As the vocalist of Belgian post-metal collective Amenra, Colin H. Van Eeckout is known for his ability to connect with listeners, and to guide them on Amenra’s transformative path to healing. With his solo work as CHVE, he gets to tell his own story – one that aims to take the listener deep within themselves, to tap into something primal that dwells in us all.

Colin began writing his solo music 14 years ago, but he didn’t set out with that specific intention in mind – it happened organically. After buying a hurdy gurdy with Amenra guitarist Lennart Bossu, Colin began experimenting with the sounds it could make. Before he knew it, he had made almost enough music for an album.

“I’m a very emotive person: I judge and work with feeling,” Colin says. “I was trying to speak through the instrument, and finding how to squeeze emotion out of it. I think it’s interesting to see what you can get out of an instrument without learning to play it first, because then you work with it in a very honest, direct way.

“Though I wasn’t planning on doing a solo album, I’ve been in bands since my teens, and there’s always that question mark if you’re in a band: what would your personal story be, and what would it sound like?”

For Colin, CHVE represents the opportunity for full creative freedom: to experiment with sound without any limitations, and to embrace the vulnerability that comes with creating alone. The hypnotic music of CHVE is almost mind-altering, as the droning repetitions of the hurdy gurdy, various percussions and effects meld with the soft otherworldliness of Colin’s voice. Though not in the metal realm, the music contains a weight and heaviness on a par with that of Amenra.

“With your main band, there are a lot of boxes and expectations to check,” Colin says. “If you’re alone, you can do whatever you want. But in a way, the solo work takes more out of me. Suddenly when I’m on my own, everything falls on me. That’s very confrontational. I had a fear of failure as a kid, and that stays installed in you. But when it succeeds and you’re able to build something, it feeds your self-worth.”

His first two releases as CHVE mined his personal life for inspiration – 2015’s ‘Rasa’ was written when his father-in-law had a brain aneurysm, while 2016’s ‘10910’ was written around the time when his sons fell ill. For his new, upcoming EP, ‘Kalvarie’, Colin was partly inspired by the works of Jean-Marie Massou (1950-2020).

Massou was a French man who lived in isolation deep in a forest for 45 years. He spent his days digging underground passages with his own hands in preparation for what he believed was the end of the world, and he also recorded his own voice on cassette tapes. He was the subject of a documentary in 2009, ‘Le Plein Pays’, which brought his fascinating life to light.

“I love the idea that this man was living in his own world, and that he had music as a language with that world,” Colin says. “He chose to sing and record this music just for the sake of doing it. He wasn’t planning on having albums or playing shows. I thought this was beautiful: that the music was there just for the sake of enriching his life.”

‘Kalvarie’ was recorded and produced by Amenra’s bassist Tim De Gieter, mixed by Seth Manchester and mastered by Matt Colton. The title ‘Kalvarie’ is a reference to the location where Christ was supposedly crucified, and also the name of the street where Colin went to school. The cover art shows a stone with a gallow on it – another reference to the Calvary hill, and also to the tattoo on Colin’s back, a symbol that has become synonymous with Amenra’s work. As Colin explains, he sees his solo work as connected to Amenra: “This is the story told by 1/5 of Amenra, so there will always be a connection.”

The EP contains one singular track: the near-15-minute ‘Eternit’. It opens with the sounds of stones, before giving way to a sprawling, repetitive sonic journey that feels charged with elemental power. The ominous tones of the hurdy gurdy intermingle with the sounds of the stones, and in the lyrics, Colin sings in French about the end times – just as Jean-Marie Massou did. It was also Massou’s work with stones that inspired Colin to use them instead of traditional percussion.

“I think you connect to this kind of music in an instinctive way,” Colin says. “I compare it with a fire: when you see a fire, you look at it, you get lost in it. The same thing can happen with repetitive sound: it triggers something inside. It’s stripping back, trying to use music for how it was intended.”