‘How does Sunn O)))’s utilisation and shaping of sound frequency and pressure subvert and elaborate on traditional metal culture in the live setting?’
I have always been interested in bridging the perceived gap between high and low art, or between pop art and elevated forms. Generally I find the institutional art world’s insistent labelling distracting, and trivial in the literal sense. But, to have the vernacular understanding to know when form is being experimented with or hybridised, these categorical distinctions have to be acknowledged. I am particularly interested in metal music as the material, carrying element of a dialogue between popular and avant-garde forms.
Sunn O))) is an American experimental metal band, primevally melding fusions of drone, doom and black metal, with shades of contemporary classical, ritual ambient and the avant-garde. I am booked to see the band at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea on the 30th of March. A dead, coastal retiree town is a random spot for this band to show up, and the rust-stained De La Warr Pavilion makes me fear the roof falling in.
I reached this research question after confidently and quickly deciding I wanted to write a sensory ethnography, while oscillating between a number of different subject matters. Before settling on this, I considered writing sensory ethnographies of either a performance of traditional Korean Gugak I saw in Busan, or analysing the nature of the hymn and choral tradition through a carol service I attended at the Hallgrímskirkja in Reykjavik, Iceland. However, I felt more confident in constructing an effective argument and connecting the core sensory ethnography to a sonic theory or concept.
In the university library I found a book containing an interview with core group member Stephen O’Malley. Metalion: The Slayer Mag Diaries collates Jon (Metalion) Kristiansen’s Slayer Mag, documenting the waxing and waning of extreme metal in Scandinavia and around the world from the late 1980’s to the early 2010’s. In it, he details his ontological relationship to metal music, how he defines the Sunn O))) concert experience. I am seeking to explore how Sunn O))) renowned extremely high-volume performances harness the sonic colours of distortion and sound pressure to manipulate human frequency, physical tolerance and the conventions of the metal concert experience.
Bibliography:
Kristiansen, J. (2011) Metalion: The Slayer Mag Diaries. 1st edn. Edited by T. G. Warrior. New York: Bazillion Points Books.