Year of No Light to play two shows at Roadburn Festival 2011: Ausserwelt album and live soundtrack to CT Dreyer's horror masterpiece Vampyr.

Hailing from Bordeaux, France, Year of No Light have proven adept at shifting seamlessly between genres, balancing postrock, sludge, somber psychedelics and crushingly dark and depressing atmospheric shoegaze, never allowing the incredible scope of their soundscapes to stand in the way. The band transports listeners to a new dimension, capturing a world without hope or light, arriving at a veritable day of reckoning.

After releasing the underrated postrock classic Nord in 2006, Year of No Light returned this year to deliver Ausserwelt, an outstanding ambient postrock / postmetal album. Ausserwelt explores soundscapes deeply rooted in a vast array of human emotions, setting the band apart from their peers and breathing new life into a stagnating genre.

In addition to performing Ausserwelt on Thursday, April 14th at the 013, Year of No Light will also provide the soundtrack to the 1932 horror classic Vampyr at the Midi Theatre on Friday, April 15th during Roadburn 2011.

Vampyr, one of the first horror movies with sound, is the work of the highly influential Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer. After directing the monumental La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc in 1928, Dreyer decided to make this modest film based on the novel In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu. Originally conceived as a silent film, Vampyr was Dreyer's first sound film.

Year of no Light comments: "Ten years after its inception, the sleeping village that is YONL will awaken to perform again at the mythical Roadburn festival. Needless to say, we are highly honored to be part of such a great event. Our first appearance in 2008 coincided with the end of chapter and the original line-up parting ways. It was also an opportunity for us to share the Batcave stage with Dirk of FFB, an artist we profoundly love and respect.

Three years later, Roadburn remains a very special place for us. And quite a challenging one indeed! Rising from the ashes with a new and expended line up, YONL, now backed by three guitars and two drummers, will present its latest sonic offering and show our devotion to C.T. Dreyer."

With respect to The Vampyr soundtrack project, Bordeaux promoter Guillaume Gwardeath says: "Year of No Light performed the original live soundtrack for the motion picture Vampyr for the first time during the Printemps des Cinéconcerts in Bordeaux, France, in May 2010. I really wanted to have [the band] on the bill of the Cineconcerts event. Each year, I invite a local band to produce an original musical work to perform during the festival for an audience comprising indie music and film enthusiasts. I had already managed to recruit death metal virtuosos Gojira to provide the live soundtrack to a Maciste Sword-and-Sandal epic. The result was amazing. Putting live metal at maximum volume to a fantasy film works really well. The audience is glued to their seat, totally breathless.

With Vampyr, the entire Year of No Light team - including the sound and light engineers - were closely involved in the project and the finished production made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end when I saw it! Their music ideally suits the gloomy atmosphere of Dreyer’s seminal masterpiece. It adds a new dimension to a tale of the struggle between shadow and light. I am delighted that we can bring our homegrown project to theatres and festivals in Europe. Be prepared to be stunned by the Dreyer-Of-No-Light experience!"

In other news, Wovenhand, Soilent Green, Place of Skulls, Blood Ceremony, Ghost, In Solitude, Count Raven and Alcest have just been confirmed for Roadburn Festival 2011.