Sunn0)))

Sunn0)))

SUNN0)))
16 December 2005: First Unitarian Church — Philadelphia


As the band’s publicity notes announce with glee, Sunn0)))’s big goal is to massage listeners’ intestines to the point of involuntary defecation. In an honest-to-God church sanctuary, they nearly did just that.

by Megan Milks
In the digital era it’s easy to forget the physical aspects of consumption. Music has an ability to regulate heart rate, to take over a listener’s body. Rave is a prime example of such aural bodysnatching — those gatherings create a collective utopia where ravers become one organism, subject to the whim of the DJ’s divine authority. When you’re in the zone, your body moves beyond your control — every jerk of the limb is led by the DJ’s turntables. You become a sound receptacle, collecting the beat. Of course, rave is dead, but worry not: drone is the new rave. Drone turns its listeners into a receptacle for near-static and prolonged noise. Designed to drive people into a trance, drone encourages its listeners to become one with the music. Its subtonal beats regulate heart rates and, if the beats are spaced far enough apart, they pull listeners into the state of barely-there awareness that comes before sleep. A week before Christmas, sultans of drone Sunn0))) put on a “rave” in Philadelphia. Yes, their music is said to be doom-metal, and, no, there wasn’t any dancing. But it was a rave, dammit, more so than any of the commercialized ones supposedly keeping the movement alive. Sunn0))) created a temporary autonomous zone where the subjectivities of the musicmakers and music receivers were less important than the music itself. Ego had left the building (probably after throwing on an anonymous black cloak). You see, the whole cavernous church sanctuary — seriously, they played inside a church — was drenched in fog, and the two main forces of Sunn0)))’s power, Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley, were virtually invisible behind it. They certainly made an entrance, but after that, there was little to be seen. After covering the entire church sanctuary in a layer of cloud, the duo turned the lights down, put on an eerie violin-based dirge, and let the crowd psyche itself up into nervous anticipation. Just when I decided that they must already be on stage, that I just couldn’t see them for the fog, a gong sounded and Anderson and O’Malley walked out, welcomed by hoots and devil horns. And so it began. With a tone, a bass, and a guitar, Anderson and O’Malley pulverized our bodies into bruised vessels of drone. No sight. No thought. Only drone. I felt disoriented, as though experiencing synaesthesia, wherein ears became eyes. I wasn’t on drugs — I swear — and if I hadn’t been taking notes, I probably would have gone comatose, lost in some meditative trance. (Note: This music is not for epileptics.) As the band’s publicity notes announce with glee, Sunn0)))’s big goal is to massage listeners’ intestines to the point of involuntary defecation. While the show had a pronounced physical effect, it left my bowels disappointingly sanguine — do I get my money back? A number of people did get up to leave, but more likely because they decided that no, those same four chords, dragging into each other over and over again, weren’t going anywhere after all, and wanted to jump ship before their brains jumped their skulls. Bowel-moving or not, listening to Sunn0))) perform live is physically jarring. Because half of the show consists of the same four-chord progression repeated, tweaked a tiny bit differently each time, the Sunn0))) experience is one of hyperawareness. In terms of rhythm, there’s not much going on — no percussion beyond the occasional rattle-hiss of the fog machine — so you are sucked into the tones, into the bite of each new blast of guitar noise, into the keening up or down of the intonations as molded by Anderson and O’Malley. You become aware of the subtonal beats made as each prolonged guitar riff battles the drone pitch in the air. If you must nod your head, it is to these tightly controlled beats alone that you can nod it. Meanwhile, your breath slows down to keep time with the texture of pitch discrepancy as your pulse quickens with the loudness and momentum of it all. So it’s cool we got to sit down on the church pews. After awhile, the noise wizards drowned out the four-chord theme with drone only to return to it, speeding up the subtonal beats. There was some swirling effect or something, and out came vocalist Malefic, cloaked in black and masked with spooky white face paint. Yesssss. Malefic’s vocal performance was a weird combination of rasp, shriek, and hiss. He sounded like a decomposed corpse brought back to life, or Lord Voldemort in half-dead snake form. It totally fit the doom-drone aesthetic. He was so scary I waited to pee until he left because the door to the bathroom was next to the stage and I wanted to stay as far away from him as possible. I’m sure he’s quite nice one-on-one — probably has a day job as a bank teller. But at night he secretly plots to suck his customers’ blood. When Malefic left, the guitarist took the mic with a decidedly higher-pitched voice, more painful to the ear. Jolted out of my I-will-hold-my-piss-dammit trance by this screeching, I skulked out to the bathroom and naturally — stupid bladder — missed the finale. Apparently spotlights were smashed by guitar and people cheered, “YEAH. RAWK. WHOO.” Well, I’d seen smash-it-ups before and that was probably the least interesting part of the show. In other words, thank you, Sunn0))), for cleansing my ears of sound pollution, for urging my body into a state of higher being, for giving me a good story to tell all my friends. Not only are you the new rave, best experienced live, but you merge noise and metal, the latest “it” scenes. So watch out, the hipsters are coming. Don’t let them consume you and bail, because then all of your real fans will ball up their fists and storm out. Tread lightly, guys. Tread lightly.