Lives
The Roundhouse, London, October 28
Sun O))), The Murder Capital
Music for the masses! Elemental drone-rockers host another compelling ceremony
FISTS punch the air as the amps start their infernal groan and Sunn O))) take to a stage wreathed in dry ice and lit in blue and red. Or do they? At first it’s difficult to see anything in the gloom. Then we spy cowled figures – first two, then later three, four, five, moving with the studied grace of butoh dancers. Sunn O)))’s sense of epic rock theatre has always guided their live performances, but if anything, recently they’ve amped it up. Guitars are raised in holy supplication before a henge of roaring amplifiers, arms gesticulate and beckon down curses from the sky. At one point, a trombone is held aloft as if it is Jesus’ very own femur, freshly unearthed from the dirt. And all the while, downtuned and distorted guitars spill out long, droning chords that seem to twist the fabric of time itself. Depending on your standpoint, a Sunn O))) performance might bring to mind the penitent rituals of a Catholic mass, or the spirited silliness of Spinal Tap. Either way, the sight is utterly compelling.
Formed in Seattle, Washington by Stephen O’malley and Greg Anderson around the turn of the century and taking their name from the high-powered Sunn amplifier beloved by Hendrix and The Who, Sunn O)))’s sound is like heavy metal distilled into its purest form – the darkest and sludgiest riffs of Black Sabbath and Melvins slowed down, and down, and down again until they come to resemble something like flowing lava. But Sunn O))) are as influenced by improvisation, drone and sacred music as anything in rock’n’roll. Their sound has attracted some notable devotees from the field of left-leaning rock – the late Scott Walker enlisted Sunn O))) as collaborators on his 2014 album Soused – and despite the extremes of his music, O’malley has proved to be a surprisingly clubbable figure, playing on recent albums by Tinariwen and Yann Tiersen.
Following a tour of European churches and theatres, a soldout show at the 3,300-capacity Roundhouse demonstrates the breadth of Sunn O)))’s cohort. Their set draws heavily from their two 2019 LPS – the Steve Albinirecorded Life Metal and, from the same session, a more improvisatory and open-ended recording titled Pyroclasts. It feels worth pointing out that Sunn O))) aren’t for for everyone – you won’t find tunes you can whistle here. But their sound has a powerful, intense physicality that is rare in rock, and which is curiously beguiling. It’s not merely that it’s loud – although it is loud, loud enough to make every cell in your body vibrate – but it’s also allencompassing and transformative, the sort of sound that intrudes into your very core. Watching them, you’re reminded you of the way that people talked about Swans’ early live shows – intense volume as a route to transcendence – or the so-called ‘holocaust section’ that My Bloody Valentine would insert into live performances of “You Made Me Realise”. Position yourself at the right point between the speakers as Sunn O))) tear into “Novae” and you might experience something close to an epiphany.
The set list is four songs long tonight, culminating in an extended run through “Candlegoat” from 2005’s Black One, although everything pretty much flows together. The appearance of a trombone offers a rare moment of respite from the thundering sound, brass and organ joining in a plangent lament before the guitars again rise up in an inky-black tide. Mostly,
though, the slow cycle through chords is repetitive to the point where it borders on the meditative. There are qualities to a Sunn O))) performance that bring to mind a deep tissue massage, or one of those ‘slow TV’ shows on BBC4 where they strap a camera to the front of a barge and record four hours of leisurely floating through the canal networks of middle England. In our attention-deficit age, something that really demands your patience in this way can be highly rewarding.
The sheer scale that Sunn O))) conjure up in their music leaks through into the project as a whole. Before the gig, O’malley reveals how they’re using Bandcamp to build a huge archive of live sets – 130 shows to date – an idea rooted in his and Anderson’s shared history as young metalheads, sharing demos and live sets via underground tape trading networks. “These aren’t [official] live recordings, they’re made by fans, bootleggers, taper people who attended shows,” says O’malley of the growing archive. “Some of them are extremely raw, extremely shit recordings. Others are board recordings. It’s a very 20th-century idea perhaps, but that tape trading culture is important to us. We’re an underground band, we’re very close to our audience, and this is a coparticipatory thing. I think it’s important that the story of Sunn O))) includes this big history. It’s super excessive – who’s going to listen to all that? Not me, but it’s important to have this kind of documentation. The story is pretty vast and deep, just as the music can be too.”
A band like Sunn O))) could so easily fall between posts: too metal for the art crowd, too arty for the metalheads. Instead, they’re succeeding in uniting the tribes by tapping into something essential in the rock’n’roll experience. “It’s a big audience now, as far as what we’re doing as experimental artists,” enthuses O’malley. “It’s incredible – it blows our mind. And we’re grateful for that.”
Their sound has a powerful, intense physicality that is curiously beguiling