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Fresh back from Sunn
O))) & Earth last night and my ear drums still feel anaesthetised.
Though not exactly the free noise vein, whatever that is, this
was awesomely loud, somewhat ritualistic and quite a perfect show
really. Plenty of dry ice and darkness on stage revealing the
cloak-hooded figures often as ominous silhouettes and an almost
full house (400 or so); plenty of long haired adolescents and
a good number of portly older men in sideburns and checked shirts
and at £11.50 a head someone's earning a good living, let's
hope it's the dishy yank death rocker Stephen O'Malley and his
mates eh..?
Getting authorisation
to film beforehand was a bit mysterious as I was kept waiting
by the promoter eventually being led into a side room to chat
with the great O man, whose aura seemed a lot bigger than it was
after being ejected from the Supersonic fest last year seconds
before a Merzbow dual was about to start. As we reminisced like
old mates "that really sucked man!" and he wrote down
the NY box address for a copy of the film I was told I couldn't
post any of it on the web and I heard a big 'Booo!' from inside
my head. Never mind, he agreed to play Sheffield next time round
and gave the name of his UK agent. Let's hope there's a decent
venue available…
The Cockpit is a large
railway arch with pretty good acoustics (is that relevant with
ear splitting volume?) and the stage at one end, yeah that makes
sense… (I'd paint that corrugated steel ceiling black). Filmed
a few minutes of 'Earth' who I know little about but apparently
were iconised by 'Sunn O)))'. Yep you guessed it, extremely slow,
very bassy and American, deep South judging by the accent. Like
Skynrd on opium. Not rock, roll or noise… but quite satisfying
in it's all encompassingness.
Anyway, I don't suppose
the Sunns will mind a couple of wee stills so that'll save me
explaining the stage too much, suffice to say a rear wall of vintage
amp stacks and stage flanked by further speakers, subtle lighting
and smoke. Two tracks of about 20 mins each, the first one I recognised
as an extended version of 'Death Becomes You' from 'Flight of
the Behemoth'. Our two hooded guitar heroes (and two machine operators)
vibrated my innards and for a moment I was almost scared I'd drop
my bowel contents thus fulfilling their own mission statement.
I always thought this was mainly machine generated noise but the
guitar source was refreshingly primitive! Whatever pedals and
delay-grunge-chorus trickery met the signals on the way to the
speakers I'd love to know. Half way thought the first track a
lovely deep seismic throb attempted to levitate me chest first,
yep this was an improvement on the all out drone of the recorded
version. I imagined lightning flashes (i think) and some weird
(connection problem?) crackling set me on edge some more. The
second track we were joined by a fourth member complete with hood,
heavy face paint and theatrical blood. He really did look like
he might puke and keel over. I couldn't tell what the repeated
words were but the death-croaked then deep screaming of them over
and over did manage to thrill and they built nicely into the 90ft
dry-stoner already threatening to fall over and kill us all.
A not too crammed room
meant I could weave my way from the front to an elevated position
at the back I'd sussed earlier to shoot the climax. Pretty good
timing as the volume and intensity peaked even more as insane
samples were piled on and I winced, the cam mic attenuator settings
were almost off and the meter was still peaking.
The major sensation
from the visual as well as audial aspects is that of 'death is
with us and it's more fucking beautiful than we could ever imagine'
and I love that stuff. Get some Sunn O)) noise and turn it up
full, better still catch it live.
MoO)))di
Sunn
O)))
Cockpit
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