When I was 12 I started playing guitar. My first instrument was a $40 electric that had no name on it. I was immediately struck by the fact that it was capable of more than simply playing notes. Lacking a proper amplifier, I found an adapter cable and plugged the guitar into my Magnavox bookshelf stereo. The sound that came out was low-volume and polite, but if I turned it up enough I'd get feedback. This was interesting.
The only guitar hero I had when I started playing was Frank Zappa, whose style was far too advanced and outlandish for me to imitate. What I discovered, when I finally did get a proper guitar amp, was that even if your technique wasn't up to par, you sure could make a lot of noise. And that noise was sometimes more fun to make than playing actual notes.
I went on to take lessons and improve my technique to near-mediocre levels, but now and again I would give in to my impulse for sonic experimentation. Usually when I would get some new toy, like a chorus or delay pedal. This was fun for me but I never thought of recording these experiments - they were just for my own immediate pleasure. Thank god there are people in the world who are more visionary than me.
Sunn O)))) makes music that starts with the premise that sound itself is pleasurable and worth listening to. More specifically, we're talking about the sound of a heavily-distorted, downtuned guitar. Since the band consists of two guitarists, drums are very often (but not always) left out of the equation. Over the years, they've experimented with adding various things to their sludgey guitars: effects, vocals, keyboards. However, Monoliths and Dimensions represents their biggest, most elaborate experiments thus far. Teaming up with Evyind Kang and a host of orchestral instruments as well as a choir, they expand their sound vertically a great deal, even as it continues to crawl and lumber along at the pace of a chained sloth on Demerol.
The first track, "Aghartha" is a bit deceptive, as it is closest to the group's past recordings. Featuring a Hungarian vocalist who croakingly intones some sort of poetry in a register usually reserved for one's death rattle, the track also includes a couple of upright basses, conch shells, Tibetan horns, violin, viola, piano, English horn, French horn, clarinet and hydrophone. These, however, are used not to form some kind of New Age aura around the guitars but to create squeakings, scrapings, snappings, buzzings and drones. In other words the mood is not lightened in any way by the inclusion of "classical" instruments - quite the opposite in fact.
The real shock comes with track 2, "Big Church," which begins not with the sound of distorted anything, but with a female choir intoning some mysterious chords. The track as a whole is very clearly divided into three parts, each part ending abruptly with the tolling of a church bell (how appropriate can you get?). The choir and the guitars interact throughout, and the whole thing works so well that after hearing it, you wonder how they can top this. And indeed, the third track seems a bit of a retreat, again featuring mainly the guitars and the Hungarian dude again (okay, okay, his name is Attila Csihar and he sang on a Mayhem album; happy?). A smaller, male choir makes a cameo appearance and some brass and synths are also used, if sparingly.
But like that old Vanessa Williams song goes, Sunn 0))) saved the best for last. Closing number "Alice," which I gather is a tribute to Alice Coltrane, sees them totally going for it and letting Eyvind Kang and his ensemble take over. The result is the brightest (go ahead and think of the obvious pun, I won't stop you) music they've ever performed. This change in tone is as unexpected as it is welcome. The track's beginning by no means assures us that this will be the case, coated as it is with evil-sounding chords and menacing echoes. But something happens over the course of this track's 16 minutes. Something I've never heard in Sunn 0)))'s music until now, and something I rarely hear happen in any music written after the early 20th century: development. Rather than remain in stasis or juxtapose contrasting material, the music is slowly transformed from one thing into another. It happens so gradually, in fact, that it's almost impossible to hear. Yet by the end, none of the original mood of darkness and forboding remains. When trumpets and horns start to sound major chords more than halfway through the track, it seems like the most natural thing in the world. Gradually the guitars disappear and harps and violins take their place. A trombone blows a gentle melody which turns into a solo as the music fades into silence. It's enough to make you weep for joy. It's an absolute triumph - this track alone would make this album worthy of "best of" status. Jean Sibelius and Gustav Mahler would both approve, I think.
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