Sunn o))) C/D, S&D.

"The whole purpose of playing live is to blow people's heads off," says Manowar bassist Joey DeMaio . "That's what we do; that's the energy of this band. We're out there to kick ass. We're out there to turn our gear on and blast. We're out there to kill. That's what metal is. Anybody who says otherwise is not playing heavy metal. We will melt your face!"

My favourite (from what I've heard) is White 2 -- it's got heavy drone, snarling black metal-ish vocals, the works.

I haven't heard the new one yet.

The new album is brutal.

The new one is too fast!

I think Sunn O))) are the Charlie Chaplin of metal

Khanate get better with each release. I never listen to the debut, but Things Viral was brilliantly death-marchy, and the new one sort of combines the styles of the two prior releases into their best effort to date. The first track is seriously terrifying; I might play it to scare off trick-or-treaters tonight.

Yeah, that was the first I heard from them as well, and very good it is.

They are a little too harrowing for home listening. But live...amazing.

???

Oh well High On Fire supporting Mastodon on their UK tour will need to suffice for now :)

i wasnt even drunk when i wrote that ;-)

it's true though, the way they exaggerate every aspect of metal in a sublime way reminds me of him....

ah! I kind of get it now. :)

Khanate = I've only heard the new record, and I like it a lot....reminds me of The Necks if they played drone metal...I definitely want to track down the earlier stuff...to anyone who has them...is it all worth getting?

btw, pdf....khanate will make those trick or treaters piss their pants...go for it!

Ah, you were there? V. cool.

From what I could hear of them through the walls, rather loud.

More amp-gazing than shoe-gazing; the time I saw them at Tonic (being gently sprinkled with dust shaken loose from the rafters the whole time), they spent the whole set facing their amps, never once turning around to look at the audience. That night there were four of them - two guitarists and a bassist, and one person on keyboards which were laid flat on the stage, so he/she was hunched on knees and elbows to play. (Still not looking at the crowd.)

upcoming shows include - whitehouse, earth, sunn o)))

http://www.artforum.com/inprint/id=9859

even though the band sights earth and melvins as their biggest influences this guy wants to make it seem like Sunn0)))'s music comes from nowhere - just these two crazy metal guys.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/28/magazine/28artmetal.html

Do you have a link to the LE event?

https://fulcrumfestival.org/exhibit/ocean-x-space-a-special-evening-of-sounds-and-stars/

Fulcrum Arts and Mount Wilson Observatory present a very special evening of sonic immersion and star gazing with performances by freq_wave artists Lawrence English and Minoru Sato. The performances will be followed by an evening of star gazing through the 100-inch Hooker Telescope, all while immersed in the sonic landscape of CM von Hausswolff‘s freq_wave (Pacific; Los Angeles) installation.

Lawrence English will open the night with the world-premiere diffusion of his 2022 release, ‘Oseni, composed of field recordings of the Pacific Ocean, which English has captured over the past decade and a half in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere.

Minoru Sato will perform Half dream for an ancient harmony of three to two (2020), a piece based entirely on sine waves as the single sound source and composed using an original 25-tone scale based on Pythagorean tuning (also known as sanfen sunyi in Chinese music theory).

Due to the limited capacity of this unique venue, tickets are strictly limited to 100 concert tickets and 25 concert + observation tickets.

Ahhhh, this sounds sick

Did anyone else see the winter 2022-23 tour? I went last night to Denver and felt like my DNA had been rearranged after the show. Easily among the top five or six loudest bands I've ever seen (although this was my second time). The concert felt like a cross between a religious ritual and performance art. A mind-blowingly intense and overwhelming experience.

yeah, I saw them a month or so ago here. pretty memorable. set off the fire alarms three or four times.

At the Gothic? Yeah, that would be a rad place to see them.

I was at the Philly show, though after the first 20-25 minutes I spent the rest of the set seated out in the lobby because it was a standing affair and I was afraid the intensity would cause me to pass out.

L.A. is sold out but idk how I feel about big crowds in the post Covid era

What if it was all but impossible to see or hear the person next to you?

I was standing right behind the front-row folks and could barely see anyone around me through the insanely dense fog.

I'm guessing the show is still relatively close to the late 2019 iteration and that was intense!

I did end up taking a short hallway break. It was during a festival, though, and I'd honestly felt satiated with fifteen minutes left

The whole Life Metal/Pyroclasts/Metta Benevolence Live cycle is so good

absolutely

Agreed, fantastic run of albums there.

great excuse to dive into these this morning, thanks thread

Khanate is touring soon, right?

Yeah, just three shows I think though - Chicago, Toronto and NYC at end of May/beginning of June.

https://www.subpop.com/artists/sunn_o

Saw that last night, kind of love that they went all in Sub Pop style with Charles Peterson photographing them in a Washington forest for the cover.

new ep sounding as good as ever too

https://sunn.bandcamp.com/album/eternitys-pillars-b-w-raise-the-chalice-reverential

For those who love Life Metal / Pyroclasts / Metta Benevolence, the painter behind the cover art, Samantha Keely Smith, has a rare show of new work opening Nov 7 at Jane Lombard Gallery in NYC.

The paintings look incredible in person, highly recommended if you’re around.

https://www.janelombardgallery.com/exhibitions/83-samantha-keely-smith-in-between/

nice!

New EP is good, but this is all rather familiar territory by now. I miss when they would branch out a bit more like on Monoliths & Dimensions, incorporating the odd vocal or extra instrument here and there

agreed

I imagine they'll get back to that eventually

When was the last time they did that though? Soused? I don't follow them too closely, but I give most albums a cursory listen.

There were guests on Pyroclasts and Life Metal and the live BBC record.

I'm mostly curious why they signed to Sub Pop instead of just continuing to release their own stuff via Southern Lord. I haven't heard anything about SL folding its tent.

Bigger reach presumably.

If they really care about gaining a bigger reach at this point, I might have a few suggestions and/or some bad news for them.

not sure if sub pop is handling some of their merch, but I had an email exchange about substituting a t-shirt for one that was out of stock that I had ordered not too long ago. I'd guess that sunn o))) might be large enough at the moment that handing off some of the more annoying parts off to a larger label that has more resources to handle merch/distro for an album would be useful. obviously others have more experience with this, though

that's what I would assume, SP just has more bandwidth available for stuff

man. i would love some Sunn O))) merch, but it's spenny these days

Listened to the new EP this morning and I'm not really that into it. Just feels like a regression to their earliest material but not in a good or interesting way, and the second and third tracks end too abruptly. I still listen to Monoliths & Dimensions, Oracle, Kannon and the recent trilogy, but they're gonna need to do something really surprising, like an album with an orchestra or something, to grab my attention going forward.

Listening to this now and enjoying it. I guess it helps that I'm more of a casual fan and mostly just listened to Monoliths & Dimensions (and Soused I guess, though I don't of that as a Sunn O))) album), all their other stuff I probably listened to a handful of times. Most of their stuff is mostly indistinguishable to me, it all pretty much sounds the same, which I guess sounds like I have a negative opinion of them, but I do actually enjoy listening to it even if I can't really grasp it mentally and it all blurs together.

Yeah the new ep is fine, but it doesn't feel as crucial as the recent albums, will be interested to see if a new LP is an expanded line-up or just the duo, seems like they have been doing Shoshin duo thing for a few yrs now.

New merch is awesome though

I’ll listen to pretty much anything they put out…I actually like the EP more than at least half of what they’ve done probably, but I listen to them in large part for the trembling Radigue-like frequencies (or maybe Radigue lite is more accurate) and not any real dynamics or orchestration so I could also see how it might not appeal much to others depending on what someone’s looking to get out of their Sunn experience (and not trying to suggest there’s a right or wrong answer either)

https://stereogum.com/2485050/sunn-o-announce-new-self-titled-album-hear-glory-black/music

lol at it being self-titled. Getting back to their roots, just two guys in a room, etc.

Bonkers that they are playing Salt Shed here (around 5000 capacity).

I wonder if being on Sub Pop helped get the licensing rights to a Rothko

Instant pre-order on this one. I was hoping the single last year was a sign of a new album, but didn't expect it this soon.

Are you surprised at the Salt Shed date?

Oh definitely, but again, must be the Sub Pop thing? Would have figured Thalia Hall more likely.

This is my favourite thing I've heard from them in a good while, so I'm looking forward to hearing the rest. I like it when they expand their pallette beyond just the guitars

So awesome. Loving the new track. Love the piano.

The album's long as hell, apparently: Encyclopaedia Metallum has the track running times...

1. XXANN 18:21
2. Does Anyone Hear Like Venom? 7:33
3. Butch's Guns 14:12
4. Mindrolling 18:12
5. Everett Moses 10:54
6. Glory Black 10:25

I'm waiting to see if there's a Japanese edition with the recent EP (or something else) as bonus material.

Today I learned there is an artist that goes by ((( O ))), and I just want to say that is confusing and lame.

they need to tour with OOIOO

and play covers of Sigur Ros's ( ) album

another new track

https://sunn.bandcamp.com/track/butchs-guns

Update for desperately sad nerds like myself: there will not be a Japanese CD edition with bonus tracks, so I guess I'm just buying it from Sub Pop like everybody else.