SUNNO))) - Monoliths & Dimensions
May 30 2009 at 09:31:38 AM  Cry me a river… The most overwrought, over-hyped, and over-protected release of the year continues to leave the kids and critics breathless, an excessive lot rendered dopey and stoned with the caked-on makeup of a servile birthday party clown. Astounded rubes feign amazement over Sunn’s “latest turn” to modern comp and Jazz! But the core duo always wore influence on its torso; “The Lord” showing his appreciation for Miles in more than a few photo snaps. Little surprise Monoliths & Dimensions cements the association with its first track, “Agharta,” referencing Miles’ 1975 live recording of the same name. Of course it sounds nothing like Miles’ whoa, fuck psych-funk. Instead we are given the overly-familiar low-end guitar groan eventually augmented by Attila Csihar’s Bela Lugosi on Quaaludes bit. Sloshing water and screeching strings offset the endless recitation, but never elevate Csihar’s delivery past embarrassing memories of someone’s Slavic granddad drunk on cheap schnapps and Natural Light. The guitars may as well have been culled from the can. They are strangely unspectacular, lending even more artificiality to a piece already too top-heavy with ambition. The most immediate analogue here is Gastr del Sol’s 1996 masterwork, Upgrade & Afterlife, a sprawling, macrocosmic document fusing musique-concrete and a wandering but mathy take on dusty Americana. Swiss born artist Roman Singer lent quirk and circumstance for the cover art; Sunn takes notice and counters with a blot from a giant ink dick courtesy of Richard Serra. The difference here, of course, is O’Rourke, Grubbs, and McIntire are/were music academics. Modern comp wasn’t a dabble; it was a discipline. As a result, the music is stoically cohesive. The delivery is natural, assured – practically organic. Competing sounds don’t come off as ham-fisted mash ups; they mesh fantastically and are pushed to extraordinary ends in several guises (See/hear “Our Exquisite Replica of Eternity” for one of the strongest pieces of modern music in the past 20 years. Honest Injun.). Sure, Sunn tries valiantly. They cut-‘n’-paste freely from their play-lists. Penderecki, Ligeti, Pärt, Earth, a ponderous entirety of the ECM output. Guitars are laid over angelic pomo vox like titanic train tracks. A single bell bongs, its decay erased. Overtly un-swinging brass walks the thin line of learned and bored indifference. Hmm, what to do? Well, praise it. It’s confounding. It’s different. Like Miles’ more unruly work, it’s stuff – albeit incessantly boring – made only possible with a troop of professional musicians. An interesting and valid comparison would be Stuart Dahlquist’s Asva, which uses so little to create so much more. But that would be missing the point. Dahlquist’s music IS modern composition; it doesn’t have to masquerade; it doesn’t have to preen and stoop to snooty marketing strategy to simulate “greatness.” Sunn, which began quietly as an Earth cover band, began to quickly buy – lock, stock, barrel – every tangential reference rolled out slavishly from critics, fans, other (lesser) bands. Suddenly the two-chord wonders were cut from the same psychedelic cloth as LaMonte Young. They were electric, white-boy raja; they were a Satanic symphony of improvisers playing the music of tomorrow today. Yada, yada, motherfuckin’ yada. Well, maybe they are. The kids certainly think they are. But then again, they haven’t bothered to listen to any of the stuff Sunn shamelessly apes. And even if they did, they’d construct a bogus apologia in a millisecond saying everything copies everything and who the hell are you to judge? Oh, I’ll never take the medicine. You can have your American Apparel hooded heroes. I’ve always liked my Jazz played by Negroes anyways. [Stewart Voegtlin] 
type: reviews
keywords:
doom,
drone,
lhp026,
jazz,
honky,
fanboys,
scott conner's purse,
c.v.,
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I usually respectfully disagree with your critiques and assessments, but boy, did you ever hit the nail on the head with this one. I feel like I have been raped for $15 and the level of praise being heaped on this record by the "independent" metal media makes me wonder if I can ever trust anything they say again. Thanks for keeping it real.
However, I will reserve comment on how well it works (or doesn't work) in light of claimed jazz influences (Alice Coltrane, John Coltrane, Brtzmann, Davis, et al.), as I catch myself nodding off at the thought of listening to any of said influences for more than one minute. I've always liked my jazz played by no one.
I don't undestand why anyone would say this recording is "devastating" or "disorienting;" I'm painfully aware of listening to painfully self-aware music while I'm listening to it.
I genuinely enjoy Grimmrobe and the piece "Richard," but really, wasn't Sunn taken to its logical end after the first recording? For them to carry on, they had to enlist other folks to help them "create." That's not art, that's parasitism.
Which is similar to my listening habits. I must listen to music a number of times before I feel like I really begin to understand what the artist is doing. So far, Ive only found time for three spins of this new Sunn O))) disc, and Ive been very impressed. Ive been a huge fan of previous works, especially Black One. That is the album that got me into both drone and black metal. So, Im a neophyte of both genres. Hello Melvins, Darkthrone, Earth, Mayhem, Boris, Burzum, Dethspell Omega, Leviathan, Gorgoroth, Drudkh, Electric Wizard, Khanate etc. I never would have met you w/o Black One. So, excuse me if I put that album (as well as the band) on a pedestal. This new one doesnt eclipse Black One. I doubt it ever will. But so far, its been okay. What you say about the guitars, though, may just be spot on. So far, they havent been nearly as spectacular as past efforts. They seem to lack higher frequencies making them a bit blander than Im used to. I do like the optimistic resolve of the album. Who saw that coming? Its great what ASVA is able to achieve, but does that mean that Sunn O))) need to do it like ASVA? I think its in the tradition of Jazz to invite a bunch of professional musicians to operate under the direction of the band leader(s). I imagine OMalley quietly presiding over the sessions by giving the pros hes hired license to experiment with their instruments as he and Anderson provide the drone, then, deftly making the decisions about what makes it on record.
Ive always liked my Jazz played by Negroes anyways. What a wonderfully appropriate statement. This reflects the purist in us all. The desire to have been the first fan of the originators of a style. You cite three composers/conductors as musicians that Sunn O))) apes. Im only familiar with Ligetis 2001 theme. Im sure the other two have something to do with minimalism. You also cite the obvious one, Earth. Im so glad that you were able to distill Sunn O)))s influences for me. Now, I can be a kid who does bother to listen to the influences. Speaking of that, how much time is a music lover expected to devote to delving into the influences, anyway? Ive never really been into the zeitgeist but I do notice new music. However, most of my music listening time is devoted to digging up the classics. But for every classic I find, Im compelled to go even further back. I can understand the appeal of listening to the forging of old ideas with new executions w/o having to dig up the past. Its easy. Its immediate. Its&better produced. In the case of Sunn O))), its fucking loud! It fucking rumbles in your bones. Its Ligeti gone metal!
Now, you are right, the kids are going to construct a bogus apologia in a millisecond saying everything copies everything and who the hell are you to judge? So what? Your predictions do not make you any more correct about the quality of Sunn O))).
Thanks for referencing Gastr del Sol. The samples I heard on Amazon were fascinating. Ill have to check them out. However, I must take issue with your obvious analogue. I cant comment on the musical comparisons, but your cover art comparisons are complete bull. Maybe you can do a better job of explaining how those two covers are related in any way? Are you suggesting that because the music is a response to, and the album titles are a response to (they arent, well, they do both have an ampersand) than the art must be as well? That may be true, but you havent presented any reasoning here. What am I missing? Anyway, you are right that the cover isnt all that great.
So, please keep pissing me off. A true snob needs to be pissed off...
Happy to enjoy a drink with you....
ex.person
The Southern Lord people use gimmicks. It's true. Some of them stick in my craw and some are charming. The gimmick of the coffin was billed as contributing to a suffocating effect in the recording. I don't know that it worked, but it certainly didn't hurt the recording. Malefic has a pretty chilling delivery as it is (now, if he would stop making the same fucking music over-and-over). Speaking of gimmicks. The three bands you mentioned could be accused of employing gimmicks. Corpse paint? Leather and spikes? Animal carcasses? Aryan posturing? Church burning? Murder? We like to think we know that these things weren't gimmicks, but the thrill of detecting how genuine the bands were in these actions, at least partially, attracted us to them. Euronymous always sounded very sincere that only a few people deserved to hear their music. Even if he was very sincere, those who distributed the story and their music successfully used their extreme attitudes and actions as a way to attract customers. By the time it reached us, it had been turned into a gimmick. If Euronymous is to be taken seriously, and his music was supposed to be extremely insular, than you cannot listen to it w/o taking part in that gimmick. We are nothing more than interlopers. So, unless you can really say that you were there from the beginning, I suggest you avoid the gimmick that is Black Metal.
Look again. This first sentence was to you. The rest of it was to ex.person. Easy mistake.
All play into a band's image and mystique, and help garner attention, but it's not like Varg actually used that fuckin mace when recording "Feeble screams..."
"By the time it reached us, it had been turned into a gimmick. If Euronymous is to be taken seriously, and his music was supposed to be extremely insular, than you cannot listen to it w/o taking part in that gimmick."
I'll listen to music however I want, thanks. And I think it unwise to evaluate a work based solely on the maker's intentions. You can reason, "so-and-so is trying to do this, does he succeed? to what extent?" But you shouldn't need an instructions guide, or a one-sheet filling in every detail about what novel technique or equipment was used or wow, they got this name to play on the record, neat! Does it stand on its own, does it show or spell out everything for consumption? This is also important.
- voegtlin
why?
"Oh, that's a woefully stilted representation of the genre! You hack." Etc.
The crime perpetuated by the louder/bigger noise guys and by the SUNN0))) crowd has been proving that by talking your way out of any number of half-assed presentations they all magically become lofty artforms in the eyes of people who don't have the mental wherewithal to know better.
James, the bit about CRUDO))) is well-said. Carrot juice, all around.
Some gimmicks are more obvious than others. Where one draws the line on tolerating those gimmicks is completely up to the music lover, and that's cool. You want to hate Sunn O))) because they tried some ancillary (allegedly) artistic expression. Great. Do that. I just think you need to realize that the music you love and defend is IN NO WAY GIMMICK FREE. May I suggest you take a look at the gimmick spectrum , determine where your favorite bands lie upon it (because they most definitely do) and decide where you draw the line. Then, look at the quality spectrum and discover that the two spectrums can be mutually exclusive if you stop being so friggin uptight.
I'd rather you hate them for the music they produce, which is still their focus. The problem with this discussion is that it has focused far too much on gimmicks rather than the quality of the music itself&
1) The quality of writing on this website is gobsmackingly bad. I didn't think such inarticulacy was possible. And:
2)To slam M&D then fawn over Stephen O'Malley in an interview is fucking tragic. It's all about content, eh?
1) i disagree, so to each their own.
2) what's wrong with disliking an album yet enjoying an artist? Stew has great admiration Khanate and Burning Witch and even past SUNN albums. not that he needs any defending, but...