5.
Sunn O))) – BLACK ONE
Have you seen them live? Maaan! I think I was drawn in initially by the name of the band, they way they looked and the record sleeve and the title. I was like, ‘What the fuck is this?’ And the way things are moving in it… this is like the beginning of ‘In The Evening’ by Led Zeppelin, but without the song attached to it. Why can’t you just be in that for an hour?
Then I started listening to it in this blacked-out Mustang Cobra and I’d drive to the desert and crank it up. There’s something about the way the landscape went from the industrial city and then into the desert and it fitted perfectly with the sentiment of the record. Then I got see them perform live and that was it – I was done and I’m in! So much so that when they performed in Brooklyn about a year-and-a-half ago they let me be in the photographs wearing one of their robes! That’s as big a moment as having Iggy on the back of a Harley!
It’s like high mass, high ritual… the frequency that they’re playing at and the volume that they’re playing at; it’s orchestrated. Stephen [O’Malley] orchestrates what’s going on and he and Greg [Anderson] know exactly what they’re doing, and this is about as righteous as it fucking gets. They’re not following convention; they’re not even considering that. They’re just doing it! And I’ve never been to a concert where people just stand for an hour-and-a-half in a fucking trance! I was speechless! When the music finished and the last tones were washing over you people were still fucking speechless! They left the building in silence! This was visceral, spiritual shit, and every single molecule is vibrating and you’re like, ‘Aww, I wanna go on that ride again!’ I’ve seen them twice and I still want more!
That’s why I love all these records – Sunn O))), Bowie, Primal Scream, Joy Division; it’s all stuff that goes beyond language. It’s what acid house had. And when you get to that trance-like state the euphoria occurs and you see everything how it truly is: infinite.
