SUNN O)))

Pyroclasts southern lord

“More meditative” sister album to 2018’s mighty Life Metal.

When faced with describing Sunn O)))’s massive, drone-based music it’s difficult not to resort to fanciful natural similes like storms, the motion of tectonic plates, lava flows, or, indeed, a bombardment of eponymous volcanic fragments. Pyroclasts was recorded in the same sessions, produced by Steve Albini, that yielded Life Metal, but these four pieces were adjuncts to the main process in that Sunn O)))’s Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson, accompanied by cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir, keyboard player

Tim Midyett and guitarist Tos Nieuwenhuizen, would warm up or wind down by playing together for around 12 minutes. But it’s anything but second-rate. Albini is renowned for working quickly, which meant that rather than layering the compositions in the studio, the musicians tended to play live, and the listener really gets the feel of the players listening and reacting to one another. And although the pieces on Pyroclasts don’t have the compositional structure of those on its predecessor, these are complex creations full of intricate, ever-changing detail, like the internal dynamics in a weather system or within the sea.