Sunn O))) - Vinyle Rouge

Description

For nearly 30 years, sunn O))) – Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson – have been pushing the boundaries of heavy music, straddling the avant-garde and rock, to forge an instantly recognizable style. Today, sunn O))) return with their first album since 2019's critically acclaimed Pyroclasts. This new self-titled album, their tenth, marks their debut on the Sub Pop label, and demonstrates the duo's talent for manipulating time and space, light and darkness, as well as their desire to evolve their unique sound into bold new forms. The self-titled album, sunn O))), was recorded at Bear Creek Studios in Woodinville, Washington, with Brad Wood (HuM, Tar, Sunny Day Real Estate, Liz Phair). This location proved crucial to the recording process. "The vast recording room had large windows looking out onto trees," says O'Malley. "We could hike and walk in the woods, spend time outdoors. That became an important part of our work." sunn O))) has long welcomed collaborators into its autonomous universe (Attila Csihar, Steve Moore, Mark Deutrom (Silkworm), Tim Midyett, and Scott Walker). However, for this album O'Malley and Anderson explore the still fertile and primitive territory of their duo. "On this album, for the first time, all instruments were played by Greg and me," O'Malley explains. Anderson adds: "What has happened over the last couple of years, with us performing as a duo, without other collaborators or musicians, has been really new and exciting. There's been a lot of evolution. A lot of it was unexpected. And a lot of things that happened in the studio were really exciting and different from what we were playing live." The six compositions on sunn O))) are vast and panoramic, yet finely detailed, reflecting the sylvan setting in which they were recorded. Throughout the album, the interaction between O'Malley and Anderson reaches new heights of telepathic intensity, as they craft music that itself breathes the invigorating, earthy air of the Pacific Northwest. sunn O))) is no stranger to striking album covers, and for SUNN O))), they obtained permission from the estate of the late American artist Mark Rothko to reproduce two of his paintings on the album's cover. "It's a huge honor to be in touch with artworks of such magnitude," O'Malley tells us. "In front of a Rothko painting, one can discover landscapes, worlds, and environments subjectively, in abstraction." The album's liner notes are written by award-winning British writer Robert Macfarlane, famous for his works on landscape and the multifaceted relationship between humanity and nature.