SUNN O))
Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2006 12:20 pm
by YO31_Archive
ctrl-s wrote:I didn't really consider Sunn O))'s visual presentation in mulling over the "hoax" angle. It does seem central to their whole thang there, though I wouldn't necessarily say it's specifically meant to draw attention away from some lack of substance. At any rate it worked for me, for an hour or so anyway.
Dave Gilmour was once asked whether the dry ice or the guitar solo was more important and he replied that 'it all adds to the effect'. I think this is the case with Sunn O)) too. You don't HAVE to have cloaks and candles but it bolsters the live experience. I certainly don't buy the hoax angle. They aren't a band I listen to often but thanks to this thread I played 00 Void, White 1 and Black 1 end to end and I find each record quite distinct. It's a reductive approach for sure but it seems like they are exploring their droniverse rather than just banging out the same old thing album after album. Oh - Not Crap.
SUNN O))
Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2006 12:59 pm
by Rimbaud III_Archive
ctrl-s wrote:Maybe the hoax/prank theory is meant to suggest that, like the Cowsills and the Partridge Family and Milli Vanilli, the members of Sunn O)) were selected by a svengali-manager for being cute rather than for their musical ability, and that the music on the albums is actually played by anonymous session musicians, and that when Sunn O)) play live they're air-strumming to prerecorded tapes.
LO))L!
SUNN O))
Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 5:42 pm
by Ivan Dobsky_Archive
Rimbaud III wrote:LO))L!
Nice.
b
SUNN O))
Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 6:11 pm
by Ty Webb_Archive
Not an engineered hoax. Just a joke, in that they've managed to turn some dull, nearly effortless "music" into a hype machine thanks to a lot of grimmfog))), robes, and a little bit of starter hip-capital in the form of underground cache thanks to their other projects.
Like I said, it was interesting once. But much like seeing the World's Biggest Ball of Twine, there's really nothing going on to hold interest. Yeah, I got high and it was really, REALLY loud and really, really low. It was trance-like. Then I had to poop.
Even amusement park rides have more legs.
A funny sidebar: When I saw Sunn in Portland, a buddy and I were standing around, waiting for them to set up. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Total art-snob posturing bullshit. No way it takes this long. So he says, "Watch this", reaches behind one enormous stack and unplugs it. "They'll never notice."
Sure enough, they didn't.
SUNN O))
Posted: Thu Jun 08, 2006 10:29 am
by Cranius_Archive
On the weekend I tried to go and see Sunn O)) play at this exhibtion by an artist called Banks Violette. Violette had apparently cast all of the band's gear in salt, but when we got there they were only letting collectors in to see the show. It still sounded pretty awesome from outside, so we watched the building shake for about ten minutes before strolling off down to the pub.
"The show will be constructed around the way the gallery is divided - a performance downstairs, and a re-construction of that performance upstairs.
The performance will consist of Stephen O’Malley and his band sunnO))) playing on stages, with the focus involving a singer named Attila Csihar in a sealed coffin, on vocals throughout. This will be intended as a frustrated viewing experience for the audience - in some way to have the performance be something that the audience may not be allowed to view. At the end of the piece, the musical equipment is removed, leaving only the stage, backdrop, and a ruined coffin in the downstairs gallery.
In the upstairs space, every piece of equipment used for the performance will be recast in salt essentially, the upstairs will be a ghostly, elegiac reconstruction of the downstairs performed work - the only “evidence “or documentation of what the audience was blocked from seeing downstairs.
In addition, there will be a series of drawings that will be used in a later vinyl release of the performance, so even the drawings will be an imperfect record, as they’re ultimately intended as an “illustration", or rather something whose real life only exists as a reproduction.
In essence, the work and performance both combine to produce a series of oppositional/binary terms: black/white/, upstairs/downstairs, presence/absence, but those binaries revolve slowly around the central gesture of a performer “animating “a middle position at the heart of those contrasts."
This is the equipment, which was all returned to band in immaculate condition.
ArtForum write-up here
SUNN O))
Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 6:02 pm
by Christopher J McGarvey_Archive
SUNN O))
Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 6:21 pm
by Pasta_Archive
Christopher J. McGarvey wrote:Anyone else get this?
Yeah, don't know what to make of it though. What's yer feeling?
To be honest I've grown a little tired of O'Malley/Anderson since Black One. I still go see them, and have bought the most recent stuff, but It kinda feels, I dunno, done. I miss Khanate, and have most definitely been seeking out less "ARTY" forms of Metal (or as my buddy John says, Fuck that Sunn o))) shit it's hipster "Metal").
Still this project is NC. though I don't know if what they're doing now is essential like it was 6 years ago.
