‘Les Maîtres Fous’ does not fit into the mould of an album. It is a sonic experience, written by French post-metal outfit Year Of No Light in 2012 to accompany an exhibition of the 1955 ethnographic documentary ‘Les Maîtres Fous’ by French anthropologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch. It was performed twice, in 2012 and 2015, and is now seeing its recorded release ten years after that final performance.
As a result, it is perhaps to treat ‘Les Maîtres Fous’ – or, ‘The Mad Masters’ – for what it is. A soundtrack, designed to accompany a visual element. It can be enjoyed by itself, half an hour of well-crafted post-metal drone music; but placing it within its intended context yields a far more intense and potent listening. The documentary itself can be easily found on Youtube, though it contains scenes of a deeply unsettling nature that will be mentioned during this review. By muting the documentary, thereby removing its narrative element, you are left with an increasingly surreal montage of images that are re-contextualised by Year Of No Light’s music.
It’s immediately clear that Year Of No Light were deeply experienced in their craft by the time ‘Les Maîtres Fous’ was written. A single, oscillating note holds for minutes as the music begins to build around it, a note that lingers throughout the entirety of the piece, haunting it, infecting it. That note plays over the opening shots of British-occupied Ghana, filmed only three years before Ghanaian independence. We don’t see the British presence yet, only seeing Ghanaian workers working in fields, making bottles, doing a variety of other industrial jobs that would be generating capital for British pockets.
We feel the British presence, though. It’s in that one note, its frequencies shifting slightly as it holds. The documentary’s original soundtrack frames this opening montage with diegetic drums, military flutes, and the sounds of a bustling city of people. Stripping away all of that to replace it with this droning note instantly establishes an oppressive atmosphere. A sense of dread.
This dread grows as we are gradually introduced to the documentary’s real focus: the Hauka movement, a religious movement that developed in colonial Africa out of pre-colonial possession rituals. The film shows one of these rituals, in which the Hauka priests channel the motions and rituals of their British military oppressors in a transgressive act of religious defiance. As the Hauka celebrants begin to arrive, Year Of No Light introduce the first break in the building drone, with excellent drum work that escalates along with the rising action. This is intentional – the band say that they wanted to explore “sonic hermeneutics of this tension”, to find a way to mirror the physical and spiritual madness that are part of the Hauka ritual through their music.
The result is gripping. Music rises as you watch the celebrants engage in increasingly outlandish behaviour. A chicken is sacrificed. Fire is held close to chests to prove an imperviousness to the physical world. Wooden prop rifles are paraded in mocking, lurching marches. Mouths foam. And, at the ritual’s climax, a dog is sacrificed and eaten. All while that same oppressive note hums as the guitars and synths around it shift and drums are beaten with ever increasing fury.
Then the drums quiet down as the ritual ends and its celebrants make their way home. The documentary closes with a montage of these same celebrants at work the next day, seemingly happy, purged of whatever madness they channelled during the Hauka. Year Of No Light don’t let up fully, however, bringing the drums back up along with the rest of the music for this closing segment. You are not left to relax and settle back into your own life. The music forces you to relive the ceremony once again.
‘Les Maîtres Fous’ stands alone as a well crafted drone album. It is significantly more impactful, however, listened to alongside the documentary for which it is named – although this is not for the faint of heart. A half-hour reflection of physical dispossession and spiritual possession, on dark and taboo acts of resistance to colonial oppression.
BY WILL BRIGHT