Album of the day: Sunn 0))) – The GrimmRobe Demos (Southern Lord 2005)

(From our archives): When it came to ambient drone soundscapes, Dylan Carlson was a visionary. His seminal recordings with Earth blazed a new trail through the wilderness of possibility for distorted electric guitar. The drone-riff spectacular, Extra-Capsular Extraction was treated as a novelty by many listeners -- especially since it came out on Sub Pop records at the beginning of the grunge boom.

The next Earth release 2 showed everyone that not only wasn’t Carlson joking, he was going to go even further. So it was that distorted guitar and bass left behind drums and forged ahead into a realm of drone soundscapes.

While he may have been derailed by pernicious drug addictions, Dylan Carlson made a mark among lovers of dark distorted electric guitar. Among those who he influenced were Greg Anderson of Goatsnake, G. Stuart Dahlquist and Steven O’Malley (both of Burning Witch). Anderson’s love of Earth resulted in his side project called Sunn O))). A beautiful name -- one that is both an homage to his amplification system of choice and the name of a celestial body that is closely related to earth. Also Sunn O))) is an interesting choice because of its superiority to earth as the center of the solar system and point of rotation. I doubt that it was intentional on the band’s part to be superior to Earth, but it ends up being accurate.

Sunn O))) delivers three loooooooong dronal dirges featuring guitars, bass and NO percussion. None whatsoever. Bleak and dark, but still haunting and beautiful, Sunn O))) emits low frequency distorted soundwaves that far surpass any previous efforts in this field. Riffs are played so slowly that entire lives can lived in between the changes. Edgily beautiful harmonic feedback is controlled and sustained to create new listening experiences. Crushing chord progressions unfold over what seems like hours. Sunn O))) slowly consumes your attention, as well as everything else in its path.

The final song ‘Dylan Carlson’ is the ultimate tribute to the founding father of the genre. It takes his ideas and enhances them, through technology and craftmanship, to the stunning peak (depth?) that is The GrimmRobe Demos.
Drew Webster

(Please click here for the on demand audio stream of Sunn 0))) live at Roadburn 2007)

Tags: album of the day, doom, drone, greg anderson, southern lord, stephen o malley, sunn 0)))

This entry was posted on Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 5:45 am and is filed under Roadburn Recommended, Roadburn Records . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.