SunnO))) "Black One" review

as published in the November issue of the Ann Arbor Paper

Remember that old Cheech & Chong bit about the guy who played Black Sabbath at 78 speed and saw god? Have you ever wondered what would happen if that idea was reversed, and you played Sabbath at 16 speed? Instead of a stairway to heaven, are you subjected to a glimpse into the underworld? Guitarists Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson of SunnO))) have been seeking an answer to that question since 1998 when armed with their guitars, stacks of vintage Sunn amps, head to toe black hooded cloaks, and a bong they recorded The Grimmrobe Demos. Since then they have been modern day prophets of doom, unleashing album after album of droning, skull-crushing, low-end riffs, usually augmented with guest vocalists and musicians. As their website states, “The powers that be contracted the heaviest low end destructors SunnO))) to create the most subharmonic drone recording ever put to tape. A test impossible for most mortals. Prepare your sound system!” Aptly titled “Black One”, their sixth album on Southern Lord records is also the darkest so far. This release is denser and more focused than their previous two albums (White 1 and White 2) which explored more ambient territory with keyboards and percussion. “Black One” is a return to bleak,atmospheric droning and gargantuan guitar chords that plumb the bottom of the spectrum of audible sound.

“It Took The Night To Believe” features a decelerated Norwegian black metal riff atop a steadily droning rhythm joined with an impossibly deep vocal track that sounds like it’s issuing from a crack leading to the earth’s molten core.
As on their past albums, guest “vokillists” (this time Wrest and Malefic of Lurker of Chalice and Xasthur, respectively) articulate the lyrics. The vocals range from deep, demonic, unintelligible invocations on “It Took The Night To Believe” to shrill banshee wails on “CandleGoat”. At times the vocals can be a bit over the top, blurring the line between comically absurd and geniunely frightening. Malefic goes so far as to be sealed in a coffin and placed in a hearse while recording the vocals to closing track “Bathory Erzsebet”, his claustrophobia adding a palpable sense of terror to his screaming.
SunnO))) is quite a departure from your average heavy metal band. In a field flooded with unoriginal and just plain untalented acts, they have won over a few anti-metal friends of mine with their willingness to experiment and not be imprisoned by the boundaries of any genre. “Black One” is an excellent accompanitment to the days getting shorter, the falling leaves, and the jack-o-lanterns rotting on your porch. Play this album as a fond farewell to the last vestiges of warm weather and prepare for a long dark winter.

Oren Ambarchi "Triste" review

as published in the October issue of the Ann Arbor Paper

In the 17th century, people weren’t ready to buy into Galileo’s claim that the earth revolved around the sun. Likewise, the masses won’t be clamoring to purchase Oren Armbachi’s CD reissue of “Triste” . You won’t hear it blaring from a sorority girl’s SUV at a red light or on the latest episode of the OC, but just wait a couple centuries or so and it will probably sound contemporary. The sounds encoded on this little plastic disc are very futuristic. Originally available on a long out of print vinyl LP, Southern Lord records has reissued it in CD form and sweetened the pot with some new remixes. An Australian native who has collaborated with a diverse cross section of musicians including avant garde jazz artists John Zorn and Otomo Yoshihide, as well as the drone metal band sunnO))), Armbachi seems to reinvent himself on every solo release. “Triste” is a two-part minimalist composition made with a heavily electronically processed guitar. Part one is the slower of the two, where we are familiarized with the handful of guitar notes that will comprise the bulk of the music. Each one is sustained at length, almost like savoring a mouthful of vintage wine. These notes are then played in quicker succession in a seemingly random order. This is perfect for those nights when you can’t sleep. When every sound outside your window makes you jump, when you’re just staring at the weird patterns of diffused light and shadow on the walls and instead of closing your eyes to make it go away, you want to revel in the strangeness of the moment. As the first segment draws to an end the individual guitar notes give way to a spooky, almost subsonic droning, punctuated by erratic popping sounds which sound like a guitar being plugged in and out of an amplifier, which is then topped by a wavering shrill tone. If you could physically see music, this is what it would look like in the reflection of a fun house mirror. The guitar tones are folded, spindled, mutilated, mutated, and layered until it sounds like a digital swamp populated with frogs, birds, and crickets. The second segment comes to an end in a cacophony which I can only describe as what it might sound like if a robot were to disgorge its electronic innards. Following the original two sections of “Triste” are remixes of each track by tape loop artiste and founding member of the Los Angeles Free Music society Tom Recchion. Though greatly abbreviated in length, Recchion fleshes out the stark compositions with hints of percussion, keyboard flourishes, and more droning. As I said before, this piece is definitely not for everyone, but anyone who enjoys music from the deepest sectors of left field is sure to enjoy this.

Daniel Lanois Belladonna review

as published in the September issue of the Ann Arbor Paper

Daniel Lanois is jack-of-all-trades in the music business. He made a name for himself by composing and playing music on Brian Eno’s groundbreaking ambient albums On Land and Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks. Rolling Stone magazine hailed Lanois as “the most important record producer to emerge in the ‘80s,” most notably for his work on U2’s legendary The Joshua Tree and Peter Gabriel’s So. Upon my first listen to Belladonna, the latest in a series of releases on the Anti label, the album struck me as unremarkable. I liked it enough for the echoes of his collaborations with Eno, and I found it pleasant enough as background listening.


But an underhanded brilliance slowly burns throughout Belladonna. It wasn’t until a late night drive through the streets of downtown Detroit that I finally crossed the invisible line from listening to hearing. Focused on nothing but the road, I let the dulcet tones of Lanois’ pedal steel guitar envelope me. This is the soundtrack to one of those dreams in which you’re in a place that you recognize but somehow everything is different. The lurid light from street lamps shining through the steam billowing from sewer grates combined with the music to transform my short drive home to an ethereal interplanetary voyage.


Once home I went straight to my room and started Belladonna from the beginning, fully immersing myself in this parallel sonic dimension via my headphones. It’s almost a shame that Lanois even bothered separating this album into 13 individual tracks; it’d be better enjoyed from start to finish with no interruptions. Each track builds on the one preceding it like chapters in a book. Let “Sketches” take you to the bright side of the moon, where the keyboard notes fall like silvery raindrops, the whisper-like drums just barely audible. Listen closely to the eerie approximation of vocals on “Oaxaca” and try to figure out if they were generated by man or machine. Drop in on the mariachi fiesta of “Agave,” a bit of a nod to Morricone with its horn arrangements and militaristic marching drums, evoking images of spaghetti westerns with cowboys in space suits, finding out who has the fastest gun on Mars. Linger on the impressive finale of “Todos Santos” where the washes of sound are not unlike the colors of a Rothko painting. The landscape of this album flows so seamlessly from lush, densely layered compositions to spacious, airy sections that it never becomes tedious. It’s the perfect antidote to the short-attention-span sickness that infects our society.

weird fucking Belgians

I came across a lo-fi DIY drone/free folk/noise/improv collective called Funeral Folk. Hailing from Belgium, it seems these guys do nothing but drink those potent ales and make fucked up recordings. What initially grabbed my attention were the names of the bands, which were mostly all inspired by Norwegian black metal. There's Silvester Anfang,Chainsaw Gutsfuck, Per & Oystein, all inspired by Mayhem. Also Hellvete (meaning "hell" in Nordic tongues). And the name sure to strike fear into the hearts of the public The Death Penalty Roommates. I figured these guys had to have a killer sense of humor to put names like that on the music they were making, which is a good indication that they're not taking themselves too seriously. After listening to the sound clips available on the website ( www.funeralfolk.tk) I selected works by Edgar Wappenhalter and Chainsaw Gutsfuck. I got the tapes from Eclipse Records (www.eclipse-records.com) out of Arizona, I think the only distributor in the States for them right now. Apparently FoxyDigitalis has some CD-R releases planned for the future. I love the punk inspired artwork, completely hand cut-and-pasted and photocopied and folded up and jammed into the cases. The Wappenhalter artwork had images of what looked like holocaust survivors while Chainsaw Gutsfuck has piles of skulls and weird images pulled from old books. As far as the music goes, Wappenhalter lays down some dusty, creaky acoustic ramblings, augmented with bells and what sounds like bongos. I like to imagine it was recorded in a shack in some heavily forested European region, while frightened children dare to peek in through windows at the scary old hermit inside, or make their way past like protagonists from a cautionary fable. Reminds me somewhat of the darker Six Organs material. The Chainsaw Gutsfuck is a thundering, noisy mess of lo-fi guitars and throbbing primal percussion. This would be a great soundtrack for a Conan the Barbarian type movie as the heroes ride to their impending doom in battle against supernatural evil forces.

solo road trip

Instead of risking a potential disaster by driving my shitty car for a grand total of about 400 miles i was able to use my dad's new Escape to drive down to Columbus for Ghost. Very nice stereo system. So with Tom Waits, Television, Ride, The Waxwings, and B&S for sonic support i took off for Columbus. Since it was a Saturday night in a big ten college town it was full of college type dudes standing in the front yards of their homes drinking from a keg of some sort of horrid domestic swill with lite or ice as a suffix and trying to date rape girls in tight black pants and those shirts with only one shoulder on them. It reminded me of why i hated living in East Lansing. And of course since it was a Saturday night and the place was right on the edge of campus there were no parking spots and I wasted almost a half hour looking for one. Once I got in I was very pleased with the place. It's perfect for that type of show. No smoking, and there was no bar so the ringing of cash registers and people shouting drink orders wouldn't conflict with the quiet kind of music being played. It was a pretty small room too, I dont think it could've held more than 500 people, and only about 300 were there. It was really nice to be in a quiet, attentive crowd too, no yahoos there talking during the music. Six Organs had already played most of his set by the time i got there. I got to see about 3 and a half of his songs though, and it was pretty amazing to hear all those sounds coming out of just one guitar. The way Ben got a really cool drone by hitting the open top string with his thumb while picking out notes on the lower strings was pretty amazing. It was as if he was playing lead and rhythm parts simultaneously. After his set I asked if Comets On Fire would be touring anytime soon for the new album and he wasn't sure exactly when or where they would be playing but there would be some shows coming up. By this time I was really excited for the main event. Ghost took the stage to a Tibetan monk chant and tuned up while that faded away and started to gradually play their own stuff. Masaki was wearing this really bizarre crushed purple velvet get up with a sunburst pattern on the shirt and pants that were far too tight. He looked like a Japanese version of Bowie from Labyrinth. He had a very mystical stage presence, almost like that of a shaman. You can tell he has done a lot of psychedelic drugs but they haven't taken a toll on him like they have some people. Definitely looked pretty spaced out but still hasn't lost the cognitive ability. Musically speaking, Michio impressed me most. His lead guitar playing on the albums really impressed me but seeing him live took it to a whole new level. At times he was motionless, hunched over his Gibson playing slide notes, but when he was into it he was thrashing around, looking like he was fighting with a wolverine in a closet. He made sounds that I didn't think were possible to coerce out of an electric guitar. After the show I of course had to stop by the merch table I had been trying to avoid since I walked in. I bought Snuffbox Immanence and the Masaki Batoh solo collection on vinyl, then cds of Michio's side project Stars (which I havent been able to find anywhere since it was a pretty limited japanese import) and Six Organs' Dark Noontide. Of course I put the 10 dollars my dad gave me for food (since he felt bad about not taking me out to dinner lately) towards my music but I had pretty much planned that it would happen like that. On the walk back to my car I was accused of being a homosexual by a car full of the OSU students, no doubt in the honors program and ambassadors of goodwill. I wasn't offended, I rather took it as a compliment to the fact that I had dressed well that night. I had to drive home fast since I was hungry and getting sleepy. I could've eaten at the Waffle House on the way home but it felt wrong, seeing as how I was north of the mason/dixon line. It was cool driving solo that far. I kinda wish Jeff had went with me to the show, but he couldnt make it. He is my favorite traveling partner, due in no small part to that fact that I don't think anyone else shares the same indifference to the Beatles and for the Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" album as I do. The Six Organs cd made for an interesting ride home on the weird Ohio backroads leading from Columbus back to I-75, as did the new Tom Waits record. Like I said before, it's perfect for the fall, but even more so when you're driving on creepy, empty, moonlit midwestern roads. No one really captures the weirder side of this part of the country quite like Tom does. I hate to break it to the rest of the country but people living in Illinois, Wisconson, Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana just get Tom more than people who don't. You can listen to Tom, but you can't really HEAR him, dig? I'm not saying that to be snooty, it's just how it is. Like how the Proclaimers make more sense if you're from Scotland.