 

Pitchfork: How quickly did David's Town come together? 

MH: In about a week. 

DA: There were a couple of songs on there that were going to be on the LP, but they just didn't fit in with the story. It was unfortunate that it came together so late in the game, because we had a lot of cool people that had tentatively signed on to do songs that couldn't because of timing. But everyone who's on that record is a friend of the band-- we've toured with the Cloud Nothings and Let's Wrestle, Carl Newman's an awesome guy. 

MH: Jonah's wife is on it. Some of the songs we literally did on the spot. 

DA: We were doing, like, three songs a day and my voice just couldn't handle it, so I'd take a break and Mike and Jonah would just go down there. You guys had a game, right? 

MH: You know slam poetry? It was like that. I'd do a take, and then Jonah would listen to it once and do a take of the drums.

DA: Except for [the hardcore spoof] "My Old Man's a Ginger", which I wrote and played everything on myself, thank you very much. If anyone has any doubt that I'm lying when I say I have no musical ability whatsoever, all they have to do is listen to that song.

If It Goes There: Kevin Drew vs. Damian Abraham Interview Toronto Standard 20011:

And this rock opera takes place in Britain, in the late 70s, early 80s. Why Britain?

The time period was so exciting for England, because that was the first time you have the manufacture of a product in the hands of the youth making the music. The youth culture had always been generated by the youth, but the actual manufacture and distribution of youth culture had been in the hands of adults. This was the first time you had kids putting out their own tapes, their own records. Hip-hop was forming. 

Then it’s also the time you have the death of Old Labour, the unions are going to be broken by Thatcher, you have Reagan in America. That time in England was so exciting, and I guess we’ve romanticized it in this band cause you think of Smiths songs and Morrissey growing up in Manchester… you think Oi songs, Sham 69, even Slade…

Sleeve Notes:

Front:

Byrdesdale 1977, seen through Rose-coloured glasses. The colours nod to the (alchemical ?) colour schemes of "Hidden World" and "Chemistry Of Common Life", as does the Sun image.

The other two records use symmetry with the Sun appearing on a central axis between two opposites. This time it's at 45°; the record is supposedly a collection of 45s.

Maybe that's all just coincidence but the Sun is definitely giving a knowing wink.

Back: Have fun spotting the references to FU themes - some Light Bulb factory ones are highlighted opposite. Also having a skinhead song named after the local football club and another inspired by German WW2 military aesthetics is strangely familiar. Strangely most of the sleeve colours get a name check and there are quite a few elements mentioned...

''Year Of The Ox''

I'm the ox who broke my chains, so I could fly away...

Sleeve - Front:
Merge Records Press

Sleeve - Back:
Merge Records Press

Vinyl - 'A' Side

Vinyl - 'B' Side

Lyric Sheet - Front:
Year of The Ox

Lyric Sheet - Back:
Solomons Song

Stats #1 - Merge: 

Tracks: Year Of The Ox B/W Solomon's Song
Year: 2010
Label: Merge Records
Matrix A MRG-391-A WG/NRP
Matrix B MRG-391-B WG/NRP

Pressing Info: 
First Pressing: 2175

Test Pressings: 5

(Thank you to Wilson Fuller for the pressing info!)

Inserts:
Lyric sheet as above

Stats #2 - Matador: 

Tracks: Year Of The Ox B/W Solomon's Song
Year: 2010
Label: Matador Records
Matrix A OLE947-1 BA13859-01 A1 MRG-391-A
Matrix B OLE947-1 BA13859-01 B1 MRG-391-B

Pressing Info: 
TBA

Inserts:
Lyric sheet same as Merge but slightly different paper

Variants:
1. Merge Press
2. Matador Press

Sleeve Front:
Matador Press (Top) has brighter print + different text at bottom

Sleeve - Back:
Matador Press (Top) has brighter print, different text at bottom and barcode sticker.

Label - 'A' Side:
Matador Press (Left) has different address on LHS 

Label - 'B' Side:
Different logos at top

Notes:

Promo Info (Merge Records): 

Recorded over 6 months by Jon Drew at Giant Studios in Toronto, Year of the Ox is the band's fourth record in the continuing 12 year cycle and adds to its evolving retinue of guest musicians. The patient and building Year of the Ox features Nika Rosa Danilova of Zola Jesus for a guest vocal passage and Toronto's string quartet, New Strings Old Puppets. The b-side "Solomon's Song", a gothic vampire love tribute to Twilight, features a 5 minute saxophone solo from Aerin Fogel of the Bitters and heavy synthing from Trust.


Solomons Song (LFG Post Aug 09 2010):
It's not really about vampires, but we told everyone that it was. What it's really about is sex, and we copped the lyrics straight from THE BIBLE. You can read them when you buy the record, ok?


An interpretation (From Guest Review on American Aftermath):
The A-side is the title track, which opens with a strings, both haunting and hollow sounding, repetitive and tense.

More weight on the back of the aging ox (Youtube screenshot)

The lyrics revolve around life of work-ox. Plugging ahead, never falling out of line. The riff plugs along with the ox whose days are all the same and has no identity beyond labor value. Over time, the need to increase productivity forces more weight onto the back of the aging ox and that increased tension is shown brilliantly through the music. But, like Boxer, the Ox “Will worker harder.”

The Ox displays self-awareness in the second verse where he realizes that “the turning world rests on my heels.” Economic progress is in the hands of the workers and by the fourth verse, the Ox realizes the tyranny of work and breaks free.

The freedom is not without pain as he looks back at the world he’s left. However, in the absence of the yoke, the Ox grows wings and flies away from the brutality of his masters. The strings return playing a celebratory tune of emancipation and promise for a better world.

The climax of the story takes place over the bridge where Abraham is joined by Nika Roza Danilova (AKA Zola Jesus), the haunting voice of freedom, whose clean female vocals contrast Abraham’s brutal intensity and collide before the Ox’s majestic declaration of independence from his masters.

The ox flies away and the track closes with the familiar strings.











Sleeve Notes:

Front: 'Ox Flying Away' by Susan Gale (No other info available - assumed to have been commissioned for the record)

Back: Les trésors de Satan (1895) by Jean Deville.

(From Wikipedia): During the last decades of the 19th century, many people in the West reacted to the materialism and hypocrisy of the period by developing an interest in esoteric, occult and spiritual subjects. The enthusiasm for these ideas reached its peak during the 1890s, the decade when the Belgian painter and writer Jean Delville was at the height of his powers.



Though Delville frequently wrote about his ideas, he almost never discussed his paintings. He left the interpretations to the viewer, and as a result his best pictures have an air of mystery and intrigue.

Satan’s Treasures depicts Satan with a wild, fiery head of hair and huge red tentacles instead of wings. Scarlet waves surround his left arm, as he presides over a river of unconscious men and women. The nude bodies of these figures appear orange and yellow in reproductions, but in the original they are a subtle mixture of acid pinks and yellows, highlighted with touches of green. They lie transfixed in the centre of a luxuriant coral reef, surrounded by coins, jewels and strange fish. Beyond the reef one can see vast vistas filled with jagged rock formations, and painted in shades of orange, yellow and brown. Though the full interpretation is again left to the viewer, it clear that Satan’s Treasures is not a traditional vision of hell. It reveals a fascination with decadence and the erotic which was typical of Péladan and the period in general. At the same time, as in the Portrait of Mrs. Stuart Merrill, there is probably an underlying theme of initiation.

Delville was a great admirer of Eduard Schuré’s The Great Initiates, and it could well be that Satan’s Treasures is inspired by an episode from the Initiation of Isis in Schuré’s book. In the relevant scene, Schuré describes the novice’s failure of an early test, the temptation of the senses. Wrapped in a dream of fire, the novice becomes drunk with the heavy perfume of a seductive woman, and later falls asleep, after wildly satisfying his desire. This failure is described by his hierophant as a fall into the abyss of matter.

Delville’s vast undersea world, ruled by Satan, is almost certainly an image of the material abyss. Satan, lord of the physical realm, presides over its sleeping inhabitants. Wrapped in delusion, the dreaming men and women are mesmerised by Satan’s spell, and trapped by their own desires. Satan’s “treasures” include not only their sensuality, but also their attraction to worldly riches, represented by the pearls, coins and corals which surround them. Above all, the entranced people themselves are the treasures of Satan.