“Your tongue is red, and speaks of thorns, and through your spit I am reborn.”
– From “Die the Death” by The Devil’s Blood
Selim Lemouchi is a name that you have probably never heard or would have ever heard. As a music writer, I get anywhere from 20-30 emails a day. “Listen to this band” and “Listen to that band” and “This band is the greatest band since…” These days the music world is so over saturated that it’s nearly impossible to be aware of even a fraction of the amazing talent that is out there. For me, Selim Lemouchi and his band The Devil’s Blood is what I love to refer to as one of the greatest surprises of my music loving life.
In 2012 I was asked to cover a performance by The Devil’s Blood. When I saw that they were playing on a bill made up of predominantly death/black metal bands I simply just wrote them off and told their PR person that I really wasn’t interested. Said PR person actually emailed me back and said, “Don, I know you’ll love this band.” I finally just gave in and decided to go and just see what it was about. I accepted the challenge and didn’t even listen to their music before the show. When The Devil’s Blood took the stage opening with the song “The Thousandfold Epicentre” I vividly remember my mouth falling open. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was cosmic, it was psychedelic, it was groovy, and it was some of the most emotionally driven riff oriented hard rock that I had ever heard. I was immediately made a fan and like I do with any band that I become a fan of, I found myself wanting to own (and eventually owning) everything The Devil’s Blood put out. I also found myself intrigued and wanting to know more about the mastermind behind this massively talented and touching band.
As I did my homework, I found that Selim Lemouchi was a pretty dark and troubled individual. He rose from the ashes of manic depression and substance abuse and found solace in devoting his life and art to a much darker entity than most of us are even aware of. Selim was a devout Satanist. Unlike the more portrayed “Hollywood” type Satanism of acts like Venom and Slayer, Selim truly dedicated himself to creating music that he believed opened a channel between himself and Satan. This was a man that, much like those of the heavier Christian faith, prided himself on sharing his beliefs and faith with anyone and everyone who would listen to his music.
Listening to the Devil’s Blood’s music can only be described as beautifully evil and haunting. Even if it’s something that I don’t connect with on even a spiritual level, the way these songs were delivered via the voice of his sister Farida Lemouchi always seem to captivate me and make me feel something. The Devil’s Blood released one EP and three full length albums achieving more in six years artistically than most do in a lifetime. In 2012, Lemouchi announced that his work with the Devil’s Blood was complete and that they would be no more. In 2013, Lemouchi re-emerged with another brilliant project called Selim Lemouchi and His Enemies releasing a stellar masterpiece called EARTH AIR SPIRIT. The band performed a series of shows throughout 2013 but seemed to go dark going into 2014. On March 5, 2014 it was announced via Bidi van Drongelen, the band’s longtime manager, that Selim Lemouchi was dead. He was 33 years old.
The tortured artist that lies within the musician is nothing new. We’ve seen it countless times over the years. From the early days of Robert Johnson to the days of Jim Morrison and even in modern times artists like Layne Staley and Dee Dee Ramone we have seen some extremely talented people leave this plane far too soon. Or was it too soon? Maybe it was that, in some ways, all these artists knew that they had an expiration date. Maybe in some ways these artists were pulling from something so deep and at times scary that they could only do that for so long. Maybe it was that they literally ran out of things to express and figured that they’re time here was done. Whatever the reasons, Selim Lemouchi (much like the others) seems to had come from a place much darker and maybe even more sinister than we could ever imagine and it is to that very place that he left this world to permanently reside in.
Selim’s sister once sang: “We know he loves us. We know he must. We die for you. Voodoo dust.”
Rest in chaos Selim you troubled, evil soul. Your work here is done.
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