SUNN 0)))
Barbican, London, Tues 21st March
Waiting near me outside the auditorium,
two vikings in black hoodies babbled away to one another in German.
Every so often one would say “Throbbing Gristle”, they'd then
drop back into German. Then, a minute or so later, one would say
“Throbbing Gristle” again. While a sign on the door above them
warned of impending “high level sound levels and dense haze”.
I figured I was in the right place.
This marked my second chance to see legendary drone metal band Sunn 0))), and while they inevitably don't have quite the same impact when not
filling a small seafront club with their sonic force, so powerful as
to be physical, they remain an unmissable live experience.
Vocalist Attila Csuhar opened the gig
with some liturgical chanting, which he'd then mix in with more
guttural tones - part-way to throat singing. This section did, if
truth be told, go on a bit. In fact a fairly sizeable segment of the
audience didn't show up until it was ending, presumably forewarned
and forearmed.
But as that was the gig's only weak
point, let's focus on another aspect. Despite the band's signature
uniform of monk habits and customary banks of dry ice, I don't think
the intent here is really sacrilegious – like the sonic equivalent
of an inverted crucifix. In fact it's nearer to... well
religious, those mixed-chant vocals more intended
to compare than contrast.
Despite the band having arisen from the
black metal scene, despite their almost fearsome reputation as the
heaviest of them all, their sound isn't really oppressive. Like a lot
of religious music, it's actually elevating. Rather than relying on
any kind of shock effect, it's involving and even contemplative. To
the point where even us non-religious types find it takes us out of
ourselves. It induces a kind of aum state without any of the dippy
New Age shit.
For one thing, they don't let that
heavy tag hold them down and are quite happy to break with
expectation. In a lengthy mid-section the wall-of-noise guitars walk
right offstage and a quite plaintive trombone starts up. And if sludge metal has already been made a genre, I suppose there's no reason why we
can't also have sludge jazz.
Also, and more importantly, there's a
solidity – a kind of one-ness - to their sound. It's pretty much
pitched at the point where black metal becomes drone. It's difficult
and at times impossible to pick out individual instruments. Even the
keyboards, which are sometimes prominent, play neither above or along
to the guitars – they more play along to the resonances between
them.
While heavy rock tends to be blues
music with added volume Sun 0))) seem unrooted in rock tradition. In
fact in the programme they complain of how once-normal listening
practices have been undermined in the past forty years, like a
near-half century is just a bump in the road. Most noticeable by it's
absence, with neither bass nor drums there's none of the release of
rock music, none of the sense that music's a means to let it all out.
In fact, despite their strong overlaps
with noise music, they demonstrate how rockist the noise scene can
be. They don't just dress like monks, they're as disciplined as them.
Though the singer stands to the front, neither he nor the others
gives off any impression of individual personality. Even when they
sup a beer on stage, a single bottle is passed between the lot of
them like a sacrament.
Founder member Stephen O’Malley has described their sound as “more raga than … rock. And despite the fact that the walls were
literally shaking from volume, it was actually quite a blissed out,
psychedelic session.” (Though speaking of a particular album.)
While in the programme Csihar compares it to “the music of the
plants, and that's why it's so slow and enormous”. Which seems
reminiscent of Andrew Marvell's old poem “My vegetable love should
grow/ Vaster than empires and more slow”.
Let's jump from Marvell to Elvis
Costello, who once sang “The truth can't hurt you, it's just like
the dark/ It scares you witless, then in time you see things clear
and stark”. He could have been thinking of Sunn 0))). There's a
kind of double trajectory afoot. What might originally hit the
listener as a sonic onslaught slowly transforms itself into something
serene, pummelling fists morphing into massaging hands.
Moreover,
from what I know of the earlier albums, that also fits the history of
the band - they were more abrasive and discordant at the beginning.
Which also fits the history of Earth, enough of an influence for Sunn 0))) to name themselves in a kind of
paralleling tribute. Or the way the doom metal of Sleep transformed into the trance of Om. To get to the light, it seems you need to go
through the dark tunnel.
And that half-transfer, half-dichotomy
is something you often see in art evoking the sublime. What first appears to you as an
overwhelming, pulverising force soon comes to feel like rejoining
where you really belong. Perhaps, were Turner alive today, he'd have
ditched his oils and joined a drone metal band.
SUN RA ARKESTRA
Con Club, Lewes, Wed 29th March
”They say history repeats
itself. But that's his story. My story doesn't repeat itself. Why
should it? My story is endless”
Last time I was at this venue, to see
Jah Wobble, I was committing myself to print in saying I am no fan of jazz. So what do I do but head back for what's unambiguously a jazz gig?
But then of course this is no regular
gig. It's not a matter of public record how Herman Poole Blount's
parents reacted when he told them he'd teleported to Saturn to
commune with the spirits there, and been told to devote himself to
music as a means to solve the problems of the Earth. They most
probably thought it was an elaborate excuse to drop out of college,
which was the first thing he was insisting on doing. But he went
through with it, changing his name to Sun Ra in the process, and
throughout his life stuck to that story and to his guns. (His
discography is this big.) He was more or less to jazz what Lee Perry was to reggae, where there's no point trying to
separate what was genius from what was lunacy.
And if Sun Ra himself ceased having
even a tangential connection to this Earth back in '93, the Arkestra
continues under the direction of Marshall Allan. (Who is himself 92,
having played with the Arkestra for 57 years.) After two successive
sell-outs, they ended up playing a three-night residency, of which I
caught the middle event. Living up to their “my story is endless”
promise they played for over two and a half hours, a completely
different set from the first night, and cheerily announced at the end
the third night would be something different again.
Those freak free impro days now seem
done and dusted, with band members even sporting music stands. The
set most matched Wikipedia's' Philadelphia period, a kind of cosmic jazz to match the
cosmic soul of the times. (The era the classic 'Space is the
Place' album came from.)
And in fact the downside of the gig
wasn't it falling into indigestible squonk but becoming tasteful
enough to have safely ported onto an episode of Jools Holland. There
were, I confess, points where it lost my interest.
But the highlights were... well,
befitting Sun Ra's cosmic aspirations I'd have to say higher than sky
high. Despite their daunting reputation, the Arkestra have a strong
melodic sense and the ability to form into a powerful rhythm section.
For a jazz band, they sure are funky! The brass in particular seemed
able to play along with the line, then each instrument find a way to
veer off into it's own thing while still holding that line aloft.
(And to think I once found Led Zeppelin tight but loose!)
The best tracks, for me at least,
started off with a vocal – somewhere between a repeated spoken
phrase and a chant. These were often cosmic aphorisms which would
probably seem platitudinously New Agey out of context, but in context
were like a foot sliding into a slipper. (And besides, the one quoted
up top does have it's appeal.) The ensemble would then work around
them, in a manner not entirely unlike Steve Reich's penchant for
finding music phrases in the cadences of the spoken word.
Perhaps the main thing is convey is
that it's not chin-stroking music to chew on, it's joyous, exuberant
and energising. If it doesn't quite teleport you to Saturn you can
almost feel your feet lifting from the ground. Space really is
the place.
This was from the first night...
And after seeing Sunn 0))) and Sun Ra, of course I then went to see Sun Kil Moon again. No, actually it was...
YAMATO: THE DRUMMERS OF JAPAN
Brighton Dome, Thurs 30th March
After seeing the Kodo drummers some three years ago, I am it seems becoming something
of a regular for Japanese drum ensembles at the Dome. Perhaps
unsurprisingly, there were many similarities between the two, above
all the same combination of absolute discipline and unleashed frenzy.
And it demonstrates what a timbral range can exist just from
different varieties of drum.
But Kodo's art had been very much a
martial one. You could imagine them arising as one at six AM on their
South Pacific island, and starting their morning practice by twenty
past. They were intent on what they were doing, single-minded to the
point of being cult-like.
Yamato are much more showbizzy,
sporting bright costumes over uniform black vests. There's stage
antics, visual gags, acrobatic playing, ample audience participation
and even individual personalities emerging from the players. At times
it did become so circusy I half expected a guy with a moustache to
come on, and hold a chair up to a mangy old lion.
But we're probably best taking that as
description rather than criticism. Being structured unashamedly like
a show gives things an ever-relentless dynamic. They barely stopped
even for applause. Perhaps they had less musicality than Kodo, but
they so successfully keep you watching you don't particularly notice
at the time.
My favourite moment was when the
drummers were joined by the Japanese banjo. (Which probably has some
special name, which probably isn't “the Japanese banjo”.) It was
an unusual pairing, which they were really able to make work.
This TV appearance is from some while
back, but gives a good flavour for what they do...
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