Year of No Light

Year of No Light

Year of No Light is a French group from Bordeaux, active since 2001. It is often abbreviated as YONL and is generally associated with post-metal, doom metal, sludge metal, post-rock and post-hardcore. The band forms around a changing line-up and has often functioned as an instrumental side project rather than a main focus for its members.

Formation and early years

Year of No Light forms in 2001 in Bordeaux with Johan Sébenne, Bertrand Sébenne, Jérôme Alban and Christophe Mora. After about a year of rehearsal, Mora leaves and Pierre Anouilh takes his place. The band plays its first live show shortly afterwards. Between 2002 and 2003 it performs local shows in Bordeaux, and in September 2003 Julien Perez joins on vocals, with the new line-up giving its first performance the following month.

Recordings and releases

The group records a demo in June 2004 and tours Spain and the Basque Country after its release. It then works on its first album during the summer of 2005 and records Nord in Geneva with Serge Morattel. The album is released the following year and later reissued in CD and LP formats by Crucial Blast and Cavity Records respectively. Its early sound draws on post-rock, sludge, sombre psychedelia and depressive atmospheric shoegaze.

Year of No Light tours more frequently in 2006 and plays Dour Festival in 2007. In 2008 it tours Europe and appears at Roadburn and Hellfest. After collaborations with acts including Nadja and Fear Falls Burning, as well as split releases, the band drops vocals and becomes an instrumental sextet with two drummers and three guitarists backed by vintage synthesisers.

Line-up changes and later direction

In this later line-up, Shiran Kaïdine from Monarch joins as third guitarist and Mathieu Mégemont from Aérôflôt joins as second drummer. The band records Ausserwelt in Bordeaux with Cyrille Gachet in 2009 and releases it in 2010 on Conspiracy. The album develops the group’s sound further towards black metal and doom metal while keeping a progressive post-rock element.

Following Ausserwelt, the band tours Europe with Altar of Plagues and begins working on a soundtrack for Dreyer’s Vampyr. It performs the soundtrack for the first time at Barbey Theatre in Bordeaux in 2010, then plays it in Tallinn in 2011. Later it appears at Roadburn in two forms: a standard set including the full Ausserwelt, and the Vampyr performance.

Collaborative and multimedia work

Year of No Light also takes part in sonic performances with contemporary artists. One collaboration is with French artist Christian Vialard on a video installation reworking Yves Klein’s Monotone Symphony, shown in the exhibition Le Temps de l’Ecoute at la Villa Arson in Nice.

Members

The group includes Jérôme Alban, Bertrand Sébenne, Johan Sébenne, Pierre Anouilh, Julien Perez, Mathieu Mégemont and Shiran Kaïdine. Perez is listed on vocals and keyboards in the former line-up, while the others perform on guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, synthesiser and electronics across different formations.