Live Review: Sunn O))) - New Century Hall, Manchester
28th March 2023
Support: Jesse Sykes
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Bill Mawdsley
I mentioned to my Lady Wife that I had a spare ticket for tonight’s show and her response was: “Them wot sounds like th‘oover?” Now, Mrs B is from Chorley, and so a mistress of the pithy quip, but it started me thinking about the demographics of the audience for tonight’s show.
Looking around the New Century Hall – my first time at a new venue in Manchester is a rarity – I’m stuck with the broad characteristics of the attendees. There’re beardy Doom heads rubbing shoulders with man-bunned Hipsters; but there’re also a lot of folk close to pension age, others I’d be more expecting to see shushing people for reading too loudly in their library, and some who just appear to have walked in off the street out of the rain.
Books and covers and all that, I know, but Sunn O)))’s music is so extreme that one cannot help but wonder where some of the folks here tonight even heard them in the first place.
Support comes from the most unlikely source when considering the headliner, in the form of American singer-songwriter Jesse Sykes, abetted by Phil Wandscher and Bill Herzog, the three form a mostly acoustic trio, seated before a huge wall of speakers and conjuring moments of timeless psychedelic folk and gothic country rock. Although coming across as light and airy, Jesse’s music contains something of a hidden darkness. A torch-song with Pink Floyd undertones, an anachronistic folk tune with a mournful, haunting vocal, and, at times, even a 70s Occult Rock feel. It is only as Jesse’s set draws to a close that they key into the flavour of the evening and end their show with a droning crescendo.
I very much enjoyed Ms Sykes’ set and have bookmarked her as an artist to dig a bit deeper into.
This Shoshin (初心) Duo tour finds Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson returning to the roots of Sunn O))), as a duo, utilizing value amps and distorted spectral harmonics, as well as sheer uncompromising volume. If you need any proof of that, then the sound-check alone is evidence Sunn are not here to play nice.
Fog billows from the stage before any performer has stepped foot thereon. A solitary horn heralds the pair’s arrival and there’s a fevered anticipation for the striking of the first chord. When it does hit – and the whole fabric of the room vibrates – it marks the beginning of a ninety-minute voyage of self-realisation through the medium of sound.
At times it’s like standing too close to the Demon Core or the Elephant’s Foot at Chernobyl, as you can feel the frequency passing through the fabric of your body, altering every cell as it goes, changing the DNA forever.
Yet, for me, that’s what I take from Sunn whenever our paths cross. This is like no other gig you go to; it’s more a recital than a show, or a devotion, with O’Malley and Anderson acting as High Priests. Every time I’ve seen Sunn O))) in the flesh, it’s felt like being in a sensory deprivation tank, and being fed frequency at maximum volume.
The only illumination comes from three lamps at the back of the stage, oscillating slowly, used to cut thought the fog and create images as light and smoke come together. The fog spirals around the central light, cosmic debris creäting its own accretion disk; the uncompromising guitar tone produce sounds not heard natural since the formation of the universe, and should not be heard until it ends.
Some of the Drones are filled with light, but others are the opposite; dark and dense, almost to the point of becoming unbearable, giving the feeling that something this intense should not exist. Such is the weight of some of the Drones as the performance heads toward its coda, that you suspect the very fabric of Space-Time is being rent asunder. Forget about CERN, the main threat comes from two cloaked men with guitars.
Little I say here would change your opinion of Sunn O))): if you’re an acolyte and can put yourself into a meditative state, the drones become hypnotising and transcendental. If, like Mrs B, you think it sounds like someone vacuuming the carpet, then nothing I say will convince you otherwise.
It could be the Recency Effect, but I think tonight’s performance was the purest and most raw I’ve ever experienced from Sunn O))) in concert. And when it stopped it was like a being wrenched back into your body, the silence somehow more abrasive than the overwhelming volumes of the past hour and a half.
I’ve been banging this drum for a while and will continue to do so: Sunn O))) for Damnation, if you please.
Photo credits: Bill Mawdsley
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