Cloaked drone masters SUNN O))) have been following their arcane path for almost thirty years now, welcoming many collaborators and companions along the way. Recently they’ve returned to performing as just the core duo (of Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley) and, for their tenth album, they headed back to the forests of the pacific north west that made them. With no guests and the simple title SUNN O))) you might expect a stripped down version of the band but it’s less back-to-basics, than a return to first principles. Or, perhaps, a return to nature.
Recorded at Bear Creek Studios in Washington, looking out into the trees, the pair spent a lot of time in the woods and credit the location with much of the feel of the record. As nature surely intended I listen to it for the first time through my phone, laying in bed as it gently flows from the tiny speaker and vibrates against my rib cage. I fear it might be selling the dynamic range short but, it still sounded pretty good. I didn’t listen to the whole thing like that, indeed it took me a while to make it all the way through. At just a whisper shy of two hours it makes for an ungainly listening experience in your day to day, it requires a chunk of time.
No strangers to long run times this is the longest album they’ve made, longer than Life Metal and Pyroclasts back to back but more than that it is vast and meditative, a sound world that envelops you, receding and returning as your mind drifts with it. Perhaps this is why there are listening parties to accompany the release. I hope they’re good events but it feels like an uncomfortable halfway house between the live and recorded versions of the band. SUNN O))) is an overwhelming live experience (on tour this summer, I recommend going if you can) but equally, the recordings are there to take in alone. You can take them with you anywhere you go and yet, there is something about SUNN O))) that resists being made a soundtrack to driving or shopping.
They always were Arts Council metal, and this time out they’ve got Rothko paintings on the cover to prove it. Of course, they’ve had great artwork before, not least Richard Serra’s piece on Monoliths and Dimensions, but these are truly famous paintings and somewhat divisive in the same way their music is. Colour fields, sound fields. There are plenty who simply cannot comprehend either and, as a result, are dismissive. Much like with Rothko you get what you bring. You can’t stand with your arms crossed demanding to be entertained. This is not passive, you need to engage if you want the good stuff, you’ve got to meet it somewhere. In this album’s case, that’s out in the woods.
Which, of course, makes me regret not having yet had time to take it out walking in the actual woods. Now and then, when the walls of distortion and feedback ease, there is river water running through some of these tracks, underscoring that it is, in its singular way, ambient music. I’ve had a restful night sleeping with this album playing on a loop. I’m not sure that’s something I’d even attempt with most of their earlier albums and maybe says something I can’t quite articulate about the warmth, the change of vibe, in their more recent work. Life Metal indeed. Perhaps it is the input of the trees, less obvious than the trickle of water but still there, operating on a different temporality. To them these are all two minute bangers.
