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‘BAGPIPES WERE THE FIRST PLACE I STARTED HEARING DRONE INTONATION’ Hitlist THE BEST ROCK, POP, JAZZ & FOLK*
✽✽ Lau Fresh from a tour in Tokyo, this trio on acoustic instruments show us just how far the ‘traditional’ envelope can be pushed. Be warned if you’re religious about the genre though, they can push it pretty darn far. Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Sat 5 Dec. (Folk) ✽✽ Sunn O))) See preview, left. Stereo, Glasgow, Sun 6 Dec. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ Modest Mouse Friends in high places, this lot. Johnny Marr played guitar on the last album, Seasick Steve recorded their first single and Heath Ledger directed a video. They’ve also sold a bucketload of albums, with gold and platinum discs to prove it. Come see what the fuss is about. ABC, Glasgow, Thu 10 Dec. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ RSNO: Big Band Christmas Party Exactly what it says on the tin: it’s big, there’s a band (who are pretty big too, actually), it’s at Christmas, it’s a party. What more could you possibly ask for? Royal Concert Hall, 2 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, Thu 17 Dec. (Jazz) ✽✽ eagleowl Launch night for beautifully-crafted 7” single ‘Sleep The Winter’, (pictured) with early arrival recommended so you can check out the very special guests: a Withered Hand solo set and Jill O’Sullivan of Sparrow And The Workshop. The Bowery, Edinburgh, Fri 11 Dec; The 13th Note, Glasgow, Mon 14 Dec. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ Depeche Mode Fast- approaching the 30-years-in- business mark, god-like geniuses Dave Gahan, Martin Gore and Andrew Fletcher are in town showing the young folks how it’s done (and probably inspiring another million new bands to start). See Five Reasons, page 71. SECC, Glasgow, Sat 12 Dec. (Rock & Pop) 3–17 Dec 2009 THE LIST 65
Drone out
Seattle’s doom and drone merchants, Sunn 0))), chat with Stewart Smith before bringing their beautiful black cloud of sound to Glasgow
When doom lords Sunn O))) played the basement of Glasgow’s Oran Mor in 2004, the sub-bass vibrations shook the lights out of their sockets in the restaurant above. ‘I remember that one clearly,’ says Stephen O’Malley, core member, alongside Greg Anderson, of the experimental metal titans. A Sunn O))) gig is an intense experience, with the band dressed in trademark grim robes, cranking out slow, downtuned riffs and feedback at extreme volume.
Since their inception in the late ‘90s, Sunn O))) have experimented with their doom ‘n’ drone template to incorporate a variety of influences, from electronica and black metal to jazz. This year’s Monoliths & Dimensions is their most expansive work to date, featuring collaborations with avant- garde composer Eyvind Kang, a Viennese women’s choir, and Sun Ra trombonist Julian Priester. Less claustrophobic than previous releases, the album sees Sunn O))) letting the light in to their sound, culminating in the sublime ‘Alice’, which initially recalls the later desert blues of drone legends Earth, before transforming into a stately ensemble jazz piece complete with a gorgeously understated solo from Priester. Of course, the album still has its share of brutal riffs and unsettling noise, not to mention the black mystical croak of Hungarian vocalist Atilla Csihar. For this tour, the core duo are joined by Csihar and Earth multi-instrumentalist Steve Moore. Translating the complex new material to a live setting has been a challenge. ‘We don’t have a choir onstage and we’re not using a string section either, but some of the music, structurally, it comes from the
songs,’ explains O’Malley. ‘We focus a lot on the melody and harmonic aspects and it’s incredibly powerful. It’s gonna make perfect sense when you hear the music live, especially if you’ve experienced a Sunn O))) live concert in relation to the records we’ve put out; it’s a different animal. In many ways it’s more powerful, demanding, but I’d say the live aspect has grown a lot from the beauty that we were able to access on Monoliths & Dimensions.’ It’ll still be heavy as hell though? ‘Oh fuck yeah. Actually, there’s gonna be more equipment per member than ever before. Our gear keeps growing incrementally. This time I’ve got three full stacks, six amps. But there’s also quieter parts than we’ve ever had. And Atilla becomes a centre anchoring point for all of the music. But overall it’s a progression of Sunn O)))’s live aspect more than anything. The music has opened up so much and we’ve played about fifty concerts this year – I think people in the UK are really gonna get the cream of what we’re capable of right now.’ Curiously, Scotland plays a part in O’Malley’s musical development. ‘I was in a pipe band for five years when I was a teenager, I played bagpipes. We played some Highland Games,’ he laughs. ‘There was some Scottish heritage to the school. That was actually the first place I started hearing about drone intonation. So from my own foundational musical background the bagpipes are pretty heavy in there. Bagpipes and Morbid Angel. And Black Sabbath.’
Sunn O))), Stereo, Glasgow, Sun 6 Dec.