SUNN O))) / EARTH / PITA
szene wien / vienna, austria
28th february 2006
my penchant for the more adventurous and experimental manifestations of modern rock music have, a couple of years ago (i'd say it was probably 2001), led me to a band that had named itself after a
defunct brand of bass amps:
SUNN O))). only shortly after i had found out about the band they released a record, that is to this day still on the top of my list of drone and doom,
"Flight Of The Behemoth". after that i missed them performing twice (!!!), because of my own not paying attention and very bad promotion. having sworn to see them at least once, i was especially glad to read that their next vienne gig would be in the
szene wien, imho one of the best venues in town.
with much anticipation i entered the venue, heading straight towards the merch booth. and this was the one and only disappointment of the evening: all good stuff had already been sold off during the tour and what remained was of little interest to me. this disappointment was followed by one of many
PITA (artist name of austrian peter rehberg) performances, who opened the evening. there's nothing bad to say about PITA, but after having seen his act a couple of times (it consists of him standing behind a small desk and fiddling on a power book and several tiny electronical gadgets) and not caring much for his way of noise and ambient modelling, it can become quite unnerving. fortunately he didn't stay on stage very long and if i can make any distinction between previous PITA performances and the one on that night, i'd have to say it was one of the more pleasant entries in his tourbook. and now that the formalities were out of the way it was time for the really good stuff.
the really good stuff beginning with the majestic droning sub-sonic doom of
EARTH. a legendary band that has influenced drone and doom massively and single-handedly as early as 1993 - without dylan carlson and his various band-mates the following drone and doom bands would have had to start from scratch. i was awestruck - there is this heavy-ass shit coming off the stage, ultra-slow riffs embedded in thick walls of sub-bass clanging and feedback, a tinny drumkit snarling lazily beneath that and the mammoth roars of distorted trombone... and it all feels so massive, like air made into gluey syrup flowing off the stage down into my ears and pouring out of my nose. but for all that doom and gloom and sludge and fudge and drone and moan - all the things you expect from those dreary type nihilist mode acts - there was a kind of uplifting quality to it all. it might have been the country and western leanings of carlson. whatever it was, EARTH sound... how shall i put it? imagine doom not in a minor but in a major key. does that make any sense? lack of words. perhaps it's best to describe the feeling i've had when after EARTH had finished their set: i was shaken to the core and slowly awakening from a wide-eyed trance and felt very positive. powerful, powerful music.
and after that spiritual experience there was the thing called SUNN O))).
the fog machines ached and hissed to pump out so much fog that the entire stage was hidden in an opaque wall of white. the intro set in and the following 20 minutes if not more there was only the droning of the intro with its various parts (almost like a SUNNO))) medley) and the hissing of the fog machines, until finally vague cloaked silhouettes crept upon the stage. after that everything became relative. relative to time and space. unlike many others in the audience i was sober. and still it felt like this flawless towering behemoth of feedback and riffs was ripping apart time and what might have been hours seemed like seconds, while seconds stretched into years, all at the same time. if it were not for my trusty wristwatch i would not have been able to tell how much time had passed. some time later their vocalist (i assume it was oren) joined them on stage. with corpse paint. that was kind of ridiculous, but seeing SUNN O))) as a whole i never had the impression that neither o'malley nor anderson took the whole thing too seriously but were out there enjoying themselves on each and every release and being playful with various metal, art and intellectual stereotypes. but it got a bit nervewrecking when the vocalist started screeching and growling more than i can remember there to be on all SUNN O))) recordings together. if he had at least changed intonation once in a while, hissed a bit, talked a bit, sang a bit, maybe even really screamed a bit, but all the time that black metal caterwauling (two screeched words, a minute of instrumental, two more words, instrumental, another 2 words and so on) just wasn't very attractive. i had to leave shortly before midnight to catch my tramway.
it was quite an amazing show: the raw negation of SUNN O))) and the royalty of EARTH. something to remember for a long time.
