Out via Caliban Records (a One Little Independent subsidiary set up by Penny Rimbaud of Crass), A Fire Ceremony is the new album from Fleur De Feu, a musical project dreamed up by Dominique Van Cappellen-Waldock. A powerful and deeply affecting piece of music, in Dominique’s words it “offers a music performance and a fire ceremony in remembrance of the loved ones we lost in the course of the confinements of 2020 and 2021”. As such, it is an album that moves majestically from despair to the divine, the isolation of the last two years represented but also transcended with music proving a cathartic vehicle for both artist and listener.
The album opens with the glacial beauty of Hors Du Temps, a piece that relies on subtle drones and Domninique’s stunning vocals wreathed in dense layers of reverb. Spoken word pieces emerge from the haze, but the primary focus is on lush ambience, the oft-repeated title of the track used as a mantra that grows more urgent as the piece progresses. It fades down into the darker Invocation, which draws from the same well of inspiration as Dead Can Dance. With tribal rhythms and vocals that are as haunted as they are haunting, it is a piece that swells around the incessant pulse of Deha’s percussion as various stringed instruments swirl in the mist. Third track See The Sun sees Dominique gather together elements of Pink Floyd and latter-day Swans, as shimmering drones and cinematic strings conjure up an atmosphere of intense loss. It’s beautiful, but it’s Domninique’s voice, caught at the heart of it all. Utterly raw and unfiltered, her approach recalls Michael Gira’s work with Angels of Light, and you find yourself stopped in your tracks, unable to move until the song releases you from its grasp. Escape, however, is not easily achieved and it segues directly into the next piece. With a spoken word introduction, the rippling beat and exploratory guitar of A Mantra coalesce to summon up a world beyond this one, stripped of the mundane and alive with Domninique’s sublime vocals, not to mention a guest spot from Penny. A hypnotic piece, the multi-lingual spoken word pieces that dominate the second half speak to the global experience the pandemic offered, reminding us that music, too, is universal and can offer succour during the most difficult of times.
After the transcendent beauty of A Mantra, Les Larmes offers a shorter, darker experience, Dominique’s drones awash in overtones that seem to float somewhere just in front of the speaker. No less hypnotic, we are guided ever deeper into its heart by Domninique’s compelling voice. Like Clint Mansell’s theme to Requiem For A Dream, L’Eternal Retour sees the mood of the album slipping into darker territory as it progresses, with the subtly serrated strings conjuring up an air of disquiet and almost inconsolable grief. It is over two minutes before Domninique adds her unique voice to the mix, and you can hear it shake with the raw emotion of the moment. A very special performance, L’Eternal Retour is a masterpiece that expresses two years’ worth of pent-up emotion in five-and-a-half eternal minutes. It leaves Tout Est Vivant to close the album, the rhythmic pulse helping to guide the listener back to the daylight, having spent thirty-six minutes lost in space and time with Dominique and her cohorts. With soaring, John Cale strings and ever louder drums sweeping away the meditative atmosphere established over the course of the record, it’s the grand finale the album needed.
A Fire Ceremony is a truly remarkable album. A deeply spiritual invocation of loss and grief, it is a piece of music that allows for both contemplation and imagination. While there are individual songs worthy of mention (not least the remarkable L’Eternal Retour), this is not an album to split into its pieces. Each builds upon the atmosphere conjured up by that which preceded it, and the result is something truly special. Best played loud and with minimal distraction, A Fire Ceremony may not be an album to which you will listen often, but it is a special, deeply emotional work that will utterly absorb you for its duration. 9/10
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