Picked up a couple of new records recently and they have both been getting a fair amount of turntable time.
First up is Sunn O))): Metta, Benevolence BBC 6Music : Live on the Invitation of Mary Anne Hobbs on a really nice opaque blue vinyl. As you would expect from Sunn O))), this is all about weight, atmosphere and sheer physical presence. The BBC session setting gives it a slightly different feel from the studio material, more immediate and raw, but the core experience remains the same: vast, glacial walls of drone that seem to bend the air in the room. On a good system the low end is properly physical, a record you do not just hear but feel in your chest. Bleak, immersive, and satisfying.
According to the Sunn O))) Bandcamp page for this release: “In late October 2019, following a successful UK tour ending in a sold-out concert at the mythical Roundhouse in London, SUNN O))) entered studio 4 of the BBC Maida Vale. On invitation to record a live session for Mary Anne Hobbs to be broadcast on Samhain via her excellent radio show on BBC6. To enter the legendary John Peel studios was to enter a temple of music and experimentation, liberty in ideas and sound. The band was nearing the end of a long touring year around the Life Metal and Pyroclast albums. SUNN O))) had developed the compositions extensively, embracing the formative concepts of the Life Metal album conceptually and emotionally, but actualised and evolved into vast, open and bright hypersaturated arrangements. Particularly the pieces the band chose to perform on this recording: Troubled Air and Pyroclasts. The former enriched into a total aspect of the band’s ethos and form in many ways, and Pyroclasts had evolved to become all-inclusive radiation of O))). The radiation embraces collaboration and freedom of interpretation by each player, within a structural format of the massive monuments of sound and distortion which define SUNN O))). Anna Von Hausswolf and her band had accompanied SUNN O))) on the UK leg, and Anna joined SUNN O))) in the studio on synths and with her tremendous voice on the Pyroclasts pieces.”
The other recent addition is Rude Mechanicals by Pitch Black, pressed on a wonderfully strange dark marbled orange vinyl that looks as good as it sounds, apparently they are using an eco-mix of old vinyl offcuts or something for these pressings. Musically this sits in the sweet spot Pitch Black do so well, dub informed electronica with deep bass lines, spacious effects and a strong sense of rhythmic flow. Where the Sunn O))) record is about monolithic density, Rude Mechanicals breathes and moves, pulling you into its hypnotic groove. It is cleanly produced but never sterile, and the bass work in particular is superb on my setup.
Their Bandcamp says: ” Our fourth album finally gets the vinyl pressing it so richly deserves.
Originally released in 2007, Rude Mechanicals found us firing on all cylinders. The nine years since our debut had been spent touring round the world, playing everywhere from Tokyo to Tauranga, Portland to Paris, Leeds to Las Vegas, finding fans and absorbing new sounds along the way.
We successfully combined and refined the stand-out elements of our previous releases to create an album that is alternately danceable and meditative: a genre busting excursion in sound, heaving with warm basslines and complex rhythms, topped up by haunting melodies and immersive soundscapes.
From the evocative opening South of the Line to the stepping 1000 Mile Drift, the dub is strong, as one would expect, and so is the influence of drum’n’bass on the bottom-heavy Bird Soul and the atmospheric Please Leave Quietly; trance on the pulsating Sonic Colonic (Live at Minikami) and slinky Transient Transmission (fig.2); ambient on the burbling Harmonia and softly snarling Fragile Ladders. The title track, meanwhile, finds us addressing climate change and greed, with lyrics by Auckland MC KP.
To create the double-vinyl release, Angus McNaughton re-mastered the original audio files, while Hamish Macaulay polished the source artwork by Tom Quarelle and created a brand new collage for the centrefold using pictures taken at the time.”
Two very different records, but both absolute keepers in their own ways.
Audio Satori 
You must be logged in to post a comment.