Tag Archives: southern lord

HAIRY MONSTERS & SUNNO))) CREEPS

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HALLOWEEN….IT’S TIME

Deathly greetings all, how’s your horror-themed listening going . . . what’s that? Not got started? I feel your unfeeling zombie pain, my friend. It’s those pesky midweek Halloweens, isn’t it? Tuesday, my arse.  

What we need is a perky goth-metal pick-me-up and that’s exactly what’s lined up

in a blog somewhere that actually knows what it’s doing.

In other words, not here. We’ll be gearing up for halloweenery high jinks with joyless, beatless bleakness.

Sorry. It’s SUNN O))).

SUNN O))) – A Shaving of the Horn that Speared You

Dare you to sit on your own at night and listen to this from start to end. Not as background, not in daylight, not while cooking or doom scrolling, none of that. Just you. And this. For 15 and a half minutes.

[note: the White1 CD booklet lies. It lists the track as 15’ 36” but in reality it crawls past that marker for two more whole minutes which, in SUNN O))) world, feels like three weeks.] 

White1 is the album where SUNN O))) went prog, I guess. It’s avant drone metal gone batshit crazy with a wild collection of (very occasional) beats, guest voices, swathes of un-monolithic ambience and – wash your eyes, drone fiends – teeny fragments of clean guitar. 

Being an avid Julian Cope fan, I first heard of SUNN O))) through his Head Heritage site where he’d wax hyper lyrical about them alongside Sleep, Khanate, Comets on Fire and too many other freakouts to count, convincing my clueless but curious self to pursue some of these subterranean sonic explorations. So, when White1 came out, it was the no-brainer SUNN O))) entry point, mostly because Cope himself was on it. The Drude was the safety net. 

That track, My Wall, is a stupendous 20-minute tidal surge of low frequency fog ‘n drift that begins the album. Cope’s lengthy ode takes in Romans, Saxons, Vikings, Thor, Death, Ragnarok and more on his poetic voyage, and even SUNN O))) themselves (‘Play your gloom axe Stephen O’ Malley…sub bass clinging to the side of the valley’) get namechecked as Cope sermonises over death-knell riffs and tremorbass vibrations. ‘tis a magnificent gloomer and a genuine Halloween playlister.

But we’re not really here to talk about My Wall (much). Nor are we swinging on the offset hinges of The Gates of Ballard.  

No, this Halloween we’re hanging with SUNN O)))’s biggest sonic experiment to date at that point: White1’s closing track, A Shaving of the Horn that Speared You. 

Spooked the shite out of me on first play.

Admittedly, in hindsight, the conditions were possibly less than ideal. At the tail end of a monster Sunday hangover, it did seem like a good idea to check this brand new album in the end-of-weekend deadzone. So, lying on the floor of a basement bedsit in Hammersmith, headache fading, White1 went on and My Wall lulled.

Fell asleep.

Woke up in panic to deathly exhales, forlorn chimes and backwards, fuck-knows-what effects, terrified because it was all too horribly unsettling and disorienting. That was this, A Shaving of the Horn. It has haunted me ever since. 

Sure, heard in full consciousness and/or daylight, it’s not that extreme. In fact, it’s not extreme at all, especially two decades of drone-and-noise exposure later, but there lies
SUNN O)))’s grasp of atmosphere and future vision. The trademark oppression-by-force is gone. There is no feedback, riff or gloom axe. Instead there’s texture, intense space and undead vocalisms with vibrations that hum and swell. Fragments of orthodoxy – like a clean guitar strike – evade your touch as they warp and dissolve. It’s like you’ve been knocked unconscious and abducted, only to come round in some massive, living slow-breathing tomb while people outside ‘fix’ things.   

Groaning and oozing. Death breaths. Things that should be inanimate but aren’t. This is what the track conjures. No climax, no payoff, no sudden death ending, nothing but a slo-mo creep masterclass. Dance to THAT, Tuesday Halloweeners.

PREDICTABLE FALSE ENDING ALERT

We need at least one gasp of light relief after all that nightmare psychedelia, so how about sticking this on your playlist? Old-school wormhole guaranteed to follow.

BLACK SABBATH – The Shining

Think ‘80s Sabbath’ and you might think Dio. Fair enough, but that was all over by 1982. Really, it’s the Tony Martin years that best define Sabbath metal in the 80s and The Shining has it all: killer riff, soaring vocal hook, nailed-to-1987 keyboards and posturing videos with dry ice and windswept women with birds. Lots of Tony crosses too. Extra points here for Martin’s un-Sabbath fashion sense … but then again, all of Sabbath was un-Sabbath by this point. Rocking tune, ripe for a Halloween replay. Rise up!  

Need another scorching cold Halloween selection? Check this Type O Negative goth downer

SLEEP: Dopesmoker

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THE RETURN OF SLEEP

Southern Lord’s physical release of The Clarity marks the start of some proper Sleep activity this year, so what better prep for rock’s heaviest slumber than a nod or ten to the unstoppable Dopesmoker? This review was first written for Julian Cope’s Head Heritage Unsung back in 2004 so the time references are a bit out now, but that don’t matter … it still stands true, the bong remains the same.

*****

Now spreading its hefty gut over 3 sides of vinyl is the fully restored, who-ate-all-the-pies mix of Dopesmoker, the last album by cult doom/stoner trio Sleep.

Although the tale of its original recording and subsequent non-release has long since passed into underground lore, it deserves a hazy recap.

As the follow-up to Sleep’s Holy Mountain from 1993, this was supposed to be the band’s third full-length release. After spending a couple of years on the record, Sleep eventually dished up the mouldy fruits of their hard-smoked labours to London Records: a single track clocking in at over an hour. That, in itself, might not have been a problem (for the label) had their been some light and shade, some variety or even, dare we say it, a recognisable concept… but no. This is Sleep – the really deep, molten-eyelids stuff that’s just a stoner’s throw from Coma Tose Island. And that means one riff (pretty much) equals one song equals one hour, the simplest equation in the history of rock. Didn’t add up for the label, though. They refused to release it, Sleep refused to change it and a deadlock ensued; the threesome split and the album remained on the shelf, cementing Sleep’s legendary status. Rise Above did manage to put out a shortened version called Jerusalem but, finally, in 2003, Tee Pee Records did the honours. Here’s what the sleeve notes say:

“Dopesmoker is an alternate version of Jersualem that we felt our fans might enjoy. This early version, as yet unheard, contains a more dynamic recording and a heavier mix. So get high, crank it up and listen with open ears and mind…”

Sleep's Dopesmoker

Dopesmoker uncut

So… let’s get started, eh?

Well, nearly. Dopesmoker almost doesn’t start at all. Beginning with a slow, arthritic guitar line that just about musters the energy to lumber out of bed, it sounds a wee bit lost, trying to work out where it should go and which path to follow. Once the rolling percussion kicks in, however, a massive revelation comes to pass: “Fuck it. I AM the path.” And from thereon, there are no questions – you go with it, or you don’t: The Riff has been set free, swaggering ahead with all the ludicrous brilliance of a hundred-mile tractor ride, and that is what sucks you into the vinyl… the compelling absurdity of an hour-long opus that warps the fabric of time itself. Never mind Superman flying the opposite way around the planet – too many rotations of this platter and the world would stop for good. Aside from the occasional solo, lyrical interlude or brief excursion into more subtle terrain, Dopesmoker just keeps going… and going …and going. Not in an interminable, ultra doom slo-mo sense because Chris Hakius’ busy drum fills give it urgency, or at least the illusion of urgency. Nope, this obstinate mass of Sabbath-inspired heaviosity is an exercise in endurance, momentum and constancy. Even when the needle nears the very end of its marathon run, there is no cornball climax or pyrotechnic finale, just a soft fadeout which suggests the Sleep guys could have carried on for another couple of earthly rotations. In fact, they probably did. I like to think so.

But there’s more to this album than one gargantuan ode to weed. Closing the record on side four is Sonic Titan, a live track with a groove so loose it almost shits itself, guitar strings flapping like flares in a force 10. Doom garage, anyone? At 9 minutes, it’s a mere slip of a toon.

Stubborn? Stupendous? Absolutely, but the sublimely ridiculous never went down this well. If thick guitars, repetition and maximum mileage are your bag, succumb to the temptation of Sleep. Your body needs it.

Greg AndersonO))) on 6 Music

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After watching Bowie’s Last Five Years documentary on Saturday night, what could lift the late-night mood a notch above a re-opened Low?

Ermmm….death metal and midnight hardcore curated by a robed dronehead? Well, that was the tonic for anyone who fell into Stuart Maconie’s Freakier Zone Saturday night, aka zero-hundred hours SunnO)))day morning, because the Southern Lord Greg Anderson pulled together an hour’s mandatory cross-genre listening, much like his grimm-brother Stephen O’Malley did a year or so back on a Freakzone sit-in.

Tune in and you too can laugh along with Mortician, get blasted by Bolzer’s epic death metal and then feel the brutal burn of Anderson’s re-connector with the underground, His Hero is Gone – OMG (band) rage, for sure – though as you’d expect, it’s not all hardcore death mongery in these here 60 minutes: Erik B and Rakim, Ice Cube, John Carpenter and Big | Brave all figure as well.

As do Asschapel (what????)

Anyway, CHECK THE GREG ANDERSON HOUR RIGHT NOW before it effs off forever. ’tis time very well spended.

And if you need further on-air lo-frequency shake action, bugger me if the stupendous Sunn O)) & Boris collaboration ain’t the featured album on the Sunday night F-zone – worship at THAT Altar, ‘specially the disintegration tremor-fest that is Etna. H-u-g-e. Elsewhere in the same ‘zone there’s Wayne Coyne, Godspeed, Miles and long-form Floyd (Embryo, BBC session version)…. not a bad Sunday, right?