Norway’s Ulver are legendary conceptual artists who’ve exaggerated and blurred the lines between every musical form they’ve been enveloped. In larval form they torqued the genre of black metal with folk, jazz, minimalism and soundscape offering this generally conservative design liberties it was once afraid to embrace.

After completing their initial conceptual trilogy, Ulver have astounded all who have experienced their current material with elegance, intelligence and multiplicity. Retaining elements of their past, they now manipulate and extend the possibilities with a comprehensive understanding of the developing aural technologies.

Ulver appeared live in concert for the first time in 15 years at the Norwegian Festival of Literature in May. Norwegian media described the show “as something more than music, an artistic experience and a historical event.”

Now Ulver will appear live for the first time in the Netherlands.

Void Ov Voices, the new project from iconic Mayhem  frontman Attila Csihar based only on his processed voice, will be supporting Ulver.

Performing since 1986 when he co-founded cult-metal band Tormentor, Attila is best known for his contribution to Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas album in 1993, a milestone for the black metal genre. Csihar is, or has been, a member of various groups such as Plasma, Pool, Aborym, and Korog. He has also done guest vocals (and toured) with SUNN O))), Burian Chamber Trio and Grave Temple.

Sunn 0))) live in New York

With two musicians at its core — Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson — the band has rotating others in studio and onstage; its current tour includes Mr. Moore, of Earth, on keyboards and trombone, and the Hungarian singer Attila Csihar, once of the black-metal band Mayhem. To a crowd twice the size of any it has had in New York (sold out, at 1,100), Sunn O))) performed three-quarters of its new album, “Monoliths & Dimensions” (Southern Lord). The music was mostly unbroken, with some improvisations along the way, and finally too much of Mr. Csihar’s singing, mostly in Hungarian.

Continue reading: Music Review – Sunn O))) – Two Bands, a Million Decibels – NYTimes.com.

Judging by the consistent criticism that Sunn O)))’s metal-based drone experimentation suffers– that is, it’s boring, self-serious, humorless, and mean– perhaps one wouldn’t expect Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley to be cruising around Manhattan, tossing around Sarah Palin-as-MILF jokes, and listening to voice mails from Jim Jarmusch.

Maybe you wouldn’t expect Anderson, who’s also the entrepreneur behind Southern Lord Records, to crowdsurf, either. Or for O’Malley, a prolific improviser and composer who’s generally busy with seven projects at once, to empty bottles of wine on crowds of kids in the front row.

Sunn 0))) - Supersonic 2009

Pitchfork: So you crowdsurfed at the Knitting Factory, Greg.

Greg Anderson: Totally inspired by Atsuo Mizuno from Boris. I had a great time. New York is always a great show, and part of it has to do with the fact that I feel a lot of stress here. It’s a challenge. Finding a parking space, just everything. I feel really lucky. The shows have gone really well. It’s a payoff. The reason the shows did well is because we overcame these challenges.

Continue reading: Pitchfork: Interviews: Sunn O))).

I feel Sunn O))) before I see them. It’s five minutes before 6 p.m., and I’m standing on the corner of Broadway and Westport in Kansas City, preparing for a conversation with the band’s guitarist, Stephen O’Malley, when I notice a sound that makes me think a dump truck has dropped a transmission onto the pavement behind me.  I look up from my trusty black notebook and locate the sound. It’s coming from the side door at the Riot Room, where Sunn O))) — pronounced simply “Sun” — will be playing in a few hours.

Sunn 0)))

I cautiously sidle up to the door for my appointment with O’Malley, hoping to make my presence apparent without interrupting the jackhammer-like guitar work that is going on inside the building. A few minutes later, the music stops and a medium-sized man with shoulder length hair and a well-kept beard emerges from the smoke that has wafted under the door. I’ve warned him that I’m tall, so he knows it’s me.

Continue reading: Druids, drone metal are just part of experiencing a Sunn O))) show – ESPN.

Sunn 0))) - The GrimmRobe Demos

(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)

Rose Kemp - Supersonic '09

We’re going to attend Birmingham’s very own Supersonic Festival in July: “As British music festivals go, Birmingham’s annual Supersonic event is the best kind of mixed musical bag, a dizzying assortment of avant rock textures and Heavy Metal thunder on a bill which swings from the sublime to the ridiculous without once seeming ostentatiously eclectic” –The Wire.

Capsule the brains behind Supersonic Festival are curators, promoters and fans of the finest music, revealing the otherwise indescribable connections between contemporary music and art, crafting extraordinary events for adventurous audiences. Now in it’s 7th year, the event will once again take place at the Custard Factory in the heart of Digbeth utilising a number of spaces for music, art, film and cake.

“We are thrilled at what is shaping up to be our best line up yet, with unique performances from such influential artists as Italian legends, GOBLIN,  their first show in the UK in 20 years, the reformation of the original line up of HEAD OF DAVID, who bring their driving bombast to proceedings for the first time in 23 years, the notorious Japanese band CORRUPTED who have yet to play on UK soil as well the reawakening of Greg Anderson & Stephen O’Malley of Sunn 0))) maiden voyage into darkeness: the cult  black doom act THORR’S HAMMER.”

“Not to mention splatter rock band THE ACCUSED, unruly trio MONOTONIX, the expansive drone-noise of GROWING; Brighton’s prog adventure, DIAGONAL; the wild avant futuristic jazz of ZU; the stoned pysch of EARTHLESS, the Virginian sludge rock of PONTIAK, the industrial experiments of 65 DAYS OF STATIC, the immense duo that is FLOWER/CORSANO DUO, occult noise act SKULLFLOWER, also joining the line up is SCORN aka Mick Harris (king of the blast beat)  and the new project combining Russell McEwan of Black Sun &  the electronic-vocal attack of Lea Cummings (Kylie Minoise) in the form of ATOMIZED, added to this are the power violence duo IRON LUNG and one of the finest folk vocalists NANCY WALLACE will be featured in the line-up, once again highlighting the highly eclectic booking policy of the festival.”

Tickets for Supersonic 2009 are on sale NOW.