User:Faeryghost/sandbox

Healing is a concept album by French composer and producer Maël Madec, known more commonly by the name In Love With A Ghost. The album was released independently on Bandcamp and SoundCloud on March 3rd, 2017.

Background
Each song from Healing is based on the setting and characters from an imaginary video game thought up by Madec. The album mainly focuses on the encounter between an unnamed, genderless protagonist and three witches named Nemu, Qwerty, and Azerty. Not much is known about the story other than that it is loosely based on the themes of “magic and friendship.” Madec has alluded to revealing more plot details in the future, and has expressed interest in exploring the story further through albums, video games, and animation.

Healing took 3 months to make, according to Madec. On YouTube, Madec wrote, “healing is not only an album but also a visual journey. it allowed me to express things without talking about them." The plot details seem to be intentionally ambiguous, as the description on the album’s store page states that Healing’s story is one that “everyone can appropriate by taking inspiration from the titles, the illustrations and of course the haunting melodies.”

Madec occasionally reveals story details on their social media accounts. On Tumblr, they stated that each character is pansexual, and they also wrote that Qwerty and Azerty are sisters. When asked on Twitter why the characters’ sexualities matter, Madec replied that, “it matters because one of these character was bullied in their past for their sexuality.”

Reception
Reviews of Healing have been generally positive, with reviewers praising the mixture of Lo-Fi and chiptune sounds.

Erin Crosbie of Psiphon Sessions writes, “The album’s main achievement is taking instrumental genres like chillwave and downtempo that have a reputation for being, well, chilly, and making them warm and emotional.”

Personnel
Maël Madec - production, mixing

Geo Mae - voice on track 9

Sarlis - cover artwork