Reviewed onTuesday March 15
They had travelled for 40 days and nights. Men and women were weary, the children hungry. Those who could lift their heads would see the orange glow rising behind a monolithic object. Although without food and water, a pact was made with their divine leader to reach the holy mountain before sundown.
The cave’s entrance was a crack that split apart a large cliff face, and through it they were guided by torchbearers. The further they travelled, the more the weight grew heavy on their shoulders. They were forced to slow until all stood motionless among thousands of others who had travelled the same journey.
Then, a hum. A hooded figure with arms raised above its head emerged from the clouds of red smoke. The hum turned into a choir of voices, and the voices became choirs of harmonics. The leader lowered his arms, dimming the volume, hushing the choirs, and in a voice so deep it shook the flesh from bones, cast its first spell.
A transparent wave travelled through the cave and momentarily shifted every atom it passed through. The room shifted backward, corrected itself, and then detonated into the loudest motherfucking guitars I have ever heard.
The pilgrims had gathered at Sydney University’s holy Manning Bar to witness Seattle drone band Sunn O))), who have been handing out religious experiences since 1998.
The band’s two guitarists played one power chord every two minutes through a Napoleonic-sized army of amps, a Moog player added Heliodromus cries (a mythical creature from Northern Europe that’s half vulture, half mammal) and the singer recited medieval incarnations and mantras. One guitarist bent the strings in his power chord ever so slightly down, creating a visceral flutter of harmonics. A minute later, the chord changed.
Being my first Sunn O))) show – as well as everybody else’s, because this was the band’s first Australian tour – I didn’t know to pay attention to the harmonics. After closer inspection I discovered full-blown songs within them; verses, pre-choruses, choruses, middle eights, solos, breakdowns. “AAARGGGGGHHHHHHHH,” shrieked the singer, interrupting what I thought was a Beatles song and scaring me half to death.
It was a non-stop two-hour set of feedback, noise and being hexed in a language I didn’t understand, and barely anyone moved for the duration.
